A Few Ways You Can Be Kinder To Your Health
When it comes to your health, people often automatically think of your physical wellbeing, and the health of inside the body, such as their current absence of illness and disease, as well as the physical capabilities that their heart and lungs have. There are however more elements to what makes a person healthy, such as mentally and socially, and living a happy lifestyle. 
The information provided in this article has been collected through a lot of research by a number of people, including Personal Trainers who have featured in our Q&A series that takes place every Thursday, the head chefs trying to make perfect dishes for our clients, and also popular online nutritionists who again cater the diets and lifestyle changes for people. Although some of them may be a bit awkward in the current situation regarding social distancing rules and regulations, they can be adjusted to be used in your day to day lives. First of all we’re going to be looking into what makes up a person’s health, and then external elements into how to keep you healthy as well as tips within each section that we do ourselves to try and improve them.
Physical Wellness
Physical wellness is often the first thing that people think of when they see the word healthy, referring back to the bodies physical condition like aforementioned, which can be measured on a number of levels, such as endurance and strength. Now although this is true, physical wellness also includes the sickness side of health within the body, and is important that your body is able to defend itself again illness and sickness etc which is done through having a strong immune system, which although comes down to genetics more than anything, can be enhanced based on your lifestyle and what you consume. Physical wellness is more of a traditional type of wellness that focuses on looking and acting healthy through constant care of the body, which can be maintained by exercising and incorporating cardiovascular and muscular activities, as well as participating in medical examinations – no matter how little or large – and being able to adapt to new environments and needs. Your physical wellness can also be hindered though by participating in consuming dangerous chemicals, such as smoking which tends to impact the lungs, drinking which can often lead to kidney and liver damage, and even partaking drugs which can impact a number of organs, which usually include the brain. The best way to keep your physical wellness healthy is to participate in daily exercise, or if that is too much or difficult and least a couple times a week, alongside a healthy balanced diet that consists of a varied amount of each element of food containing protein, carbohydrates, fats, fruit and vegetables, as well as drinking a fair amount of liquids each day and avoiding putting harmful toxins into your body.
Mental & Emotional Wellness
Your health is so much more than just physicality though, emotional and mental wellbeing are just as important, as these play a vital part in your life and can impact everything you do, from your thoughts to behaviour and actions all the way to your emotions. Having healthy emotional and mental healthy can make a massive difference to your life, and are often though to help promote productive and effectiveness in tasks your intaking. Your mentality and emotional health helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices, and is vitally important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood, and can affect daily living, relationships, and physical health. The mind being the most complex organ in the human body, and the health can be impacted with no visual evidence of it, making it hard to prevent and also “fix” if there is an issue. Because of this, it is increasingly hard to help people who are struggling mentally, and except for the use of chemically enhanced drugs to aid the brain, to adjust it themselves, which is why it is so important to speak out. If anyone is struggling with mental health and emotional wellbeing then we advise if these tips don’t help then to go to your local GP, who will also know some methods to help improve your situation. Our best tip to help your mentality and mental wellbeing are to exercise regularly, whether its going for a walk, picking up some weights or running around the block a few times. It’s found that keeping active releases endorphins which within the brain which help minimize discomfort and help bring out natural positive feelings and general wellbeing.
Lifestyle Wellness
An element to your health is the lifestyle that you participate with. Now although there is no definite healthy way to live your lifestyle, it is seen to be important to ensure it is balanced, such as it is often found that those who work longer shifts are often unhealthy, which can stem back to the fact that they don’t allow themselves enough time to get enough sleep and exercise, and their lives are spent focussing solely on work. However, every person has a different idea of what a balanced lifestyle includes, mainly down to their own personal opinions and hobbies. Some may feel it is more important to include many physical activities, whereas others might think it is better to participate in intellectual activities. The best message to take from lifestyle wellness advice pages is that a balanced lifestyle is one in which a person participates in a variety of activities from exercise to learning to cultural pursuits, and remains happy with what they entail several days of the week.
Social & Relational Wellness
Social and relational wellness refers back to the social side of an individuals life, and linking to the relationships that the individual has, such as not only a partner but also friends and associates one can speak to and spend time with, as opposed to being stuck by themselves and feeling alone, which is often a strong link to an individuals mental health being affected. The focus on social wellbeing includes developing, restoring and nurturing healthy relationships with family, friends, colleagues and just about anyone that you come into regular contact with, and are often improved by participating in recreational activities, such as joining a sports team or becoming a member of the gym. Social and relational wellbeing can link to the other elements of health, which allows it to be a useful tool in overcoming other issues.
Now looking into other elements of life that can impact your health. These aren’t seen as categories of their own but are frequently talked about when it comes to improving your health, which again is moreso concentrating on the physical aspect.
Hydration
As simple as it sounds, it’s important to keep hydrated. Now everyone knows this word, but what does it mean? Hydration is the process of water absorption, and is about how the body uses all of the water it has taken in, internally. 
It is often thought that poor hydration can lead to dips in productivity and performance, with physical being obvious but also things like staying focus and how well you do at work, it is important to ensure you’re drinking enough. Hydration and water in the body are used for many functions, such as regulating temperature and transporting nutrients around the body. So basically, if you don’t have enough water within your body, the nutrients can’t travel and get to the places they need to be, proving just how important it is to get enough water as well as the correct nutrients. Within the Eatwell Guide created by the NHS, it is suggested that you should try and consumer 6-8 glasses of fluid per day as an average, with this increasing when you are doing sports and exercising, and also when the weather improves and the temperature rises.
Exercise
Once again, when people think of someone being fit and healthy they automatically assume this is referring to their physical state, and always think about how much weight they can lift or how long they can run for. Exercise can link to a lot of other aspects of health, from being one of the biggest ways to combat obesity and lose weight, to helping improve your mental state and mood, exercise really is brilliant for the body. We recommend you exercise in any way you can, whether this be walking, running, biking, playing a sport, group classes or anything in-between. To get scientific, when you exercise, your body releases chemicals called endorphins. These endorphins interact with the receptors in your brain that reduce your perception of pain, also triggering a positive feeling in the body, which is why it is often found to improve people’s attitude.
Rest
Now this might sound like mixed signals, considering we’ve just said how important and useful it is to exercise. However, resting for sufficient time is just as important. Resting is an equal part of the total process required to build strength, endurance, and muscle. Working out, especially resistance training, breaks your body tissues down, whereas these rest periods allow your muscles, nerves, bones, and connective tissue time to rebuild and grow. It is also important to get enough sleep. It’s recommended that you sleep for around 7-8 hours each night, to help you wake up feeling fresh and provide you with enough energy to intake in the next days activities. Sleep is involved in healing and the repairing of your heart and blood vessels, with ongoing sleep deficiency being linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and the likelihood of a stroke.
Diet
Now alongside all of these factors, it is important to maintain a healthy and stable diet. If you are going to be constantly eating takeaways and deep fat fried foods, your physical wellbeing will suffer, both on the outside and internally. A balanced diet is important because your organs and tissues need proper nutrition to work effectively. Without good nutrition, your body is more prone to disease, infection, fatigue, and poor performance. Children with a poor diet run the risk of growth and developmental problems and poor academic performance, and bad eating habits can persist for the rest of their lives. For more information about nutrition and it’s importance, take a look at our nutrition article at https://www.my-fresh-box.co.uk/blogs/news/nutrition. The best way to maintain a healthy diet is ensuring that you have a balance of elements within your meals, consisting of fruit and veg, protein, fats and carbohydrates. 
The NHS have created an “Eatwell Guide” which explains how much of each you should consume each day, consisting of 1/3rd fruit and veg, 1/3rd carbohydrates, 1/6th protein and the final sixth being made up of a variety of dairy and fats, such as milk and chocolate.
If you’ve got any questions regarding ways to be kinder to your health, tips for exercise and lifestyle, or diet plans, then please feel free to drop us a message and we’ll do what we can to help you. Message us directly on hello@my-fresh-box.co.uk.
