Healthy lifestyles, what are those you may ask? Well, good news it may be scarce, but it’s never too late to get on board. In fact, it’s something all of us should be aiming for every day in order to feel, look and be as well as we can be.  The goal should always be to incorporate as many health-supporting habits as possible in order to ensure prevention rather than having to find a cure.

Healthy lifestyles start in the kitchen

– Put sugar on hold “forever”

Simply put, sugar is as toxic as poison to the body, it undermines all the bodies natural processes and raises the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s. Sugar is the no.1 cause of inflammation in the body and as such should be avoided at all costs. The challenge is finding foods that exclude sugar, mainly because it’s a key ingredient in just about every processed food imaginable.

It is important to note that it will take time perseverance to wean yourself off the sweet stuff and take the edge off cravings. Sadly it bears mentioning that artificial sweeteners are not the solution either as they still spike your blood sugar levels.

** Handy hint

Try taking a supplement called glutamine, 1,000 mg every four to six hours, It’s a benign amino acid that tricks your body into thinking it’s getting sugar, aka glucose, making it super effective at taming the sugar monsters when they call.

– Keep it real

Healthy lifestyles include whole foods, as in that which grows in the ground, goes bad if not refrigerated, or has a limited shelf life—so, yes, not those foods which are so man-made that they do not perish. Instead of worrying about food labels and all the unpronounceable ingredients on them, rather choose fresh and organic produce. Make your own soups and sauces, so that you can control the ingredients and avoid any packaged foods.

What can you do at home?

– Keep moving

Modern life and office jobs make for a sedentary lifestyle, making exercise a vital part of a healthy lifestyle. If you’re a beginner, why not hit the gym, or even better hit the great outdoors and start by walking at lunchtime or after dinner. At the office, commit to moving five minutes out of every hour, be it a lap around the office, a bathroom break or even fetching your favourite drink of choice.

– Relax a little

One of the best ways to reduce stress and anxiety and improve mood is with deep breathing or mindfulness. The rhythmic, conscious breathing of air in and tension out triggers a relaxation cycle in the body, changing the way you react to stress, downshifting the old fight-or-flight response.

Try relaxing with your favourite mellow music is an easy and accessible alternative. Soothing music slows down our internal rhythms and stimulates the parasympathetic system, your body’s built-in calming mechanism.

– Sleep a little longer

Sleep is not overrated in fact studies now show that it is more important than ever before. Many of us seem to have virtually forgotten how to sleep well—and that’s bad news for your health. Well, it’s time to relearn and reimplement what was once the norm, in other words, a minimum of eight hours of sleep per day. Granted, it’s hard to imagine going to bed and getting up at the same time every weekday, but for healthy lifestyles, this is a must. As a result, your body will learn to start producing melatonin at around 11 p.m. to make you sleepy, and at around 6 a.m. it will start pumping serotonin and cortisol, the wake-up hormones. Suddenly you will feel more energetic and falling asleep and waking up will be much less of an effort.

** Handy Hint

If you struggle to sleep and need a healthy assist rather than a pharmaceutical one, try some magnesium before bed to help you drift off.