What does it Mean to Be Healthy? The Answer is Simpler Than you Think.
Every day, we consume more information about what it means to be healthy than we can deal with. Ads and social media tell us that health comes from buying the next quick-fix product or trying the next fad diet. And while those diet and fitness products are a $4 billion industry, the news tells us we are unhealthier than ever before.
In this environment, it is no surprise that something as simple as health can feel complicated and totally out of reach.
But I’m here to tell you that being healthy doesn’t have to be complicated or even hard. The answer to “what does it mean to be healthy?” is simply feeling good in your body and mind.
Health Means Feeling Good
The most important sign of being healthy is that you feel good as you go through your daily life. I like this definition because it is simple enough to remember and because it includes all aspects of your life.
Health isn’t just about numbers on a scale or what you look like. True health includes the food you eat, the activities you spend your time doing, the social environment you live in, and the way you interact with your emotions.
How healthy you are is tied to how well you function in all areas of your life. If you can cope with physical and mental threats (such as stress and disease) effectively, then you can likely consider yourself healthy.
7 Key Components of Health
When it comes to feeling good and being healthy, there are a few best practices that everyone should keep in mind.
1. Eat a Nutritious (and Delicious!) Diet
You don’t need to be an obsessive calorie-counter to be healthy. Instead, you should simply do your best to eat a diet that is full of nutritious, unprocessed foods that you actually like.
The CDC recommends eating a diet that includes…
- Vegetables (try to buy organic, if you can)
- Fruits (try to buy organic, if you can)
- Whole grains
- Lean sources of protein such as poultry, fish, beans, and nuts
- Minimal dairy
- Minimal trans fats, sodium, and added sugar (which means you should avoid overly processed foods)
The key to maintaining a healthy diet is to find ways to get your daily servings of healthy foods in meals that are as delicious as they are nutritious. Health doesn’t have to look like eating unseasoned chicken breasts and steamed vegetables! Experiment with trying new dishes that incorporate lots of vegetables, healthy fats, and protein. Asian food is a great place to start to get inspired to eat a more balanced diet, as it is naturally vegetable-focused, high in fiber, and low in saturated fat.
2. Drink Plenty of Water
Getting enough water is key to feeling good. Water makes up 60% of your body, after all! Generally, men should consume about 15.5 cups (3.7 liters) of fluid a day, and women should consume about 11.5 cups (or 2.7 liters).
How much water you need to drink to stay hydrated depends on your exercise routine, environment, and underlying health conditions. You may need to drink more if you live in a hot or humid client or do physical activity that causes you to sweat, for example.
The easiest rule of thumb is to reach for a glass of water whenever you feel thirsty. It’s as simple as that!
3. Exercise Regularly
Experts recommend that you get 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of intense exercise a week (or some combination of the two). This is easier to achieve than you think, especially when you consider that experts also recommend spreading physical activity out the week.
To get 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, focus on spending about 20 minutes a day doing an activity that elevates your heart rate. This could look like going for a brisk walk or hike, dancing, swimming, or even doing chores like sweeping or mowing the lawn!
4. Maintain a Healthy Weight
It is not breaking news that obesity is one of the biggest health problems our society faces today. This has become even more true during the COVID-19 pandemic, as those who are obese are among the most affected by the virus. Excess weight can also increase your risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, arthritis, depression and anxiety, and even certain cancers.
Everyone has a unique healthy weight range, which is typically determined by your body-mass index (BMI). The chart below is also a good place to start to assess if you are within a healthy weight range for your height.
5. Get Enough Sleep
More and more research shows that getting enough high-quality sleep may be just as important to our overall health as what we do during our waking hours. While you sleep, your body is busy at work healing, growing, and digesting, and your brain processes the day’s events. Getting enough sleep can help us stay mentally and physically healthy (not getting enough sleep has been linked to a higher risk for obesity, for example!) and improve our overall quality of life.
Adults should aim to get 7–8 hours of uninterrupted sleep a day.
6. Manage Stress & Emotions Effectively
The importance of mental health can’t be ignored when it comes to answering the question “what does healthy mean?” You can appear to be in peak physical condition, but if you’re constantly stressed, sad, anxious, or swinging from one emotion to the next, you likely aren’t truly healthy.
The goal isn’t to feel happy all the time — which is unrealistic and unhealthy in its own way. Instead, you should be able to manage difficult emotions when they come up in a way that allows you to process them and move on.
Mental health conditions like depression have also been linked to physical health challenges like heart disease. So treat your mental health with equal importance as your physical health to truly feel your best.
7. Indulge in Moderation
Health is about balance. Beating yourself up for eating a “cheat meal” isn’t going to help you achieve better health or an improved sense of well-being.
Instead, enjoy things like sugar and alcohol in moderation — and pay attention to how you feel when you do. For example, eating a slice of birthday cake a few times a year likely makes you feel happy. (Food, and sugar, in particular, can have a powerful effect on your mood.) But eating a slice of cake every single day will likely leave you feeling physically sluggish and slowed down.
If you can apply this idea to all areas of your life — food, exercise, social interactions, media, etc. — you’ll be able to stay on track with a healthy lifestyle.
Baseline Health Assessment
The key areas of healthy living we just discussed should be enough to help you begin to understand how healthy you are. In addition to assessing how well your habits and lifestyle align with those factors, you can also use the activities and metrics below to understand how healthy you are.
Note: This is meant to serve as an at-home health assessment, and is not meant to identify any underlying health conditions or diseases. It is always a good idea to work with a doctor to understand your overall level of health!
BMI
Use a BMI calculator to understand if your BMI falls within healthy levels. Adults should aim to have a BMI from 18.5 to 24.9. If it is lower than 18.5, you are likely underweight. If it is over 24.9, you are likely overweight, and if your BMI is above 30, you are likely obese.
Resting Heart Rate
Understanding your resting heart rate is key to understanding your overall level of fitness. The average resting heart rate is between 60 to 100 beats per minute (BPM), the more fit you are, the lower your resting heart rate will be.
To measure your resting heart rate, find your pulse and count the beats you feel for one minute. The easiest place to do this is typically on the inside of your wrist. Do this first thing in the morning or before bed to get the most accurate idea of your resting heart rate.
Blood Sugar
Monitoring blood sugar levels is not just for people with diabetes. High blood sugar levels can result in health complications like nerve damage, kidney damage, and even stroke.
Most adults should aim to have blood sugar levels between 70 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) and 140 mg/dL. Using a glucometer is the best way to get an accurate reading of your blood sugar.
If you don’t have a glucometer, you can also pay attention to the symptoms below.
Signs of high blood sugar:
- Fatigue
- Extreme thirst
- Dry mouth
- Shortness of breath
- Frequent urination
- Nausea
Signs of low blood sugar:
- Dizziness
- Weakness
- Confusion
- Shaking
- Difficulty speaking
Blood Pressure
High blood pressure is linked to a huge range of health issues, including the risk of stroke, heart attack, and COVID-19 complications. It is recommended to check your blood pressure at least every six months by going to the doctor or using a self-test machine like those found in most pharmacies. Healthy blood pressure levels for most adults are anything at or below 120/80.
If your blood pressure level is higher than 180/120, contact your doctor immediately.
Flexibility
To get a good understanding of your overall levels of fitness and mobility, give yourself an at-home stretch test. Though there is not a lot of research into how flexible you should expect to be, you can try a stretch test to get an overall sense of where your body may be experiencing limited motion. This one from Shape and this one from CNN are a good place to start.
Tongue Condition
Though not common in western medicine, in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM for short) the appearance of your tongue is a key tool for assessing your health. TCM practitioners will examine the overall shape, color, and texture of your tongue body to understand things like your circulation, digestive health, and if you may be catching a virus.
You can use this guide to get started with an at-home assessment of your tongue. You can also find a TCM practitioner to give you a more in-depth understanding of what your tongue may be telling you about your overall health.
Time Map
Use a time map to keep track of how you feel going through your daily activities. This can help you get a picture of if you have enough energy to make it through everything you need to and open your eyes to bad habits.
You can learn more about how to pay attention to how your daily life makes you feel, and what to do about it in my book, Life Hacks: Simple Steps to Living a Healthier Life.
Final Thoughts
Health doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be expensive or involve super-complicated diets and routines.
The path to being healthy is as simple as paying attention to what makes your body and your mind feel at their best — and prioritizing those activities, foods, and people. If you’d like to join me in making health and wellness easy, follow @WellnessMadeEasy on Medium for more simple tips and tricks.
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