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Improving your mental and physical health

If you want to do more to improve your quality of living, then here are some pieces of advice.

The majority of us don’t do enough to look after our minds or our bodies, so don’t take this article as a personal attack. The point is that you could always be doing more to improve your mental and physical health even if you tell yourself that you’re just “far too busy” to go for a run or prepare healthier meals. There shouldn’t be any excuses when it comes to keeping yourself physically and mentally fit because nothing comes above your health.

If you want to do more to improve your quality of living, then here are some pieces of advice.

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Exercise well.

The best way in which you can improve both your mental and physical health in one go is to exercise well. You don’t have to be a hardcore athlete but you should be regularly keeping your body active; some form of daily exercise is all it takes to keep your mind alert and happy as well as your weight consistently healthy and your heart happy. If you’re not sure what form of exercise would work for you in your hectic lifestyle or you’re just not much of a “working out” kind of person then you might want to approach physical activity in a different way. Perhaps you could take up a sport to turn exercise into a fun and sociable activity; you won’t even be thinking about the physical part of it all. Alternatively, you could turn that walk through your local valley into a light jog to burn off some calories.

Nonetheless, muscle mass and tone are still things you should strive for even if you’re not a “gym nut”. It’s all about keeping your body strong and healthy, at the end of the day. And, as we’ve discussed before, strength training routines such as weightlifting are a great way to boost an existing exercise routine. If you have been struggling to get the results you want then you could look into medical options to help your progress. Of course, if you’re not keen on boosters such as legal steroids then you could check out http://aretheyonsteroids.com/steroid-alternatives/ for some alternative options that will help you to bulk up. The important thing to remember if you’re aiming for muscular gains is that exercise and strength training workouts aren’t something that can be totally replaced by pills or protein shakes. There’s no “cutting corners” or hacking your way to a healthier body; you still need to put in the work and hard graft.

Eat well.

Your diet also has a huge effect on your mental state. Obviously, you already know that the things you eat affect your physical state; eat too much of the wrong thing and you’ll become overweight. Eat too little of anything and you’ll become underweight. It’s all about finding that right balance so that you can maintain a consistently healthy weight.

Eating fruit and vegetables is always the way to go if you want to get the iron (peas and broccoli), potassium (bananas), and low-calorie food (cucumbers) your body needs. Still, it’s about the effect this all has on your brain too. Your gut bacteria really does control the way you think. Eat too much junk food and you’ll start to become sluggish and slow in your thought processes. Eat well and you’ll find yourself more alert and able to concentrate.

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Meditate.

Meditation is about much more than sitting still with your eyes closed. As explained over at https://www.livescience.com, it’s all about healing mental wounds. You become your own personal doctor, in a sense, and focus on stitching up the parts of your brain that are overwhelmed by stress or anxiety. It’s a skill on which you have to gradually work but you’ll get there.

You just need to learn to focus on your body and listen to what it’s telling you in the present moment; it’s about shifting your thoughts away from worries and anxiety and focusing on simpler things, such as your breathing or the way your body feels in that moment. Essentially, you need to learn to switch off from the noise of the world now and again.

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No more unhealthy habits.

Finally, you should cut out on unhealthy habits such as smoking and drinking too much. These unhealthy habits can lead to lung cancer and liver damage, respectively, but you’ve likely already heard about the physical effects before. What people don’t always talk about is the effect on your mental state. In the short term, we associate drugs such as cigarettes and alcohol with an improved mental state but this short-term “high” doesn’t last. As explained over at https://psychcentral.com, excessive drinking can increase stress and depression, whereas excessive smoking can increase tension and anxiety. Ironically, in the long-run, both drugs achieve the opposite to the desired effect on your mental health. You’ll not only live longer if you stop these habits but you’ll have a healthier and happier mind.

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Your "not that regular" all-around gal, writing about anything, thus everything. "There's always more to discover... thus write about," she says in between - GASP! - puffs. And so that's what she does, exactly. Write, of course; not (just) puff.

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