Today we want to share with you four health changes to make as you approach 40. As we get a little bit older, sometimes the small issues become bigger ones. When you start to assess what your lifestyle is actually doing for you, this is when you have to make significant changes to your life. They don’t necessarily have to be massive ones, but they have to help us through to the next part of our lives. For those on the approach to 40, where they say life begins, what are the things we should be looking at?
Get a Health Check
Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash
Having your health checked is such a simple thing, but can provide so many answers. If you don’t have a health care provider, you can take part in Obamacare enrollment online and get a health check. It’s one of the key markers for our overall health. If your lung function and your heart are fine, you know that you’ve got a solid foundation to get healthier. The big problem many people make, upon receiving blood and test results that say they’re fine, is that they decide to have a less rigid approach to their health. If anything, as you get older it’s important to be more focused on your health. The health check results will give you the proper results to make sure that you can now build upon these, however good or bad they may be.
Focus on Strength, Not Cardio
As we are on approach to 40, we may think that it’s now time to start running more. But running is a relatively new fad. It only soared in popularity in the 1970s, and before that, there weren’t many runners apart from those who competed professionally. The big problem with running as a way to health is that, as you get older, it can have a devastating impact on your joints. Health is not about how fast or how far you can run to lose calories, but it’s about how strong you are. Strength and muscle are the key biomarkers for long-term health, and while there are so many other things that you need to consider, if you are looking for a fitness routine that gives you more benefits, you have to focus on strength. Strength training has a
Photo by Anastase Maragos on Unsplash
significant amount of benefits, not just for muscle mass and strength, but it can also improve your bone density, which is crucial as you get older. And the great thing about strength training is that you don’t need to go to the gym to do it properly. There are a wide variety of resources online to get you started using your body weight, as well as resistance band training, to help you improve your strength naturally.
Breathe!
One of the great things about getting older is that gradually we start to calm down and gain more perspective. But because life throws curve balls, we can feel ill-prepared for the effects of stress. As we get older and we have to focus more on sleeping better as well as our overall health, we need to recover from stress. Breathing is one of those things that has significant health benefits, not just for reducing stress but in a physiological sense too, as it can reduce our blood pressure and reduce our heart rate. The great thing is that there are a variety of breathing techniques out there that stimulate your autonomic nervous system. Choosing the right breathing technique for you can also yield significant benefits for your lung capacity.
Improve Your Gut Health
Photo by Jakub Kapusnak on Unsplash
A lifetime of being prescribed antibiotics and eating a below-par diet can have detrimental effects on our gut health. As we get older, improving our gut health is a priority. After the age of 40, we are more at risk of developing gastrointestinal problems, such as indigestion and constipation. Having a healthy gut can be about incorporating a couple of extra things into your diet. Fermented and probiotic foods like kimchi can replenish gut bacteria, but also making sure that you have a diet rich in prebiotics, such as onions and garlic, will help. But in addition to this, making sure that you have had a good sleep and maintain regular exercise can help you to a healthier gut.
Don’t underestimate your life choices as you get older. While it’s a lot to do with your health, you need to focus on your happiness as well. For many people, getting older should mean getting happier. And while we can try to make significant changes to our lives, the overriding goals should be about being happier as we progress. We can feel very stressed out about our age, but if we are feeling happier as we get older, we are doing something right.
Read more fashion articles at ClichéMag.com
Images provided by Creative Commons, Flickr, Unsplash, Pexels & Pixabay
