Looking After Your Health: Healthy You, Happy You

Balancing work, life, and play is hard work. Keeping up with your career, looking after your family and making social plans can be draining. And while trying to balance everyone else’s wellbeing with everything else, you may put your own wellbeing on the back burner.

Looking after your own health should always be your number one priority as this will allow you to better take care of others.

1. Looking after your mental wellbeing

In recent years, discussions about mental health and the stigma surrounding it have become more prominent. With buzzwords like self-care, burnout and adrenal fatigue popping up, people are trying to find ways to look after themselves mentally.

2. Managing your stress and avoiding burnout

Juggling everything in your life can be demanding and will most probably result in you feeling stressed out. Figuring out healthy coping mechanisms could help you deal with stressors in your life and mitigate the risk of burnout.

3. Getting enough restful sleep

When you’re trying to get everything done, you may feel that you can get away with less sleep. Although the amount of sleep differs from person to person, not getting enough restful sleep may impact your physical wellbeing.

4. Drink less alcohol or not at all

Reducing the intake of alcohol means less sugar content, safety and overall happiness.

5. Making time for yourself

Ah, yes, self-care. In a nutshell, self-care is taking the time to pay attention to yourself and your needs. This could happen in many ways but think of it as investing in some time and introspection to consider what you need to be at your best.

Looking after your physical health

Physical health is more than just following a healthy diet and exercising regularly. It also includes preventative health activities like screening tests and general check-ups to detect illnesses at an early stage when treatments are likely to work best. This also includes taking action and making healthy lifestyle choices based on the outcome of these screenings.

Regular check-ups and screenings should include:

• Annual pap smears and/ or HPV tests - to screen for ovarian cancer cells
• Mammograms - to screen for breast cancer
• Speaking to your healthcare professional if any medication you are taking causes side-effects that impact your wellbeing - especially when taking contraceptives or SSRIs
• Getting your flu shot annually
• Checking your blood pressure regularly
• Checking your blood glucose regularly
• Checking your cholesterol levels regularly

Knowing your health numbers will give you a holistic view of your physical health, and also give some indicators on where you can improve with diet or exercise.

You are what you eat

With so many diets doing the rounds, many people find themselves blindly following fads. We always recommend seeing a dietician if you plan to make any drastic dietary changes. Whether you’re banting, or trying to eat keto, or even going vegetarian, you need to make sure you$B!Gre still getting all the nutrients your body needs - as you would when following a balanced diet with moderate portion sizes.

Paired with eating well, you also need to do regular exercise - and not just cardio. You may also want to bring in some resistance or weight training to keep your bones and muscles in tip-top shape.

Healthy you, happy you.

Getting into the routine of regular screenings and check-ups will help you understand your health and body better. It will help you notice if anything seems off-kilter with your physical or mental wellbeing and you can seek out medical advice or care sooner instead of putting it off.