Tired of people asking about your expected date of delivery even though you aren’t pregnant? Well, not in the literal sense, but pregnant with stress, worries, and difficult life decisions maybe. Yes! It does make you appear fatigued and burned out. Let’s find our way through holistic health: balancing nutrition, sleep, and exercise and the interconnection between them.
We’ve all been there, struggling to get our sleep schedules straight and struggling to inculcate exercise in our ever-so-busy routines. Eating fried foods and our favourite french fries as a snack doesn’t help either.
The first step is to understand the basics of holistic health in order to get a clearer picture.
WHAT IS HOLISTIC HEALTH?
When we talk about health in general, we usually stick to just simple features. Be it emotional health, physical health, or spiritual health. However, holism means approaching the person as a whole interconnected being. If one aspect is harmed, the others are affected too.
Holistic health in simple terms, according to St. Catherine University, means
“A multidimensional approach to wellness that addresses a person’s physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual components of health.”
This balanced outlook tells us about the complexity of these components and guides us to deal with them purposefully.
You may ask yourself, Why do I need this approach? That’s a good question indeed, and it requires a bit of contemplation before we find an answer to it. We’ll start with the benefits of a holistic approach and proceed to a detailed perspective later on. The benefits include
- Emotional well-being: Staying in line with the needs of your body and working to further polish it gives a sense of accomplishment and boosts your mood.
- Mortality: Ask yourself this: “Do I really want my life to be cut short?” and let us know your thoughts. This approach reduces mortality and adds valuable years to your life.
- Illness: Who doesn’t want to save those expensive medical bills when they are avoidable? Of course we do. Keeping your body in the right balance works like magic in reducing illnesses and diseases.
- Mind-body connection: We’ve all heard that infamous phrase since childhood: a healthy body is a healthy mind. It holds true when you dive deep into the health benefits associated with this approach.
- Stress control: Stress stays away, and positive energies flow in as you take control of your wellness as a whole.
- Productivity: Productivity gets a major boost as you start to nourish a healthy mind and soul.
These benefits cannot be overruled, and they paint a picture full of balanced colours on the canvas of health. Now that we know what holistic health actually is and what its benefits are, let’s discuss it further, keeping in mind the interconnection of nutrition, sleep, and exercise.
NUTRITION—WHAT TO EAT?
- Half with fruits and vegetables
- Over one quarter with grains
- Under one quarter with protein foods
- Dairy on the side
This sure does sound a bit complex to imagine, but no worries; let’s make it simpler.
FRUITS AND VEGETABLES:
- At least 2 servings of fruit.
- 1 serving of fruit is equivalent to 1 medium-sized apple.
- At least 3 servings of vegetables
- Each serving is a bowl (250-300 ml) of raw vegetables or half a bowl of cooked vegetables.
GRAINS:
- The normal requirement for grains is 4-8 bowls.
- Each bowl is equivalent to 250-300 ml.
MEAT AND EGGS:
- 5 – 8 taels of meat, fish, and eggs should be a part of the plate.
- 1 teal of meat is equivalent to 1 egg or 3-4 slices of cooked meat.
DAIRY AND MILK:
- The normal requirement for milk and its products is 1-2 servings.
- 1 serving is equivalent to 1 cup of milk (low fat) or 3-4 low-fat slices of cheese.
- Fats, oils, and sugars should be minimal.
FLUIDS:
- 6-8 glasses of fluid are mandatory per day.
FOODS TO AVOID:
We all crave those afternoon snacks and the fried chips and potatoes, but little do we know they affect us in the long run. You should avoid fats, processed foods, refined grains, alcohol, and added sugar and salt.
Better safe than sorry!
SLEEP—HOW MUCH DO I NEED?
To this I would say, Sleep is brain food. A chef’s kiss sleep is all you need daily to be the chef of your favourite delights. Sleepless nights, with long hours of meaningless scrolling, are never ideal for a number of reasons. Have you faced such a problem of doomscrolling before? Let’s discuss the ideal hours and benefits with a touch of routines to make your sleep better.
Baggy eyes and dark circles are somewhat trending issues nowadays thanks to the same doomscrolling at night. Now you know the drill; act upon it.
Research suggests an adult needs at least 7 hours of sleep daily. A vital addition to this is the inevitable sentence by our parents about sleeping early. They were right after all, a grave realisation we had as adults.
Sleeping the ideal amount of hours is important for a lot of reasons:
Health problems and diseases: Adequate sleep lowers the chances of severe diseases such as heart attack and stroke.
Mood fixation: 7 hours of sleep instantly fixes our mood, and the day becomes a lot better with more energy and concentration.
Stress reduction: Sleep improves and alleviates the stress that we face in our daily adult lives. An unpaid therapist, in other words. What else do we need?
Decision-making: Good sleep helps make better decisions overall with more clarity and thought behind them.
Social interactions: Sleep improves our social interactions more, and we are confident about the way our face glows with energy.
Better skin: All of this ultimately makes our skin glow, and there appears to be a direct link with fresher, less fatigued skin. A natural night cream in all sorts.
HOW TO SLEEP BETTER?
Good sleep nowadays is as rare as it gets because of certain unwanted routines we have imposed on ourselves. Don’t forget, sleep is the only time our body gets to rejuvenate and replenish the lost minerals and cells throughout the day.
Here’s a quick fix to a few of those that we can utilise immediately.
- Reduce blue light exposure before sleep by putting phones and electronic devices away and spending time with yourself before you sleep.
- Exercise regularly to accustom your body to the regular rhythms and cycles.
- Reduce caffeine intake before you sleep and have less of it throughout the day.
- Reduce irregular naps during the daytime and focus on your hobbies instead of that.
- A comfortable bed and a comfortable position to sleep should be your top priority.
Implementing these little packets of change can help you sleep a lot better and take care of your sleep schedule.
EXERCISE—THE NEED OF THE HOUR
Nothing is more beautiful than a good workout and the feelings accompanying it. As we already mentioned, a sound body is a sound mind; hence a good workout schedule is a lot more beneficial than we think. Some of the ways we benefit from exercise are
Exercise improves our mood and helps release serotonin and dopamine, commonly known as happy hormones. It is as simple and straightforward as it gets.
It also helps reduce weight for our weight-conscious people. It comes with health benefits such as reduced risk of heart attacks due to cholesterol.
And the most important of them all, exercise helps improve skin health and makes it glow even better.
Let’s conclude all of this by linking nutrition and exercise together.
CONCLUSION
Motivation to start from scratch and improve bit by bit daily. Let us know how you will start and what steps will be necessary to help you undertake this responsibility.
