Lifestyle Medicine for Optimal Health

By Donna Stark

There's cough medicine, heart medicine, and pain relief medicine, but if you want to improve your overall health and wellness for the long haul, you may want to consider taking some lifestyle medicine too. What is lifestyle medicine? Well, it's all of those small, simple changes you can make to your lifestyle that will impact your well-being in big, profound ways. Changes in what you eat, how you exercise, and how you manage stress are just a few examples of what lifestyle medicine means, and if you are really good at taking this type of medicine every day, who knows? You may even be able to stop taking some of the others.

Change Your Medicine

Good health doesn't come easy and truth be told, there is no magic pill that can provide it. More and more research is showing that lifestyle habits and behaviors are more important than what you can find in any bottle. So what do you say? Want to give it a try? Here are some suggestions on how to get started.

• Vegetable intake - It was easy to eat the recommended amount of vegetables every day when you had a mother cooking them for you, but now that you are cooking for yourself, are you following her lead? You need to shoot for five servings a day, and although that may sound like a lot, it's worth it because you can significantly reduce your risk of developing serious medical conditions.
• Daily exercise - You do know that exercise is one of the best anti-aging "products" out there, don't you? Well, if you don't, you are in for a surprise! Daily exercise can help stabilize blood pressure, improve muscle tone, lower cholesterol, and increase bone density, so if you want to add more years to your life, get your exercise in. Thirty minutes a day is all you need!
• Positive thinking - Having a healthy positive attitude is great for your overall wellness as it reduces the risk of depression, stress-related conditions, and cardiovascular issues. It can also help build a healthier immune system, and with cold and flu season getting ready to hit, changing the way you think couldn't happen at a better time.

Living a Long Healthy Life

Stocking up on pills isn't making your life any richer and it certainly isn't making you any healthier. It's just making you become dependent on what you have in your medicine cabinet. So break free and improve your overall health and wellness! By making small changes to your lifestyle, you may be able to stop taking those other medicines and start enjoying a naturally healthy life!

To learn more about your health, wellness, and fitness, see your local chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic in Scottsdale, Ariz.