Creating A Healthier Lifestyle For Yourself Following A Health Scare
Life is full of unexpected moments. Some of these moments can be joyous and memories we reflect on. Other moments can be frightening. Whether you’ve had a major health scare yourself, or seen friends or family experience unexpected health issues with unfortunate endings such as sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS), it’s hardly surprising that such extreme and frightening health scares prompt lifestyle reassessments.
If you have experienced a health scare personally or witnessed someone else suffer and are looking for ways to create a healthier lifestyle, keep reading! You might be surprised at the positive impact these lifestyle reassessments can have.
Start Easy
Of course, it can be easy to want to dive straight into creating a healthier lifestyle for yourself. You may start going to the gym daily, lifting heavy weights and running for miles on the treadmill. However, not only could you risk sustaining an injury, this level of exercise is also not sustainable for most people.
Following a health scare, you should take recovery easy, allowing yourself to get stronger gently. The same should be applied to creating a healthier lifestyle for yourself even if you have been lucky enough to avoid any health scares but know you need to make changes: start easy.
If health scares prompt lifestyle reassessments, it’s understandable you want to make these massive changes immediately. But be gentle with yourself. Instead, start small by going to the gym once or twice weekly. When there, start easy with weights and using other equipment. Allow yourself to gradually build up your strength and stamina to attend the gym more frequently and what exercises you do. This way, it will be more sustainable, and you won’t put yourself at risk of another injury.
Look At Nutritional Changes
Alongside exercise, looking at your diet is essential. As the saying goes “we are what we consume.” If you are not eating the right foods, it is likely this has contributed to your health scare. As such, improving this area of your life could help you move one step closer to your health goal.
It is generally accepted that a Mediterranean-style diet, rich in fruit, vegetables and whole foods with minimal red meat is one of the healthiest options. If nothing else, stop eating processed foods and try to cook your meals from scratch.
If you are unsure about what nutritional changes to make, speak with a professional nutritionist. They can recommend what to consider and foods to include in your diet. You can share your likes and dislikes, helping them to find alternative options worth considering. It is a small change that could have a noticeable impact.
Consider Other Modifications
Not all changes you choose to have are related to the foods you consume or the amount of exercise you do. Some alterations you could make to live a healthier lifestyle can be breaking old habits. For instance, quitting smoking is a habit worth breaking to help you live healthier.
Your smoking habit could have contributed to your health scare, so finding ways to break this habit could help you move one step closer to living healthier than before. The NHS offer support for anyone wanting to quit smoking.
Unsurprisingly, drinking excess alcohol is also to be avoided.
Other changes could be as simple as ensuring that you are getting enough sleep. Experts recommend between 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep. If you struggle with sleep, look for ways to adjust some of your current habits that could impact your ability to achieve the recommended hours. Look at avoiding technology before sleeping and consuming caffeine after a certain time. You might even invest in blackout curtains to help create a dark space for your bedroom.
Finding and implementing some of these modifications could help you move one step closer to creating a healthier lifestyle.
Inspire A Career Change
Sometimes all it takes is an experience to encourage us to change our lives. Experiencing a health scare will certainly put some things into perspective. One of which could be changing careers to something less stressful and more enjoyable and rewarding. You might have been contemplating a career change for a while now but lacked the motivation to pursue these thoughts until your health scare inspired the need to reassess your lifestyle.
As you progress on your fitness journey, you might decide that you could see yourself in a health and fitness career. If it is something you are seriously considering, take a look at the online fitness instructor courses available from companies such as The Fitness Group. These courses could help you to get your foot onto this career ladder and help you to progress up and find a role as a fitness instructor. In this role, you can help others with their personal healthier lifestyle goals.
Consult With Medical Professionals
Lastly, but most importantly, consult with a medical professional if you need help figuring out where to start, especially following a health scare. They can offer you guidance and advice on the best options for you which will help you in your journey without putting yourself at risk of another health scare or sustaining an injury. Use this support to help you make those initial changes in your life to live healthier.
Whichever route you choose to take to live a healthier lifestyle could have a positive impact. Making changes to your health can help bring you one step closer to feeling healthier and stronger, reducing your risks of developing other health concerns later in life.
If health scares prompt lifestyle reassessments for you, remember some of the above tips. A year from when you started to make changes, you can reflect on your progress to be a healthier version of yourself. Providing you have maintained the impetus, you’ll probably be amazed at how much better your feel when you look back.