Top Ten Tips for Lifetime Health

Top Ten Tips for Lifetime Health

1) Stack the cards in your favour.
2) Body, Mind and Spirit need to be considered.
3) Stress and spiritual connection affect long term health
4) Adopt the characteristics of healthy living.
5) The spiritual aspect does have something to do with it.

#1 Health Tip: Exercise
Increases longevity. The basic thing is to be more active. Exercise decreases disease and cancer and increases the immune system. You must fit in more physical activity. It regulates blood throughout the day, decreases disease, increases bone density.
Increase your exercise so it is a little more than you are used to. Even just three 1 hour workouts can decrease the chance of cancer by 50% according to researchers. Walking can give substantial benefits.
Some high intensity exercise is being found to be more detrimental than the three times a week, one hour a day routine. Pushing, pulling type weight bearing exercises are very beneficial. Weight training can help us to function healthfully into old age. Lots of people are functionally comprised in their last 20 years of life. Weight training, even for people in old age, can help them regain bone density and muscle mass and increase overall strength by 50%-200%.

#2 Health Tip: Anti Oxidants
They are what protect us from free radical cell wall damage. DNA can get damaged and it may be a precursor to cancer. Anti-oxidants protect you and try to prevent cell damage. Essential fatty acids, omega 3 in particular, hemp nut seeds, walnuts and flax oil lower blood pressure, increase immunity and decrease pain. Put nuts and seeds into your daily diet. Fruits and vegetables - go for lots of colour - blues, reds, oranges, yellows and greens are all power foods. Get out to the farmer's market, etc. and get a variety of colourful foods. Experiment with them in salads and stir fries. Every day colourful vegetables, nuts and seeds are to be part of your daily diet. They are a good source of essential fatty acids and anti-oxidants.

#3 Health Tip: Damage Control
Reduce animal fats, meats, eggs, cheeses. These all increase the risk of heart disease and cancer. Reduce and/or find alternatives. Often we eat meat or animal products up to 21 times a week. Start ordering veggie meals, put more veggies into the lunch and only have meat one meal a day - that reduces it to 7 times a week. Animal fats contribute to clogged arteries. Our society is suffering from impotency. We do have drugs for it, however we can really help ourselves with a diet plan.


#4 Health Tip: More Damage Control
Eliminate coffee, smoking, alcohol, sugar. We have all heard this before. We get into a stimulation cycle where we are using these all the time. These cause free radical damage, aging and disease.
Solutions:
Get off the coffee and onto green teas and herbal teas. Even if you stick to one coffee or two in the morning, drink tea the rest of the day. It can be beneficial to our teeth, fight cancer and prevent disease. Green tea has five times less caffeine than coffee and a different caffeine.
Rooibos tea is becoming more popular in the health-conscious circles of North America, where it is appreciated for its high level of antioxidants and lack of caffeine. It has an anti-cancer effect.
Some researchers say that drinking extra tea gives the same benefit as having extra fruits and vegetables due to the anti-oxidant.
Hydrogenated fats are hidden in chips, cookies, salad dressings, peanut butters and margarines and other processed foods.
We will see more ingredient labelling this year or early 2007 in regards to ingredients that are harmful to your health.

#5 Health Tip: Use it or Lose It
The brain needs exercise as well as the body. Research is showing that brain neurons can be replaced/regenerated. Keep muscles in body and mind active to maintain health. Keep learning new things, take a night school course, study, learning something new every day if you can.

#6 Health Tip: Water
Clean water is critical for our health. Cells need it for health. The body needs it for chemical reactions that are needed to take place for optimum health. Lack of water can cause headaches, back pain, high blood pressure and hormonal imbalances.
Solution:
We've heard it before - 6 to 8 glasses a day.
You can, upon arising, drink 2 glasses of water first thing; water and herbal teas throughout the day, 2 glasses at the day's end but at least 4 hours before sleep and 1 hour before supper to avoid unnecessary trips to the bathroom during the night for a better night's sleep.
Water helps flush the liver and body.
Use a Britta water filter. A charcoal filter system is a good idea, although generally our tap water in BC is very good.
The make up and beauty industry are reliant upon women NOT drinking water so they can sell products for moisturizing their skin and dry hair.

#7 Health Tip: Stress Management
This is really important! Why do you vacation? Is it escapism? Escapism is not relaxing, it does not give you the tools to use when you get back into the stress situation or work environment. A stress management system is one that could involve any or some of the following: tai chi, yoga, prayer, meditation, spiritual retreat from which you learn and take away with you some tools for managing the stress in your life and letting it go. Stress lowers the immune system and can help develop heart disease, free radical damage can also result.
Breathing exercises, prayer, meditation, yoga, tai chi - putting them into practice will help you relax when faced with a stressed situation or person. Take a deep breath, relax, let it go… can be a learned response. This is critical for so many situations in our society, work and family life.
A mantra could be "I am herer to cooperate and get along with people." Learn to be flexible and easy going and comfortable with opposing views. You can change yourself, but you cannot change others directly. They can only be changed if they see something in you that they want.

#8 Health Tip: Humour
Laughter regenerates power, gives a sense of well being, enhances the immune system response, lowers blood pressure. Humour can actually heal and make ourselves well. Grab a funny movie, it is good for your health, find a funny friend, or just laugh at yourself. You are probably pretty funny with some of the stuff that's going on in your head. While daily living can get very serious, don't take yourself so seriously. Again, it's going to take a lot of forgiveness, compassion and mercy for all of us to make it through this life. You might as well have fun while you are going through it.

#9 Health Tip: Love Heals
Long living people generally meet in a community type event. It can add 7 to 15 years to one's life if you belong to a support group, community club, volunteer organization, sports club, religious community, twelve step group, or others. If you belong and practice some part of the group's skills or teaching, it can be a great benefit. It helps us to exercise our brain with continued learning and expansion of it.

#10 Health Tip: Embrace Change
Adopt the ability and attitude and acceptance of moving on. Embracing change is an ability that can free us from stress brought on by change. Look at change as an opportunity for a new learning situation and/or skill and personal development.
People who are willing to change will be able to do all sorts of awesome stuff. They will not be limiting themselves. It is not always easy making choices, but it is never too late to change. It can be done. Keep things fresh, new tricks can be learned, new ways of thinking and living can be adopted.
Commitment to what you are going to do on one's new health factor can do wonders.
Adopt one change at a time per week and it can become a habit that will stay with you. Bring things in a little at a time, something each week. Consider what you are going to do for breakfast, lunch, snacks and supper. We need to plan these things out, lest we take the more convenience type food that is not so healthy for us. If you are going to use convenience type foods, make sure you add to the meal carrot and brown rice as a balancing factor for nutrition.

Quality matters, avoid processed, high fat foods. Natural organic whole style foods, yogurts and cheeses are much better than the highly processed types. Processed yogurt and cheeses are not doing us a lot of good. Use alternatives with no artificial hormones injected into the animals that the food is derived from.
Soy foods are not exactly healthy due to the processing of them. Soy protein in some research has been found that it may raise the chance of breast cancer. More research needs to be done on soy products and supplements. We are still in the dark for the most part and have to keep on learning.
Increase the quality of the food you are eating, head towards the healthier choices as you can.