A “Healthy” Lifestyle – What do we know?

The one word on everyone’s lips “HEALTH”. What is classed as health (by social media terms) changes on a monthly basis. The fads are cycling through faster than ever now. For those who don’t know where to start, it can be really confronting!

Health is not just the absence or disease or infirmity. To be truely healthy, we’re aiming for complete physical, mental and social well-being. Three domains. Makes it seem so simple!

We all know how challenging maintaining your health can be. Usually we can get two of these domains down pat, but the other slips under the radar. However, each of these domains interact very heavily with each. One being neglected for too long will have a negative impact on the other domains.

Let’s break these down.

Physical Health: Reviews the condition of your body, from both internal and external capacity.

Mental Health: Here we consider your emotional and psychological well-being. Both of these aspects will impact on how we feel, think and act.

Social Health: Your relationships with those around you are extremely important to your health. Your capacity to develop new relationships and maintain current relationships are considered here. We’re not just talking about surface level relationships, but those which are positive and meaningful.

When aiming to improve health, physical is the first everyone seems drawn to. These changes are based around dietary interventions, addition of physical activity (either strength in the gym or cardio-based activities) or as simple as monitoring hydration levels.

There are other aspects that can be adjusted first.

Consider:

• How are you managing your stress levels?
• Do you have strategies to manage your emotions during high-duress times?
• Are the people you’re interacting with on a daily basis impacting positively on your life?

We must start considering our health from all angles to ensure we can make positively, continuing change.