You should also avoid eating standing up or on the go; instead, try to eat your food ‘mindfully’. In relation to this, Ken suggests always eating your meals at a table, rather than in front of a screen, which can help you begin to gain a better understanding of how different foods make you feel. Slashing salt, watching your weight, regular exercise and not smoking aren’t the only ways to keep your heart healthy. Step forward bananas, potatoes and sweet potatoes, pulses, yogurt and milk. College life can become a challenging experience if you don’t focus on a healthy lifestyle.
If you’ve become over reliant on coffee to get through the day – and have the headaches and jitters to prove it – try brewed cacao in the afternoon. It’s ‘coffee’ but made with cacao beans instead of coffee beans. Enjoying a wider variety of plants to feed your gut microbes is a simple science-backed way to improve your health. Mindfulness – noticing your thoughts, feelings, emotions and bodily sensations – is proven to deal with stress and anxiety, and is even recommended by NICE as a way of helping to prevent depression. Try embroidery, which ticks all the mindfulness boxes because you must slow down and focus on the task in hand. For a new project, try DMC The Mindful Mandala Embroidery Duo Kit (£20, John Lewis).
If you’re worried about your weight, ask your GP or a dietitian for advice. Adults and children aged 11 and over should eat no more than 6g of salt a day. About three-quarters of the salt you eat is already in the food when you buy it, such as breakfast cereals, soups, breads and sauces. Children under the age of 11 should have less saturated fat than adults, but a low-fat diet is not suitable for children under 5. On average, men should have no more than 30g of saturated fat a day. On average, women should have no more than 20g of saturated fat a day.
Scientific research also shows that your mind is working in its best condition during the day. This means that you might grasp concepts better during the day as your mind is fresh and working in optimal condition. Stress eating is another thing that might affect your fitness. Whenever its exam season or assignment deadlines are near, college students start stressing. To counter this situation, you might join a local gym and start exercising five days a week.
The team at CHP advise that – like treats when eating – alcohol should ideally be treated in the same way… sparingly. Your body finds it much easier to deal with threats such as sickness, injury, or the occasional sugary or fatty snack if you are active. Convenience food, such as microwave ‘ready meals’, often has too much salt and sugar. Good health is not just the absence of disease or illness, it is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. But when you are constantly firefighting, you don’t do anything properly and you feel like a failure. I reached a point when I realised that I was exhausted, grumpy and not fun to be around!
Who says you need expensive equipment to get a better workout? Simply pop a big bottle of water into a rucksack whenever you go out for the day and your body will work harder. Random acts of kindness, from giving a compliment to passing on a book you enjoyed, are proven to make us feel good, says a recent World Happiness Report. “Neurological research has found the area of our brain that is activated in response to things like pleasure, food or sex, lights up when we do kind acts for others,” says Meik Wiking, author of The Key To Happiness. The sudden rush of blood to the head stimulates neurones in the brain, which helps to speed up thinking. Learn how to do it by searching ‘downward dog Yoga with Adriene’ on YouTube.
Invest in a pedometer to make sure you’re hitting your target. If you don’t have close friends or family members to reach out to during this time, find people you can talk to by looking for forums, online help groups, or others who want to connect. There’s no right way to respond to it and no doubt other people are feeling the same way as you. If you really miss your sweet drinks, try sugar-free squash.
Giving your partner a hug doesn’t just warm the heart, it can protect it too. A study by the University of North Carolina in 2005 found that hugging your other half for 20 seconds could lower blood pressure and reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol. High levels of cortisol have been linked to heart disease and other conditions such as diabetes. It sounds bizarre, but beetroot could be a secret weapon against high blood pressure. The condition is a major cause of heart disease and stroke, but many people aren’t aware they have it as it has no symptoms.
If you have numerous issues to discuss with your doctor, don’t book one GP appointment, but a double. This will give you more time to talk through each individual problem with your GP so you don’t feel rushed. Did you know one in ten of us have mistakenly brought fake medical products?
Our body needs enough water to carry out functions like supplying oxygen and nutrients to our body and discharging the wastes . Balance is the key to everything in life, and this is also true with your nutrition. Our free weekly newsletter provides you with inspiration, advice, news, quotations, competitions and exclusive offers.