Healthy lifestyle: basic principles and recommendations from doctors


In recent years, more and more people are thinking about how to lead a healthy lifestyle. Some people try to start a new life on Monday, others put it off until January 1, but the target date comes, and life remains the same. Some people lack motivation, others haven’t been able to define a plan for transitioning to new healthy habits. The purpose of this article is to help those who have decided to start leading a healthy lifestyle right now, without looking for excuses and justifications. You will learn about how to start leading a new life and not deviate from this path, we will also consider the advantages of a healthy lifestyle and a rough plan for a consistent transition to it.

Recognize Intrinsic Motivation

As the classic of Russian literature Leo Tolstoy said, “The greatest truths are the simplest.” Sleep 7-8 hours, lead an active lifestyle, do not overeat and do not spend 12 hours a day at work. But in practice, it is difficult to follow the principles of a healthy lifestyle every day.

Even if the advice is written step by step, it is difficult to follow. The person does not fully understand why. This is a lack of intrinsic motivation.


Polina Borisenkova
psychologist-consultant

Internal motivation is many times stronger than external motivation and helps to achieve results. To find it, the psychologist advises performing the “Cartesian coordinates” technique.

Consistently ask yourself questions:

What will I get if I don't? What will I lose if I don't?

What will I get if I do? What will I lose if I do?

There may be several answers to each of them. It will be easier to make a decision when it becomes clear where the most significant arguments - the reasons - lie. In each step, I will clearly show how the coordinates work and what helped form healthy habits.

We look for internal motivation in the answers to all questions. Analyze them together. If any of the points resonates with you most strongly, it will be internal motivation.

What is “men's health”i

What do we mean by the phrase “men's health”? This is a condition of a man’s body in which there are no physical pathologies, dysfunctions of organs and various diseases. A man’s health combines such important factors as:

  • dream;
  • healthy genitourinary system;
  • normal hormonal levels;
  • physical exercise;
  • rational men's nutrition;
  • negative impact of the environment on the male body
  • hardening;
  • physical activity;
  • of course, strong, reliable potency and regular sex.

Now about each factor in more detail.

Form and reinforce habits

The human brain receives and transmits signals every second. A person does not consciously control some of them, and as soon as the brain understands that this is not the first time it has encountered the situation, it forms a habit.

The brain wants to automate and speed up actions to save energy and time. It all depends on the characteristics of a person’s character and the efforts he makes to form habits.

A new habit is formed gradually. There is no need to switch to a healthy lifestyle on all fronts at once. This way you will take on too many responsibilities and the initial mood may quickly burn out due to sudden changes. Make one small change at a time. For example, start drinking a glass of water in the morning. And so on for 21 days. And praise yourself for your success. Then start doing exercises every morning. And so on for 21 days. And again praise yourself.

Polina Borisenkova
psychologist-consultant

Developing good habits is talked about a lot and interestingly during TedTalks.

Google engineer Matt Cutts explains in three minutes how he implemented the “try new things in 30 days” technique.

Entrepreneur Derek Sievers cites Peter Gollwitzer's experiments as an example of why we fail to achieve our goals.

Psychiatrist Judson Brewer explores how to break bad habits.

Why is healthy lifestyle important?

Diseases are getting younger - oncology, pancreatitis, diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, not to mention loss of energy and depression, alcoholism and other addictions... All hospitals are already overcrowded not only with “old ladies”, elderly people who tend to get sick, but also with relatively and not relatively young people girls and men! Even children, which is even more regrettable...

This is bad! Therefore, in current life (time!) you need to delve into it from childhood, what it means to lead a healthy lifestyle, where to start a healthy lifestyle, because then (with age), perhaps in a month, or perhaps in a year or ten years, it will be harder to fight for your good health.

You need to think about health, especially when the products are stuffed with chemicals, the lifestyle of many is immobilized due to sedentary work, and the ecology due to scientific and technological progress leaves much to be desired: everything is polluted, the water is spoiled. But we are what we eat, what we drink and what we breathe! But how to start leading a healthy lifestyle?

We approach a healthy lifestyle system in 6 steps: 1. Sleep 7-8 hours

Every day I fight the urge to sit longer on an article or a book. But there are also new episodes of “VDud” and TV series, meetings with friends who work in the office from 11 to 20.

Melatonin is a sleep hormone that is produced in complete darkness and is needed by the body for healthy functioning. When there is excess light—gadgets are turned on, lights are on the street—the concentration of the hormone drops.

Lack of deep sleep is the second problem of sleep deprivation. According to research, chronic lack of sleep can lead to premature aging and an increase in the concentration of beta-amyloid protein, one of the triggers of Alzheimer's disease.


The Smart Alarm application has 6 options for monitoring sleep phases

I used to sleep from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. and thought I was keeping an 8-hour schedule, until I found out: if you don’t go to bed from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. for a long time, the lack of melatonin will develop into depression.


Sleep analysis motivates you to wake up early

What helped me?

Buy
  • Smart Alarm app, Sleep Timer or tracker - gadgets track sleep phases and wake you up at the right moment
  • blindfold - I don’t have curtains, too much light from the street lamps interferes with sleep
Do it daily
  • put the phone on silent mode after 20.00 - I move urgent matters to early morning, when productivity is higher
  • make dinner light - 3 hours before bedtime I try to eat a vegetable salad or drink a glass of kefir and eat an apple
  • meditate - lying in bed, I scroll through the events of the day in reverse order: from the present moment until waking up
Do it monthly
  • consult a doctor about taking vitamins: for example, I am a vegetarian, so I need vitamin B12
  • plan your meeting and travel schedule in advance - there is nothing wrong with meeting friends late in the evening, the main thing is not to follow the nocturnal lifestyle regularly

Negative influence of the environment on the male body7

The increase in human comfort on earth has led to the fact that life has become simply dangerous! Many cars emit whole clouds of exhaust gases into the atmosphere, and factories only increase the harmful effect. A diet that has already become half artificial - we eat meat made from soy, black caviar from who knows what, there are so many additives and flavors in sausage that the taste of real sausage has already been completely forgotten.

And what are nervous overloads worth! The frantic rhythm of life, speed, excitement, nervous stress, vanity, irritability - all these are our daily companions.

But these satellites destroy men's health. To isolate yourself from the effects of a harmful environment, you need to rest more, go to the forest and nature more often, and grow your own vegetables and berries.

Do exercises in the morning

Walter Michel, the author of the famous “marshmallow” test in the book “Developing Willpower,” advises starting with morning exercises or a run, and not with a full workout.

Exercising and going to the gym are difficult. It’s a pity to waste free time - 1 hour there, 1 hour there, 2 hours there. I found three options for myself - a gym 5 minutes from home, an elliptical trainer and a distance course #Sekta.


To charge you only need a mat, tablet and internet access

I am motivated to exercise every morning by the list of completed tasks in my diary: after sports I feel more energetic. I accomplish more tasks on sports days than when I don't exercise.


I realized that exercise is important in the long term: I want to live longer

What helped me?

Buy
  • subscription to a distance course - #Sekta, Crazy drying, Yoga journal video courses. I chose Sect because access to new training remains for life
  • yoga mat, comfortable sportswear
Do it daily
  • breathing exercises or meditation - calms. I do breathing exercises according to Strelnikova (11 exercises in the public domain) or meditation according to the free audio course “Buddha in the City”
  • my favorite routine: if I don’t have time to exercise, I try to do the “Five Tibetan Pearls” - five exercises that stop the aging process
  • Ab plank - increase the time from 15 seconds to the maximum possible
Do it monthly
  • try new types of workouts: never went to yoga - sign up for a class, haven’t thought about going to Zumba - you know what to do
  • follow the rule - 1-2 workouts per week is better than nothing

Get enough sleep

Entire industries have been built on selling products to those who lack energy. You can buy vitamins, supplements and energy drinks, special gadgets and inspiring books. Or you can just get enough sleep.

If you regularly sleep six hours or less, you will naturally lack energy. Most people need How Much Sleep Do We Really Need? 7–9 hours of night rest. When you start getting enough sleep, many problems related to your health and vigor can be solved. To do this, try changing your morning and evening routine.

Learn to get enough sleep

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