Disease prevention is better than cure. The lives we lead nowadays often put us on the path toward physical and mental deterioration. Leading a sedentary lifestyle increases your risk of heart disease.
All of us want to live healthy, well into our late years. But few even manage to achieve their health goals and have to contend living with some disease or the other later on.
Comforts provided by science and technology have made us sedentary and dependent on various drugs to treat ourselves when we fall ill. We are either completely neglectful of preventive health, or resort to piecemeal measures that are focused on the cure when we fall sick.
Few of us even know what healthy behaviors are, let alone incorporate them practically into our lives.
Healthy Habits & Disease Prevention
If you want to live a prosperous and healthy life well into your late years, you should read the disease prevention tips below on health, wellbeing, and longevity.
1. Avoid occupational diseases
You could be working in a profession where you are exposed to harmful fumes, smoke, toxic chemicals, and radioactive elements.
Occupations such as firefighters, construction workers, and industrial and power plant workers have a much higher risk of exposure to toxic chemicals, particularly asbestos.
Asbestos is a toxic substance that damages the lining of the respiratory tract, causing mesothelioma. Severe shortness of breath, pain in the chest and abdomen, bloating, and visible weight loss are some mesothelioma symptoms that you need to know.
Mesothelioma is a terminal cancer that most often results in the death of the patient. With treatment and medications, it is possible to slow down its progress.
So, what can you do if you work in such a profession. The first thing is to make sure you have access to personal protective equipment and are aware of how to properly use it to shield yourself from the toxins you are exposed to regularly on the job.
Additionally, you should go for routine health screening and medical checkups to analyze the analyze your own health status and be able to detect any adverse health conditions in the early stages.
2. Avoid Smoking
Smoking is the leading cause of avoidable deaths throughout the world. In addition to increasing the chances of mortality, cigarette smoking also causes several serious diseases, such as osteoporosis, gastric ulcers, infertility, and many others.
The most significant impact of smoking is on the lungs. The smoke inhaled causes considerable damage to the respiratory tract cells, making them vulnerable to infections, specifically cancer of the lungs. Smoking is one of the most critical risk factors for tumors of the lungs.
It is possible to reverse the impact smoking has on your heart, blood vessels, and all other organs by quitting.
You can add ten extra years to your life just by quitting smoking. There is a massive reduction in your chances of dying from smoking-related illnesses when you quit completely.
Though it may not be easy to quit smoking cold-turkey, healthcare professionals recommend gradually reducing it.
Medical help is also available and within reach for people who find it extremely difficult to quit.
3. Exercise
It has become extremely important nowadays to actually take out the time to exercise, especially because we spend most of our waking hours hunched over desks at our jobs.
Regular exercise improves your health significantly. A lack of physical activity can result in obesity, lack of stamina, and generalized weakness.
Inactivity can make you vulnerable to acute and long-term disease.
Regular exercise strengthens the muscles of the heart, improves cardiac health, and reduces the chances of cholesterol buildup, which may ultimately affect your blood vessels if you continue leading a sedentary lifestyle.
Exercise also delays the degeneration of your body and protects it from wear and tear.
Incorporating exercise into your life requires no material and monetary investment on your part.
One does not need a gym membership or considerable investments in fitness equipment to stay fit and healthy.
You can exercise in the comfort of your own home. A few minutes of brisk walking or stretches done at home can remarkably improve your physical health.
4. Healthy Eating
Good dietary habits ensure that your body gets its nutritional requirements to grow, heal, and prevent infections and ailments.
Eating healthy requires keeping a balanced diet including all essential nutrients.
It is important that you avoid packaged products and those loaded with preservatives, as they have little to no nutritional value for your body.
A healthy diet consisting of fruits and vegetables can help regulate your sugar and fat levels, and reduces the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases later on.
A healthy diet must exclude sugary foods and drinks such as sodas and drinks that are high in calories. Such products make one feel hungry and decreases satiety.
In addition to ensuring that you’re consuming a healthy diet, you must time your meals properly.
A large meal at night, right before falling asleep, can be extremely harmful to your body, no matter how nutritious the meal may be.
Poorly timed meals can increase the chances of heartburn and cause weight gain.
5. Get enough sleep
A good night’s sleep has a significant impact on our general health. It ensures you feel rested and physically capable of handling work during the day.
It also plays a role in influencing our moods and emotions.
Poor sleep is also associated with poor mental health. Sleeping well helps your body rejuvenate, allowing it the time to replenish and recharge.
Sleep also helps boost immunity and prevents inflammatory diseases in the body.
People who have trouble sleeping can develop better habits to ensure a good night’s rest.
Establishing a routine where you sleep and wake up simultaneously each day can help you get the rest you need.
Conclusion
Without your health, nothing will be of any value to you. Only when you’re healthy and well can you achieve the milestones you wish to accomplish in your life. However, to ensure good health, you should be disciplined enough to change to an active lifestyle. A sedentary lifestyle leaves you vulnerable to many diseases, especially those of the heart. Regular exercise is essential because it helps pump blood throughout your body, ensuring every body part receives its supply of nutrients. Likewise, you should also take good care of your mental health. A lot of the stress we experience can go away by getting enough sleep.
