Physical wellness is more than just a fleeting attempt at eating healthy or an occasional trip to the gym. The concept includes numerous factors that collectively form your physical health. For instance, your weight, your eating patterns, and how actively you perform daily tasks. Incorporating healthy physical can reduce the risks of several diseases and stress while increasing your energy levels.
Physical wellness is about cultivating healthy habits regularly – to keep yourself nourished and energized
Fizza Junaid
Researchers suggest people who are engaged in the following four behaviors – have 45% less back pain, 74% less stress, 66% less diabetes, and 93% less depression.
- Eat seasonal fruits and vegetables regularly
- Do not smoke
- Have limited or no alcohol consumption
- Engaged in 30 minutes five days a week physical activity
This article about physical wellness aims to guide you through practical strategies – to enhance your physical well-being.
Table of Contents
Effective Ways to Improve Your Physical Wellness
1. Maintain a Healthy weight
A leading building block of physical wellness is ‘maintaining a healthy weight’. Being overweight or obese can cause serious health issues like diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, etc.
A healthy weight can improve:
- Your energy levels
- longevity
- Quality of life
- Your organ health
- Your immunity to diseases
- Your bones and muscles life
To achieve and maintain a healthy weight you can incorporate a combination of physical activity and balanced nutrition. If it’s difficult to maintain overall health on your own – seek professional help.
Dimensions of Wellness
To understand the link of physical wellness to all 9 wellness dimensions, and how important they all are for you – let’s have a look at the article. This way you can start improving all aspects of your wellness in a single go.
2. Be Strategic about your food choices
Stressful and busy schedules lead to overeating, and overeating means consuming high-carbohydrate and high-fat foods which eventually makes you feel tired and exhausted. Take a moment and rethink what eating strategies you are applying and what types of food you are consuming. Getting a bit strategic and planning a little can change your eating habits.
- Make a list of what you often eat, then gradually replace it with healthier options
- Apply a rule eat light and eat often
- A healthy breakfast can be a perfect choice to fuel your body for a long day
- Don’t skip your breakfast or you’ll be consuming more during the daytime
- Add healthy snack options to your midmorning and midafternoon cravings
- If possible, add nuts to your routine to sustain your energy for long hours
3. Stay Well Hydrated
Keeping yourself well-hydrated is an essential element of physical wellness. Because water plays a vital role in body functions – from absorption and digestion to maintaining body temperature and flushing out toxins and waste. It also keeps your skin healthy, and mind active, and contributes to maintaining a healthy weight. On average, every individual should take 2 liters of water every day. However, your water needs can vary based on your age, physical activity, health condition, etc.
Dehydration: Symptoms, Causes, Treatments, and Ultimate Preventive Measures
This article can help you better understand the reasons why your body needs water. It also explains how important it is to stay away from dehydration. Numerous tips and tricks are given in this article so you can start your hydration process smoothly.
4. Get Adequate Sleep
Sleep is what people tend to overlook; however, insufficient sleep can become a cause of cortisol release, which results in destructive effects on multiple systems of the body. Adults require at least a 7-hour night sleep pattern. Moreover, try implementing a regular routine of bedtime, incorporate meditation, turn off your TV, and laptop, and leave your phone an hour before you hit your bed.
5. Exercise Regularly
Exercise can boost your overall health including your heart. It makes your cardiovascular system efficient enough to pump blood and deliver oxygen to every single cell. Exercise helps maintain a healthy weight by improving metabolic activity and burning more calories. If you keep exercising regularly it builds healthy bones and muscles while reducing the risk of fracture and osteoporosis.
Most importantly, regular exercise is like a multivitamin that boosts the overall health of your body. You can add any form of exercise you like, for instance, yoga, brisk walking, Pilates, vigorous workout, etc. Make sure to start from small steps and stay consistent sooner you’ll find the difference.
6. Sit Less and Be Active
If it’s difficult for you to exercise or the gym sounds like a haunted house to you, do not stress yourself and take a deep breath. There are multiple ways to be active you can choose anyone as per your feasibility. For instance, a 30-minute everyday walk is effective and interestingly those minutes can be interrupted and do not have to be all at once. You can squeeze a 30-minute walk into two halves, 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after work.
As per the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, moderate-intensity 150 minutes of aerobic exercise per week is sufficient to prevent osteoporosis (bone disease). If someone can include weight-bearing and high-impact exercises like running, dancing, aerobics, etc. it’ll be a great favor to your overall health. However weight-bearing and low-impact exercises like walking, elliptical machines, etc. can also help in maintaining your health.
7. Avoid Smoking and Limit Alcohol
Avoiding smoking and limiting alcohol are crucial steps towards physical wellness. Excessive smoking and alcohol consumption can lead to certain cancers, mental health problems, and heart diseases. Most of all they keep damaging your liver leading to liver CLD (Chronic Liver Disease) and liver cancer.
If you are a chronic smoker or drinker you can start improving your health by limiting alcohol bottles and a number of cigarettes. You can set an aim, for instance, to limit your drinks for a week and keep yourself sustained on your goal no matter what. And in case of smoking the best way is to quit completely.
8. Set Smart Goals
To implement long-term changes for better physical wellness, start setting smart choices:
- Achievable
- Specific
- Realistic
- Timebound
- Measurable
Note down your physical wellness goals in specific and clear language, for instance, 15 15-minute everyday walks, or junk food twice a month. Take a small start, and set realistic goals that you already know are achievable. Most importantly set timings that you can sustain, if you have long working hours don’t set a goal of 40 minutes of daily exercise which you are going to skip every second day.
Your wellness can directly impact others as well. You cannot take good care of your loved ones unless you start taking care of yourself.
9. Regular Health Check-ups
Incorporate small healthy habits into your lifestyle and keep yourself regularly checked. For instance, focus on your heart. Heart diseases are the most common cause of death both in men and women. The good news is that 80% of cardiovascular diseases are preventable just through healthy lifestyle modifications and timely diagnosis. Regular health check-ups can provide a comprehensive overview of your health status. This should include blood pressure monitoring, blood tests, preventative screening, and regular visits to your physician.
10. Get Sunlight Regularly
Vitamin D is essential for numerous body functions and sunlight is a natural source for it. Our body needs vitamin D to maintain healthy teeth and bones, for absorption of phosphorus and calcium, and to support the immune system. Therefore, start aiming for 15 to 30 minutes of sunlight at least three times a week. the timing can fluctuate as per your location, time of the year, and skin type.
Make sure to protect your skin with sunscreen before going outside – to avoid skin allergies and cancer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are physical fitness attitudes important?
Physical fitness attitudes are crucial because they impact our ways of thinking and acting. If you are into fitness – there are more chances for you to adopt healthy behaviors. To better understand how fitness attitude affects, let’s have a look at the article above about physical wellness.
How can physical wellness affect your self-esteem?
Exercise is not only for physical wellness – but also improves your mental health. Studies show it reduces anxiety, negative moods, and depression, and even alleviates social withdrawal and low self-esteem.
How does physical fitness benefit health?
Regular physical activity helps in managing a healthy weight, improves your brain health, strengthens muscles and bones, reduces disease risks, and improves your workability. The article above helps you understand how you can incorporate physical wellness into your life, through a few simple steps.
