5 Tips for Staying Healthy

Being healthy is composed of 3 main factors: genetics, lifestyle, and environment. Even though we cannot change our genetic factors, we can still change our lifestyle. This article will introduce you to five tips for promoting your health that could start doing today.

1. Sleep quality

Sleeping time is the pivotal time of regeneration because our body will secrete the growth hormone which helps stimulate body growth, control metabolism, and strengthen muscles and bones. Growth hormone, therefore, is a regenerative hormone. The more quality sleep can be, the more the growth hormone can be secreted. In addition, When we sleep, our body will start a waste removal system from the brain through the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) called the ‘Gylmphatic System’. The waste in the brain is an important cause of brain deterioration, especially Alzheimer's disease. Hence, we should improve both sleep quality and quantity which consist of 3 elements:

• Appropriate duration - adults should sleep 7-9 hours every day.
• Continuity - from going to bed, falling asleep, until waking up, the sleep should be continued. The awakening time should be less than 20 minutes and not more than 1 time throughout sleeping peroid.
• Deep sleep - in this stage, our brain wave’s movement will get slower and settle in the range of Delta waves. This is time when our body releases the growth hormone. Thus, we should go to bed around 10 pm to get into the deep sleep around 11 pm when the growth hormone is fully released.

Practicing meditation or doing brain-relaxing activities before going to bed could help our body get into deep sleep more easily. Furthermore, avoid using electronic devices at least 1 hour before going to bed because the blue light from a screen could disturb our biological clock or circadian rhythm, leading to a decrease in melatonin secretion and sleep disruption.

2. Exercises

Body movements play an important role in preventing many non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, and some types of cancers. Moreover, physical activities help enhance the functions of many systems in our body such as the respiratory system, muscles and bones, as well as control our body weight to stay in a healthy range.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that adults should do aerobic exercise at a moderate level around 150-300 minutes per week, or an intensive level around 75-150 minutes per week. In addition, doing muscle strengthening exercises, especially major muscle exercises, is advised to be done at a moderate level at least 2 times per week.

Increasing physical activities on a daily basis is another choice: changing the commuting method by walking, cycling to work, or walking up stairs.

3. Maintaining a healthy body weight

Obesity is a condition that the body has excessive fat accumulation. Generally, the Body Mass Index (BMI) is used for categorizing the obesity condition but it is alone not an accurate tool. To categorize obesity condition precisely, the BMI is needed to combine with other tools such as waist circumference or DEXA scan since people with the same weight may have different fat and muscle content.

Obesity has many causing factors, for example, genetics, eating food that contains high sugar and fat, not enough exercise, low-quality sleep, together with abnormal hormone functions. Since we cannot change our genetic factors, another method to reinforce our body is to eat healthy food, reduce processed food consumption, avoid eating sugary and fatty food, as well as exercise consistently, and get quality sleep, as written above.

4. Live in a place that has clean air

The environment is one of the elements that could affect health. A low-quality air could cause many health issues such as eye, nose, and throat irritation, allergy, coughing, and breathing difficulty. In the long term, low-quality air increases the risk of coronary artery diseases, some types of cancers, and also weakening the immune system.

All of us could participate in elevating the air quality and staying healthy at the same time by not smoking cigarettes, lower processed food consumption, and reducing personal vehicle utilization to cut down the amount of PM2.5 and PM10 which are produced by car engines and factories.

5. Maintaining mental well-being

Stress and anxiety could stimulate our body to release stress hormone or cortisol hormone causing food craving and increasing fat accumulation. Building relationships through volunteer activities could stimulate the reward pathway in the brain to release various neurotransmitters such as dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin,and endrophine (DOSE) which help to improve mental well-being.

Building relationships through volunteer activities could stimulate the reward pathway in the brain to release various neurotransmitters which could brighten emotions such as Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endrophine (DOSE). Furthermore, to reduce stress, quality sleep is a crucial tool because sleep could significantly affect individual moods.

All of these are the five healthy tips that you can start today to promote a healthy lifestyle and improve a quality and longevity life.

Reference

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• National Sleep Foundation. What Is Sleep Quality? [Internet]. Washington, DC: National Sleep Foundation; 2020 Oct 28 [cited 2023 Jan 19]. Available from: https://www.thensf.org/what-is-sleep-quality/
• World Health Organization. Physical activity [Internet]. World Health Organization; 2022 [cited 2023 Jun 14]. Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity
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