It is human nature to put the best foot forward to be successful and achieve what we have planned for ourselves and set as our tasks. We want to do everything possible to make it happen, no matter what we think or act like. And the best part – we feel very happy and highly motivated and encouraged when we see it happening with positive results.
But in the pursuit of all, almost all of us miss out on a very important aspect of our life – our health. If we see around, more than 90% of the people neglect this important aspect of life and it is especially women who neglect it the most. It is sad, but it is true that what we all say – Health is Wealth, but in actuality, we overlook it, in reality, the most. We have become so busy achieving our targets and goals in life that we only look into our health when we fall sick or when it badly needs attention.
Discovering the secrets of total well being
Although called secrets, these are not actually secrets that we all know about. These are, in reality, lifestyle habits that we might have dropped some in between or have neglected midway. With the advancement in medical science and many breakthrough discoveries, almost all major diseases have been bought under control and perhaps many have been eradicated from the face of this planet. But, our modern-day lifestyle has become the biggest health challenge for us. A sedentary lifestyle, high levels of stress, unhealthy eating and other lifestyle habits have propagated modern-day diseases like heart ailments, stroke, obesity, hypertension, diabetes and many others. Women in particular face the biggest challenge as they not only get neglected, they neglect themselves as a mother by themselves also.
In this article, an effort has been made on the occasion of Mother’s Day to make people and mothers aware of the simple yet very effective secrets that we do know but hardly care to adopt in our daily lifestyle and live a life full of good health, happiness and wellness.
Mothers of today need to be more wary of these secrets as the challenge is bigger for them. They have a more vivid and wider role to play in modern society – a mother, a wife, a housemaker, a businesswoman, a colleague, a worker and whatnot.
Mother’s Day gives all of us a chance to salute the eternal blessing of nature to mankind – motherhood. To all the mothers around the globe, we feel proud of you all.
Let’s look into these secrets one by one:
- Always try to maintain a healthy body weight
Managing weight is one of the most crucial aspects of total wellbeing and mothers need to be more careful with the same. Being heavy or overweight can just be the start of a magnitude of health problems like diabetes, hypertension, heart problems, strokes, cancers and much more. More to it, maintaining a healthy weight ratio ensures that you never have issues with health problems like asthma and osteoporosis (more common in ageing women). And, for all of it, you need to have a healthy balanced diet and regular physical activities or exercises. A diet that is enriched with the goodness of all five core and essential food groups – proteins, carbohydrates, healthy fats, fibres and vitamins and minerals.
- Eat the food that you love
When we say eating well, it actually means eating what we love, what we enjoy eating. But, the secret here that needs to be discovered and understood is eating in moderation, because eating is good but eating excessively can actually make you feel terrible, even if it is your favourite food/s. Mothers, in particular, have to ensure that you eat the food that you like. The best way to moderate the intake of food is to focus on the food that you enjoy eating and eat at least three square meals in a day. Eating nutrient-dense food makes you feel good. This way you will enjoy your food more and stay away from overeating.
- Always stay physically active
We don’t realize that physical activity is as important in keeping our brains healthy as it is for our bodies. Physical activities increase the protein, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF that helps promote the health of our nerve cells in areas of the brain that is linked to memory, learning and higher levels of thinking. Mothers in general avoid this as they are so involved with their babies and other chores.
Researchers say that people who are obese or overweight can still add years to their life by doing regular exercises. It does not matter how busy or how heavy you are. If you want to live healthy and live longer, you need to devote time daily towards some sort of physical activity.
- Sleep and rest well
It is important to work and so is equally important to rest and sleep. It is during sleep our body gets all the time to repair, maintain and recapitulate itself. It is important that we give all these valuable seven to eight hours to our bodies every day. When we get good and proper sleep and rest, we feel more energetic and rejuvenated. Our working and thinking abilities are highly enhanced and we become more productive.
Mothers find it difficult to rest and sleep. It is always beret that they sleep with their baby. This might sound a little awful but if you do not do so, you will never get the amount of sleep your body needs.
- Manage stress
Stress is today’s most dangerous and silent killer. It destroys us mentally as well as physically and we don’t even notice or realize the damage it can cause to our overall wellbeing. However, saying so, in the modern day lifestyle, stress is almost inevitable to be avoided, we must adapt to techniques to release and manage it. Yoga and meditation are perhaps the most effective ways out of stress, but simple adoptions like listening to music, reading books or even playing with kids and socializing are good stress management techniques that we all should imply in our lives.
Managing stress for mothers is all the more important as it can impact the growth and development of the baby in a great way. Learning how to manage stress is an art that we all as humans should master.
In short, we all must learn to – eat well, move more, stress less, and love more. It is a simple yet very effective secret that unfolded for a happy and healthy life.
The article is authored by famous Dietitian Sheela Seharawat. She is the founder and chief mentor of Diet Clinic Health Care Pvt. Ltd. Also, she is one of the youngest successful entrepreneurs of India.
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