The 5 Points Of Health and Wellness

Health and wellness are two important terms people use. Sometimes, they are used interchangeably, but in the actual sense of things, health and wellness go hand in hand. They are mutually important to each other. 

On one hand, health refers to a state of total physical, social, and mental wellbeing. Wellness, on the other hand, refers to an optimal state of health, which is often expressed as a positive approach to life and living. 

Health and wellness work hand-in-hand because you need wellness to achieve overall health, and you need both to live a happy and fulfilled life.

In this post, we’ll be discussing the 5 points of health and wellness that everyone who wants to live their best life should focus on. They include eating the right meals, having regular exercise, reading, achieving financial literacy, and working on personal hygiene.

 

Eating right

Eating right entails consuming the right kinds of foods that deliver the nutrients your body needs to achieve a state of health. 

As far as eating right goes, you need to consume meals containing nutrients like carbohydrates, protein, water, fat, minerals, and vitamins.  

For many people. eating right sounds like a difficult task, but it doesn’t have to be. If you want to eat right, you can achieve that by making simple changes to your diet.

How to eat healthy food every day

Eating healthy every day begins by making little changes to your diet. It starts by finding out what you’re getting wrong with your current diet, such as whether you eat enough vegetables, consume too much sugar, or are lacking high-fiber foods.

You can track your meals and their nutritious value by studying your meal timetable or writing down what you usually eat and what groups they fall into.

When you discover where you’re lacking, you can then seek the help of a dietician who can help you plan a healthy diet. You can also make a list of all the nutrients you need to consume daily and then look for foods that contain these nutrients, which you can then eat daily.

While making your meal choices, it is important to cut off unhealthy fat and excess sugar, which have both been linked to rising cases of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular issues caused by LDL cholesterol.

You can opt for boiling, baking, or grilling your meals rather than frying. You can also reduce extra fat that comes with your salad dressings, sour cream, butter, and other fatty foods. 

Cutting down on sugar entails drinking more water and cutting down on soda and carbonated beverages. Carbonated beverages add a high number of calories and sugar to your diet, which is bad for you. Instead, look towards consuming more tea, water, and fruits with high water and low sugar content. 

Eating fruits and vegetables as snacks, rather than the baked and fried confectionaries is another way to ensure that you’re snacking on healthy food.  

One reason many people find it hard to eat right is that they take up extreme diets and food goals that are quite difficult to achieve. You can make changes one at a time until you create a meal plan or diet you’re comfortable with.

The goal is to eat healthy meals all day, every day.

• Exercising

As important as exercise is for our health and wellbeing, many people have a thousand and one reasons why they fail to keep up with exercises, and it can range from the lack of time to the absence of the equipment to exercise.

However, if you consider your health and wellness a priority, paying attention to exercise becomes easier. Exercise is an integral part of our lifestyle, and it can improve our physical and mental health as well as help us achieve overall wellbeing. 

With frequent exercising, you can enjoy the benefits of exercise for health and wellness, such as the prevention of diseases, stress reduction, energy-boosting, and strength improvement.

Exercise for health and wellness

Some people only consider exercise as important when trying to achieve weight loss, just as some people focus on one kind of exercise while overlooking the others. 

To enjoy a balanced result for your health, you need to engage in all forms of exercises, which we categorize into balance, endurance, flexibility, and strength.

Balance exercises help you to improve your upper and lower body strength to prevent falls and tripping. Such exercises include standing on one foot, practicing Tai Chi, engaging in the balance walk, or the heel-to-toe exercise. 

Endurance Exercises are also called aerobics, and they increase your heart rate while improving the functioning of your lungs, heart, and circulatory system. They also help to prevent cardiovascular diseases. Some endurance exercises include skipping, jogging, swimming, dancing, climbing, and playing ball.

Flexibility exercises are important for everyone regardless of age, and they entail stretching in different ways, such as ankle stretch, backstretch, and inner thigh stretch.

Strength exercises are important to build up your muscles and ensure that you’re able to handle tasks that require muscle strength. One common type of strength exercise is resistance training, which entails using weight to improve muscle strength.

Some people use resistance bands that come in several lengths, and some people explore other options like wall pushups, overhead arm curls, and lifting your body weight.

Benefits of regular exercise

Exercise delivers a lot of benefits for your physical, mental, and even emotional health. Disease prevention is also another benefit of regular exercise. Research shows that exercise can reduce inflammation, lower your chances of cardiovascular disease, several kinds of cancers, and type-2 diabetes.

Here’s a list of the benefits you gain from regular exercise.

• Better cognitive function
• Healthier weight
• Improved skin
• Improved mood and focus
• Improved immunity
• Lower blood pressure
• Reduced stress levels
• Stronger bones and muscles 

• Financial literacy

Financial literacy is connected to a person’s ability to achieve a sense of financial wellbeing, which transcends to a general sense of confidence and wellbeing. 

Financial literacy entails knowing how to manage your income, earnings, savings, debt repayment, and all other similar funds. Financial literacy helps you to control your finances better while channeling your money to help you build a life you want for yourself.

Financial literacy also helps you to navigate unfortunate situations like inflation, job loss, and economic downturn.

A financially literate person knows how to take the necessary actions, such as knowing how to increase savings whenever you get a raise, saving a certain percentage of funds for emergencies, and checking credit reports while paying off debt on time.

 

Why is financial literacy important?

When you achieve financial literacy, you can be more confident about your finances, take charge of your financial life, and know-how to prevent financial issues. 

With financial literacy, you can avoid falling for financial fraud and recover quickly from incidences that consume a lot of money. People with financial literacy can save better for retirement, vacations, or their kids’ fees.

How to improve your financial literacy 

If you’re interested in improving your level of financial literacy, there are simple ways to achieve this. 

• Always maintain a budget. Don’t make expenditures without proper consideration and documentation to avoid spending beyond your means.
• Seek advice from a financial expert to manage your funds better. You can learn about the best investments, savings plans, and other financial topics.
• Subscribing to trusted financial newsletters equips you with the right information that can guide you through your financial journey and help you live the financial lifestyle you dream of. You can also listen to podcasts, follow financial advisers on social media, and follow economic use platforms and channels.

There’s no such thing as too much knowledge when your finances are involved. Regardless of your level of financial literacy, keep learning and building your experience in financial management. The more you’re able to manage your finances better, the wiser you become, the wealthier you become, and the more you’re able to make the best decisions to improve your life, health, and wellness. 

• Good Personal Hygiene

Health and wellness are certainly not achievable without good personal hygiene. If you are wondering what is personal hygiene and why is it important to this discourse, the deal is really simple. 

As a way of definition, personal hygiene entails ensuring the cleanliness of a person’s body and clothing to avoid exposure to germs, bacteria, and viruses, all of which can cause sickness and diseases. 

Having good personal hygiene helps you to live a healthy life and ensure that those around you are healthy and disease-free.

 Why is personal hygiene important?

Good personal hygiene has a lot of benefits for your physical, mental, and emotional health and wellbeing, including that of the people around you.

Primarily, good personal hygiene keeps you away from certain diseases and health conditions. On a mental and emotional level, there is a feeling of assurance and confidence that comes with having your personal hygiene in check. People around you will also respond more positively to you when you have great personal hygiene.

 Fundamental areas of personal hygiene

If you want to achieve good personal hygiene, this simple guide will help you.

• Wash your hand properly and frequently to protect yourself and others from dirt, germs, and diseases. You should always wash your hand before and after eating, after using the toilet, or after touching surfaces prone to dirt and germs. Also, wash your hands after being in contact with a lot of people and after spending the day outside.

 

• Frequent showers are key to great body hygiene. Although there is no strict rule as to how many times to shower a day, it is advised to shower twice, especially if you live in hotter regions. When you maintain good shower hygiene, you’ll be able to remove dirt, oil, and dead skin cells, thereby keeping your skin fresh and healthy. 

 

• Brush your teeth twice and day and floss often to avoid developing cavities, having germs in your mouth, tooth decay, and mouth odors. You can keep your gum healthy and also prevent several diseases when you brush twice a day and rinse your mouth as often as after every meal. 

 

• Trim your nails regularly, wash them frequently, and avoid having things stuck in your nails. Avoid biting your nails at all costs and don’t eat you’re your hands if you have long and dirty nails because your nails can transfer dirt, germs, bacteria, and other harmful substances into your body through your mouth.

 

• Always keep your personal items clean and ensure that your house and environment are tidy. Wash and dry your clothes properly and avoid wearing dirty or damp clothes to prevent unpleasant odors.

Although this list is not exhaustive, it gives you a guide on how to manage your personal hygiene for a healthy body and mind. 

• Staying well-read and educated

As interesting as it might sound, being well-read is directly connected to your health and wellness. It is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your health.

In an interesting study by researchers from Yale University School of Public Health, adults who read for more than 3 ½ hours weekly had a 23 percent less chance to die over 12 years, compared to those who didn’t read.

Several studies also prove that reading can increase brain cell connectivity and could lower the risk of neurodegenerative diseases.

Education, on the other hand, whether formal or informal goes a long way to broaden a person’s knowledge, scope of understanding, and support better interactions with others in society. An educated person can make sounder judgments and decisions for their benefit and wellbeing.

Why is being well-read important? 

• Reading improves brain strength and activity and strengthens some networks in your brain
• Reading improves social skills by helping you understand other thoughts, ideas, and beliefs different from yours.
• Reading can reduce stress, improve rest and sleep 
• Reading can slow down the cognitive decline that occurs as we age. It could also help prevent several forms of cognitive impairment, including Alzheimer’s disease.

How to become well-read and educated

If you want to become educated and well-read, there are several tips to follow. They include:

• Getting a formal or informal education. You can attend school, learn online, or simply take lessons you find necessary.
• Making deliberate attempts to read. This could involve having a reading schedule and being deliberate about what you read.
• Do some easy reading. Don’t only read difficult or educative books. You should also make time to read for fun.
• Avoid distractions when reading and stick to the time you have scheduled for reading.
• Learn as you go. Discover new words and their meanings, pronunciations, and expand your vocabulary as you read. Pay attention to what you read, think about it, and tell yourself what it means to you.
• Develop reading skills or learn to read if you don’t know-how. You cannot be well-read if you don’t even know-how. 
• Discuss what you’ve read with others, seek opinions, and have conversations about the new knowledge you’ve gotten.

A wise man once said you don’t stop learning until you’re dead. He couldn’t haven’t been any more correct.

Conclusion

Now you have the 5 points of health and wellness at your fingertips. How many of them are you practicing correctly? There’s still time to make all the necessary changes to ensure that you live a happy, healthy, and fulfilled life.