A lot of factors play a role in remaining healthy. However, staying healthy is extremely important if you want to live a long and happy life. Good health can reduce your chances of developing a variety of conditions including some cancers, heart disease, strokes, and injuries. But how do you stay healthy?
Few people know more about how to stay healthy and boost your immune system than nurses. After all, it’s their job to keep people healthy. From visiting a doctor regularly to eating a healthy diet, here are some helpful tips from nurses to help you stay healthy:
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1. Visit a Healthcare Professional Regularly
According to nurses, one of the best ways to take care of your health is to visit your doctor or nurse regularly for check-ups. Thisincludes your primary care doctor as well as your eye doctor and your dentist. Let your health benefitand preventative care services work for you. Preventative care can detect diseases and prevent illnesses before they occur, meaning you are less likely to fall ill.
It’s also important to contact your primary care doctor or nurse if you feel unwell. They will be able to help you to find out what is causing your symptoms, and they will do everything they can to make you better.
Unfortunately, the majority of us fail to visit the doctor or nurse regularly, which is why we become ill. One of the main reasons for this is because we believe that our doctor or nurse will be unable to help us overcome our issues. However, this isn’t usually the case.
Doctors and nurses have trained for many years to help patients overcome their problems. Not only that, but they continue to train to improve patient outcomes. For example, recently we’ve seen an increase in the number of nurses training in evidence-based practice. This type of practice is thought to improve patient outcomes by 28%.
2. Spend Time Outdoors
Although the pandemic has forced us to spend a lot of time indoors over the last few months, nurses believe that we all need to spend time outdoors if we want to remain healthy. Most nurses and medical professionals agree that spending time outdoors is not only good for your body, but it’s also good for your mind and soul too. Not only that but spending time in nature can also help to improve overall wellbeing and health.
However, if you do plan on spending time outside, it’s important to try and stay safe. Don’t forget about social distancing and consider wearing a face mask if you’re in a crowded space, such as a grocery store.
3. Eat a Healthy Diet
We’ve all heard that eating a healthy diet can help us to stay healthy, but is it true? According to nurses, eating healthy food will not only help you to maintain a healthy weight, but it can also help to prevent or treat certain medical conditions too. These include conditions such as diabetes, stroke, and heart disease. Eating healthy can also help you to lower your cholesterol levels too.
Unfortunately, most people in the U.S. struggle to eat a healthy diet. One of the main reasons for this is because they don’t have enough time to prepare healthy meals. However, healthy meals can be prepared in a short period of time, if you know what you’re doing.
If you’re still struggling to find the time to prepare healthy meals, then nurses suggest that you instead start by making smaller changes to your diet. For example, you could swap your sugary drinks for sugar-free alternatives. Even small changes will have a huge impact on your health.
4. Regular Exercise is Important
Many nurses argue that in order to stay healthy, we need to exercise regularly. They believe that we need to complete 30-60 minutes of exercise, five times a week. However, they also state that any amount of exercise is better than no exercise at all.
There are many benefits to regular exercise. One of the main benefits is that it can help you to maintain a healthy weight. But that’s not all. Exercise can also help to prevent diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and colon cancer, and it can help to treat osteoporosis, depression, and high blood pressure too.
5. Avoid Intense Exercise
While regular exercise is good for our mental and physical health, and it’s something that we should all do if we want to remain healthy, we don’t want to hurt our bodies by exercising intensely. Exercise causes our bodies to release endorphins that reduce stress levels. During exercise, our bodies also release a hormone called cortisol. Short bursts of this hormone can help to strengthen our immune system, but too much cortisol can cause inflammation in our bodies.
Instead of exercising intensely, we want to keep the level moderate. Moderate exercise includes things like dancing, swimming, brisk walking, gardening, moderate biking, tai chi, and yoga.
6. Lose Weight if You Are Overweight
Evidence suggests that more people are overweight in the U.S. today than ever before. However, carrying too much weight isn’t good for our health. In fact, it can cause several health conditions. These include:
- High cholesterol
- High blood pressure
- Stroke
- Heart disease
- Type 2 diabetes
- Some types of cancer
- Gallbladder issues
Being overweight can also cause weight-related injuries. A common problem caused by weight is arthritis in the weight-bearing joints such as your hips, spine, or knees. The good news is that there are lots of simple things you can do to lose weight and keep it off.
7. Get Plenty of Sleep
Although you may not realize it, sleep doesn’t just give us the energy we need to get through a busy day, it’s also extremely important for our overall health too. While sleeping our body is recovering and repairing itself. Not only that, but our hormones and our brain also get to rest, detox, flush, and reset while we’re asleep.
Nurses believe that to stay healthy, we all need to get between 7-8 hours of sleep each night. We also need to ensure that we are sleeping in a quiet, dark, and cold room to sleep properly.
8. Drink Plenty of Water
According to nurses, to remain healthy, you need to keep your body hydrated. Many nurses say that this is their number one tip, and while it might not be a secret, that doesn’t make it any less important.
The human body is made up of more than 60% water. This water is lost during everyday activities. If we don’t replace the water that we lose, it can affect our health. For example, research has shown that dehydration causes headaches, become tired, and even reduces our body’s ability to fight off infections. Drinking clean water will help you get the right nutrients your body needs. But if you’re not sure about the quality of your water, you can search for water quality near me and choose the best service you can get.
9. Limit the Amount of Coffee You Drink
Although an extra cup of coffee may help to get you through the day, according to nurses, it could be doing more damage to your health than you realize. This is because coffee is a stimulant and a diuretic. It creates a vicious circle. The more coffee you consume, the more you need to hydrate.
In simple terms, drinking too much coffee will make it more difficult for you to stay hydrated. But that’s not all. Because caffeine is a stimulant, drinking large amounts can create a stress response in your adrenal glands. If this happens, you will start to feel tired.
10. Healthy- Reduce Alcohol Intake
Research has shown that men should be drinking no more than two alcoholic drinks per day, while women should have no more than one. This is because too much alcohol can damage your liver and affect your health. It can also cause some cancers too, such as throat, pancreas, and liver.
11. Healthy- Practice Safe Sex
While you may not think that practicing safe sex can help to keep you healthy, nurses believe that it can. Safe sex is believed to be good for both your physical and emotional health. It can help to prevent sexually transmitted diseases from being passed from person to person. Not only that, but it can also prevent unwanted pregnancies from occurring too.
12. Healthy- Protect Your Skin from the Sun
Another great tip for people wanting to stay healthy is to take good care of their skin by protecting it from the sun. Sun exposure is linked to cancer. This is one of the most common types of cancer in the U.S. Thankfully, we can reduce our chances of getting skin cancer by limiting the amount of time we spend in the sun. We also need to make sure that we wear protective clothing when outside such as sunhats and t-shirts and we use sunscreen on any exposed skin.
We all want to stay healthy. This is because staying healthy can help us to thrive throughout our life. However, staying healthy isn’t just about taking your daily dose of vitamin C and eating the right type of food. To keep your immune system strong and prevent illnesses from occurring, you also need to focus on how you spend your time, and how you feel during the day. If you want to remain healthy, then why not follow the advice from nurses that we’ve listed above?
