Sunday 25 March 2012

How to live a healthy life


Today I decided I wanted to write about healthy living. Wellbeing, mental health, physical health, good eating, happiness...which aspect really defines health living? 
To me it encompasses so many different aspects. I’ve been reading a lot recently about things like chemicals, and nutrition, which are two areas that have a LOT of contradictions floating around. For example - is sunscreen bad for you because it’s full of chemicals that soak into your skin? Is it better to be damaged by the sun than wear sunscreen? Or does stopping the sun damage by using sunscreen and in the process getting some chemicals on your skin outweigh the risks of skin cancer caused by the sun? How about the deficits in Vitamin D that are becoming more prevalent as we use sunscreen more often?
How about food? What is the healthiest way -
  • raw (fruit, vegetables, sprouted grains with no dairy or meat)
  • vegan (no animal products, including eggs and honey),
  • alkaline diet (a large focus on specific fruit and vegetables with some grains ok, some not, no animal products or things like sugar, coffee and alcohol),
  • paleo (veg, fruit, eggs, lots of meat, little grains or dairy or processed foods)
….and the list goes on. 
With so many contradicting fads and theories, how does one person claim to live a healthy lifestyle, which can be completely different to someone else also claiming to be living a health lifestyle? For now, the answer eludes me. 
But, for me, living a healthy lifestyle involves these factors:
  • Feeling good physically
  • Feeling good mentally
  • Being kind to other beings, including animals
  • Trying to live as ‘green’ as possible
There are so many different aspects which play into each of these factors, involving physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, creative and financial health, which I will attempt to delve in to in future posts…
How do you define living a healthy lifestyle?
x

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