By in Yoga & Pilates

A Healthy Lifestyle

I think most of us understand that a good balance of physical activity, a good diet and well-managed stress levels are conducive to better health, but why do so many people struggle to reach even the minimal levels of these elements in their lives to feel healthy?

If you want to lose weight, it is easy, just take in fewer calories than you use on a daily basis. If you want to get physically fitter, it is easy, you go out and do more exercise. And if you want to reduce the stress in your life, just take more time for yourself and do the things you enjoy.

Obviously, that is a fairly unrealistic and to be honest, a facetious way to look at all of those variables, because none of that is easy in any way.

However, I can kind of defend what I said, in that, the results ARE easy. What makes it difficult, is the relationship we have with food when trying to lose weight, the motivation we have to exercise when we want to get fitter or the time we can make and put aside for ourselves if we want to reduce stress levels.

Lifestyle has reached a point over the last 40 to 50 years where time feels so limited that it is easier to grab a quick sandwich for lunch and a takeaway for dinner than prepare what we would probably prefer to eat from scratch at home. The motivation to go and exercise is not easy to generate when there are other more important things to accomplish before bedtime and to take time for oneself when work or family commitments are overwhelming becomes a very low priority.

The more we understand the impact of a busy lifestyle where there is no time or priority given to physical and mental health, the more we see the decline in health and increases in avoidable diseases.

I doubt I have to sell that idea to many of you who are reading this blog as you have come to The Body Matters website looking to change an element of your life with which you are dissatisfied. Be it because you are in physical pain, or some kind of distress with any aspect of your life, you are here, and I believe we can help you.

To look inwards at ourselves knowing that our diet isn’t great and our activity levels are poor and our sleep patterns are not efficient, it feels overwhelming to try to change all those thongs in one go. Being overwhelmed is so common in our society. Overwhelmed by pain, certainly. There are many people struggling with persistent pain and only managing it with pain relief medication and/or reduced activities. Over time this becomes counterproductive, as pain medications tend to lose effectiveness and we end up on higher doses or stronger meds. Poor dietary habits become normalised and lead to increases in weight and raised blood pressure. The need to relax and wind down leads to later nights in front of the TV reducing our overall sleep duration and quality.

Sedentary and stressful jobs are a double whammy of inactivity and raised stress hormones. General advice for sedentary workers is 1 hour of moderate-intensity activity for each 8-hour shift. This equates to 7 and a half minutes per hour or 2 minutes every 15 minutes. It doesn’t need to be specific but finding a routine that works for you individually is the most practical way to introduce such changes to your lifestyle.

Physical activity requires the use of energy which burns calories. This will obviously aid weight loss but not cause weight loss on its own, we still need to burn more calories than we take in. More physical activity also helps better sleep and thus better physical and mental recovery time.

It may sound like exercise is a panacea for all our health problems, it is not, but it certainly helps us balance a lot of the physical, dietary and mental stresses in our lives.

You may not fancy joining a gym, you do not have to. You may not like the idea of yoga or pilates classes, you do not need to. But there will be some little changes that can be made to increase activity levels and still fit into your day.

You may not fancy a crash diet, you do not have to but there will be little modifications that can be made to moderate calorie intake and help manage weight better.

You get the gist, I like to think I can help in identifying the issues that contribute to pain and stress levels and advise on little changes that can start your journey to better overall health and less pain.

If you are struggling and want to start a journey to better balance in your life, then contact The Body Matters team on 01702 714968 where we can guide you to the best person to help.

This article was written by Matthew Oliver M.OST DO ND. Osteopath.

Louise
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