Natural Methods to Boost Your Health to Optimal Levels

In order to better manage your health, you need to take a five-point approach to preventing and healing your body. We’re going to go over all five right now, but then pick the most important one to focus on in depth – nutrition.

Sleep

Getting enough rest is imperative in allowing your body to do its work to repair your body at a cellular level. Many people suffer from sleep issues – some slightly and some who suffer from extreme insomnia.

It’s a proven fact that those who don’t get enough sleep often endure consequences for it – like increased risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and coronary disease.

This is only part of the problem. These same individuals are often plagued with stress because they’re not getting enough sleep, so they end up spiraling down into a deep depression.

When these factors combine, it leads to a shortened life expectancy. Luckily, this is something you can control naturally – it doesn’t require dangerous sleeping pills.

Start with better sleep hygiene. Take a good, hard look at how your sleep set-up is. Is your room cool enough? Is it quiet and dark? Are your sheets, pillows, mattress and blankets comfortable?

What do you do before bed? It shouldn’t be stimulating to your mind. Read, take a bath – but stay off the electronic gadgets. If you’ve done all of that and still aren’t sleeping, then you can use nutrition to help you get more sleep!

Foods rich in antioxidants help you get more sleep. Make sure the foods are packed with vitamin C and selenium. This is perfect for those who don’t get enough sleep – but what about those who sleep, and still feel tired anyway?

Sometimes quality of sleep is what makes the difference. Try eating an ounce of dark chocolate and adding some turkey and eggs to your nutritional regimen. This will help send you into that deep, relaxing slumber you need to awaken feeling refreshed.

Exercise

Moving your body is a great, natural way to stave off disease and reverse health problems you may have. Researchers know that it has the ability to prevent and heal heart disease.

It also helps reverse diabetes – and many people find that they’re able to get off of insulin because of their combined nutrition and exercise plan. Hopping on a treadmill and getting some cardio into your day can benefit you if you have high blood pressure, too.

As for prevention, those who exercise have a smaller risk of developing colon cancer. And if osteoporosis is a concern, then moving your body will help strengthen, not weaken, your bones.

You want to engage in exercise that gives your whole body a workout. When you engage in cardiovascular exercise, like jogging or aerobics, then your heart gains strength, your blood pressure is kept under control, and your cholesterol levels benefit.

Believe it or not, nutrition factors in heavily to your workout success. Your body uses food as fuel to get you through all of your workouts – and it helps you recover from them, too.

Carbs are very important for people doing high levels of activity. And it’s the amino acids in protein that assist you in repairing the muscles that you break down when you’re strength-training.

Nutrition

We’ll get into this in much more detail shortly, but let’s touch on how important food is to your well-being. Growing up, you probably heard little snippets of advice – like how chicken broth helps cure a cold.

And it’s not an old wives’ tale, either! Researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha broke it down and discovered that the properties found in chicken broth really do suppress the symptoms of a common cold.

There are many ways that food can help your body. You’ve already seen some of the healing properties being discussed, like protein being necessary for your muscles to heal after a workout.

You can also boost your immune system, increase your memory retention, and keep many major diseases (heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc.) at bay – just by using food to empower your body at a cellular level.

Stress Relief

Stress is one of the primary issues men and women (and even teens) suffer form today that result in poor health. In fact, it’s estimated that 70-90% of all doctor’s visits originate from stress.

Stress starts off as a reaction in your body that you see as mental. It’s your mind’s reaction to something that angers or saddens you. But your body is undergoing a physical reaction beneath the surface.

It’s flooded with cortisol, the “fight or flight” hormone. This isn’t harmful on occasion, but if you suffer from chronic daily stress, it starts to take a toll on your body, and you will begin seeing increased symptoms of disease.

For example, stress directly affects your insulin levels. It has the ability to keep your blood pressure raised to dangerous levels. It also hinders your chance to steer clear of (or recover from) cancer.

The National Cancer Institute reports that there’s evidence that stress affects your clinical results for becoming cancer-free with treatment. Stress causes common health issues, too, including:

·         Flu

·         Insomnia

·         Digestive issues

·         Urinary problems

·         Infertility

·         Headaches

You have to get it under control before you turn to a doctor for help with his or her prescription pad. What’s the best way to do that? You can have your pick of many options.

You can use exercise to release endorphins, food to deliver a calming state of mind, mind relaxation techniques such as neuro-linguistic programming, emotional freedom technique, or even meditation. If you just need a little help, you might turn to aromatherapy or massage for the stress relief you need.

Elimination of Risky Behaviors

One of the best things you can do for your health is to get rid of the risks that you’re taking. Increasing healthy behaviors (like stress relief, nutrition, sleep and exercise) are just part of the equation.

What can you eliminate?

Drinking is always touted in medical articles as having the ability to benefit you. While it’s true that some moderate alcohol has been shown to benefit heart health, overuse only contributes to the probability of disease.

Smoking is never good – regardless of what they told people in the old days. We now know how harmful it is to you – and to those around you. Not only are you upping your chances of developing lung disease, but because it constricts your blood flow, you’ll be setting yourself up for heart disease, too.

Doing drugs – prescription or otherwise – will eventually take a toll on your body. Your cells can’t recover quickly from a drug-induced state, so your entire body becomes weakened against infection and disease.

Risky sexual behaviors are also common. While you might think something like herpes simplex is just a mere nuisance, it actually increases your risk of acquiring major diseases like HIV if you’re not careful about keeping outbreaks under control and your immune system high.

As you can see, you have a whole host of options available to you to help prevent and reverse disease. Unfortunately, most of us don’t live a healthy lifestyle – we just run to the doctor once something bad happens.

If you’re tired of living like this, and ready to become more reliant on yourself than you are a prescription pad, then it’s time you find a good starting point to manage your health.

Nutrition is the most powerful weapon you have against disease – and it’s something you have to engage in daily anyway. Nobody’s going to ask you to give up your favorite foods forever.

The key is to add nutrients and optimize your menu wherever possible so that your cells have a chance to flourish and the unhealthy toxins in your body are flushed out so they can’t continue to do more damage.