Healthy Lifestyle as a Path to Self-Improvement

“What is a healthy lifestyle?” Our grandmothers would have asked twenty years ago. Now this concept is gaining more and more popularity. The basics of a healthy lifestyle are a minimum of bad habits with a maximum of useful ones that contribute to improving the quality of life of people. If before the main elements of a stylish young man or girl were an active club life, indispensable cigarettes and a glass of alcoholic cocktail, now social networks are full of images of beautiful and toned bodies in training rooms. A photo of a plate with chicken breast and vegetable salad will gain much more “likes” than pictures of a pan with fried potatoes on a beer bottle background. Healthy lifestyle comes quickly and inevitably: shelves with organic products, farm meat and vegetables are already beginning to appear on shelves in stores, sports halls are opening. Reasons for the popularity of healthy lifestyle A correct lifestyle contributes not only to an overall improvement in the state of the body, but also to the appearance of the person. What are the criteria for a healthy lifestyle? This is a rational diet, physical activity corresponding to a person’s age and condition, a good sleep and many other little things that positively affect the state of the human body. Anyone who follows the basic rules of a healthy lifestyle compares favorably with others: he has a fresh complexion, good posture and a lively look, always full of energy , the desire to try something interesting. It is impossible not to notice him against the background of people with gray puffy faces, voluminous bellies, shortness of breath and stooped backs, with difficulty carrying themselves through life from the couch to work. He who observes the main components of the healthy lifestyle clearly understands how much effort and time he needs to maintain himself in perfect condition, so he will not spend a second on meaningless or unpleasant actions. This is especially valuable in the age of high technology, when every minute counts. Healthy lifestyle components A healthy lifestyle is a combination of several basic elements, including the following: - proper nutrition; - physical exercise; - healthy sleep; - rational distribution of time; - refusal of excesses. All these components of a healthy lifestyle are fundamental. It is a mistake to think that in order to change life, it is enough to change one thing. You can’t give up part of bad habits, and be content with it. Fundamental changes are always needed for fundamental changes. Each person has a different character, and where one can, by a willful decision, immediately abandon all that is superfluous, the other will better abandon the idea of self-improvement, fearing the burden of future worries. Therefore, psychologists advise not to rush to apply all the main components of a healthy lifestyle at once, but to do it gradually in order to first unconsciously accept the basics of a healthy lifestyle and make changes easier to transfer. Where to start a healthy lifestyle A healthy lifestyle begins with a person realizing that he does not live correctly. And for everyone this happens in different ways: someone notices a too big figure on the scales, someone feels unsatisfied, broken, tired, someone constantly gets sick. Sometimes people for years come to the idea that just a diet or prevention of colds is not enough to solve their problems. And it seems to them that they are leading the right way of life, since they abandoned any one component of the past: they quit drinking or smoking, started going to the gym or went on a diet. However, HLS is not one small concession, but a large set of measures for self-improvement, and although it should be started small, we must strive for more. Such components of a healthy lifestyle as regular exercise and proper cooking cannot just be discarded or replaced with less time-consuming options. Healthy lifestyle and its components The main components of a healthy lifestyle are not the only ones, but they are the basis of a new mode of existence, which should not be taken as punishment or torment, but as a kind of peak, the achievement of which is interesting and exciting. It is not necessary to rest only on the basic elements. There are other healthy lifestyle factors , such as, for example, spiritual practices, psychological training, and the community of fans of the rules of a healthy lifestyle that help to exchange experiences with other adepts. Balanced diet This is the cornerstone that holds the other components of a healthy lifestyle. Depending on the physical condition of a person, on the principles that he practices, nutrition can be different: healthy eatingsomeone prefers vegetarianism, someone raw food diet, paleodiet becomes an outlet for someone. There is no one true option, as there is no one most correct spiritual practice, because all people are different, and the ways that lead them to a state of inner harmony are different for everyone. One thing is certain for sure: nutrition is always included in the basics of a healthy lifestyle in the forefront, since the spiritual state directly depends on the body. The body is actually a “box” for the soul, it is impossible to get to what is inside without changing the container so that you can freely engage in the state of content. Nutrition has a huge impact on health, not in vain for many diseases, doctors prescribe certain diets. Sport lifestyle Without physical activity, it is also impossible to talk about self-improvement. An unsportsmanlike person is often melancholy, inclined to forgive his minor weaknesses. He has no habit of loading muscles, overcoming himself, he will easily violate the basic principles of a healthy lifestyle due to the lack of self-discipline. Sport not only heals, it also contributes to the formation of a beautiful appearance, and the joy of contemplating the reflection in the mirror, the pride, pleasure that people receive when they look at the updated version of themselves, only support their desire to observe the right lifestyle. As a basis for a healthy lifestyle, sports are simply irreplaceable: exercises help improve blood circulation, joints, stimulate the production of certain hormones, improve the general condition of the human body. Gyms offer a huge selection of different activities for people of all ages and physical abilities, so even old age cannot be an obstacle if you want to start a healthy lifestyle. Rational distribution of time Some factors of a healthy lifestyle underestimate, in particular, the ability to distribute time in such a way as to comply with all the principles of a healthy lifestyle. A feature of cardinal changes is the inextricable relationship between the amount of effort spent on preparing for them and the process of mastering the unusual rules of a healthy lifestyle that will allow this lifestyle to be called truly healthy. A healthy lifestyle requires self-denial, a willingness to spend part of the time providing yourself with wholesome foods, preparing appropriate dishes, and training. It takes less than half an hour to cook semi-finished products. On a trip to the store for the appropriate ingredients, cooking will have to spend more time, and you need to do this constantly. After all, what is a healthy lifestyle? This is a steady, constant adherence to certain rules and its chosen components, and the components of a healthy lifestyle cannot be applied partially and irregularly, otherwise these will be random moments against the background of ordinary existence. Refusal of excesses In real life, a healthy image has little to do with the concept of a beautiful or thin body. Not everything that leads to weight loss is beneficial, and sometimes in an attempt to achieve a visual effect an unprepared person comes to the opposite - diseases, poor health, and dissatisfaction with oneself. Proper nutrition and a sporting lifestyle alone will not give full effect, if at the same time you continue to allow yourself obvious excesses that pathologically affect the general condition of the body, accustom it to general relaxation on the verge of being optional and destructively affect the healthy lifestyle itself and its components . Therefore, excesses are not only smoking or drinking alcohol, but also the habit of breaking the correct regime, allowing yourself to deviate from some important postulates, and so on. Allowed weaknesses Not every person has a strong character, everyone should only do what they can master, gradually, taking small steps, moving forward, one at a time accepting the rules of a healthy lifestyle. It is sometimes necessary to allow oneself to deviate from them; weaknesses will only help to observe the principles of healthy lifestyle, if they are: 1. Really rare; 2. Small and well controlled; 3. Do not lead to systematic violations of the main components of a healthy lifestyle. To smoke one cigarette once a month, gradually increasing the period between smoking to two, three or more months - this is a minor weakness, which allows at the initial stage for a person who comprehends the very basics of a healthy lifestyle. Smoking a pack of cigarettes every day instead of one and a half, without reducing the dose at the same time, is already a harmful habit that affects the subconscious: if you are allowed to continue smoking, then you can afford to continue to eat fast food and skip workouts. Healthy lifestyle criteria Willingness should consist of internal messages, because no advice, persuasion or requirements will force a person to follow the basic principles that are necessary to bring his life into a state of at least relatively healthy, if there is no need to change. But even with such an aspiration, one should not forget that you should not rush into the pool of self-improvement thoughtlessly. The criteria for healthy lifestyles appeared for a reason, they are justified.666 For example, with a number of diseases it is impossible to violate a prescribed diet, even in order to lead a healthy lifestyle; one should not try to perform sets of exercises for trained athletes through force, if the physical form leaves much to be desired - instead of benefit, there is a high probability of injury; attempts to achieve an enhanced effect by changing the terms of diets to large ones will turn healthy food into a dangerous hunger strike, and excessive zeal will turn into harm instead of benefit. Knowing of limits You can’t talk about the rules applicable for the transition to a healthy lifestyle, without mentioning a very important point. There are healthy lifestyle factors that significantly affect the outcome, and one of them is a sense of proportion. The right way of life is built on limitations, self-discipline, building a system of habits that allows you to maintain a healthy lifestyle and its components in the long run. A person cannot exist in a regime of severe restrictions; moreover, they are usually developed so that there is no excessive psychological pressure, and chronic fatigue from self-denial does not occur. A sense of proportion - that’s what guides the experts who develop recommendations for nutrition, exercise and other components of a healthy lifestyle. Do not seriously violate the timing, diet, and so on, as this can become dangerous. Other healthy lifestyle factors Other aspects that affect the process of self-improvement include: - psychological preparedness for breakdowns; - the ability to replace prohibited products with others, since refusing is always more difficult than replacing with an analog; - the ability to consistently implement the plan and so on. What is healthy lifestyle? This is not only a certain group of basic elements based on physiological aspects, but also a huge layer of components lying in the field of psychology and fine tuning of the subconscious. Conclusion A healthy lifestyle and its components are steadily included in our reality: there are debates on the Internet about the best diets and exercise complexes, on television they talk about the many basics of a healthy lifestyle , in stores on the shelves there are more and more ecological products. A modern person simply cannot get out of reality, which teaches what HLS is, because we are all unique, and to preserve this uniqueness, to keep it as close as possible to an ideal state, is an excellent goal in life. The rules of a healthy lifestyle are not as complex as it seems at first glance, and sometimes it’s enough just to start to realize how necessary it was.