Keeping yourself fit and healthy is not very challenging. It is simply an opportunity and a drive to act in a way that positively impacts your physical and mental health.
Paying heed to what goes inside you, the environment you live in, and the activities you engage in can be very beneficial in achieving your goals.
Broadly speaking, below are a few things you can do to prevent diseases and stay healthy.
- Eat a healthy diet
The first thing that everyone can pay attention to is the diet they take every day. Your diet plays a vital role in keeping you healthy and preventing disease.
For instance, consuming processed and fatty food leads to obesity, which is in itself a medical condition. But obesity is found to cause thirteen different types of cancers.
On the contrary, eating a balanced and healthy diet such as lentils, fruits, whole grains, vegetables, and beans, can help you avoid getting diseases and keeps you healthy.
- Avoid working in hazardous places
Your workplace can be a place causing you to get diseases and injuries.
According to the BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, one worker died every 111 minutes in 2020. Often these work-related deaths are due to exposure to harmful substances. One of them is asbestos— a naturally occurring fatal substance that scars the outer linings of the lungs, abdomen, and other organs in the body.
Construction workers and armed forces personnel are most vulnerable to asbestos exposure. It causes mesothelioma, which has no cure to date. The life expectancy of mesothelioma patients is between 4 to 18 months.
Because of its deadly nature and no hope of total recovery, mesothelioma patients can demand compensation from their employers. Military and navy veterans can also demand compensation through mesothelioma trust funds claims. But is it wise to wait for mesothelioma diagnosis or any other fatal disease? Of course, not!
If you want to stay fit and avert disease, you have to choose your workplace carefully. Many industries are prone to exposing you to asbestos, including the construction industry, power generation, chemical plants, etc.
You can choose safer workplaces. But even if you have to work in these places, be sure about the health risks and the precautionary measures. If you find the employer slacking in this area, you can even file a legal complaint and save you and countless other workers.
- Avoid smoking
Smoking is injurious to health, no question about that. It shortens your life and impacts the quality of your life.
The cigarette smoke has 7000 chemicals, among which 70 have the cancer-causing potential, including the mouth and lungs cancers. Smoking is risky to both passive and active smokers.
It can cause cancer in people who have never smoked in their lives. For instance, your spouses and kids are also at the risk of getting ill if you smoke near them.
Quitting smoking can be very challenging as tobacco addiction mimics the symptoms of other substance abuse addictions. Therefore, you might need to refer to a professional or talk to a physician to recommend other healthy options.
Apart from that, there are FDA-approved smoking cessation medications available too.
- Get yourself screened regularly
Getting yourself screened means undergoing tests and scans that can unearth the discrepancies in your body functions. The tests alert you about the diseases inside your body.
Often, the changes inside your body do not show symptoms until a later stage when you are not left with many choices. Cancer is a supreme example of such a happening.
But when you undergo regular screening and tests, your doctor can locate the issue well before it materializes into something more serious.
If your doctor suspects the development of disease inside your body, they can recommend additional tests to support or refute their premonitions.
- Maintain your blood pressure
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that 45% of the adults in the US have systolic pressure, often regarded as high blood pressure. By constantly having high blood pressure, you are at the risk of developing heart
diseases and stroke.
A healthy diet including whole grains, fruits, veggies, and dairy products low in saturated fat and cholesterol can help manage your blood pressure to an optimal level. This eating approach is known as the dietary approach to curing hypertension.
There are other ways to address this situation too, and that include:
- Losing extra pounds: The relationship between increased blood pressure and weight is not newly discovered. Overweight people also develop breathing issues. So reducing your weight is one of the most effective steps you can take for blood pressure regulation. By calculations, reducing each kg of weight decreases your blood pressure by 1 millimeter of mercury.
- Reduce sodium intake: Another way to reduce blood pressure is by reducing the excessive sodium intake. Binging on salty snacks is one of the ways of increasing your sodium intake. On the contrary, only tiny sodium is present in natural foods. So, nature has already regulated your sodium intake. But for that, you will have to stick to a natural organic diet. Moreover, you should keep your daily sodium intake to 2,300 milligrams or less for a healthy living.
- Keep your body active
Regular exercise is an undeterred way to stay healthy and prevent diseases.
A thirty-minute exercise or any physical activity session is a must. Religiously adhering to this one routine in your life can bring multiple benefits in keeping your weight in check and lowering your blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
Exercising is good for your skin too.
You can join a gym or walk for thirty minutes every day for physical activity. Exercising increases the feel-good hormones and makes you feel happy and confident about yourself. So, starting your day with a jogging session can bring productivity benefits too.
Conclusion
Disease prevention and keeping yourself healthy is an activity that has multiple components. You have to be cognizant of what is happening inside your body, the food you eat, and your surrounding environment. Surrounding yourself with hazards such as tobacco smoke and working in unhealthy environments cannot bring health benefits to you. Therefore, as much as possible, eat healthy food, undergo regular medical screening, and be sure of the safety standards of your workplace.
I am an Ambitious girl with a special interest in writing and sharing my knowledge. I love to hangout with nature and learn from it. My words will display the power of nature to the best as I love to write about the environment.
