Wellness Behaviors

What can do we do to better our own health, to contribute to our own wellness? We have a choice For starters, we can make sure that we eat well. Our meals should be well-rounded, containing all food groups. A good article on the food groups and how you should include them in your diet can be found here.


Another wellness behavior? We usually can control the amount of sleep we get every night. 8-9 hours of sleep every night is ideal. That length of time gives our nervous system time to replenish from the previous day and our skin cells time to rejuvenate. Growth hormone is released growth hormone is secreted, so lengthy sleep is especially important for children. Each body system is benefitted by good sleep. Thyroid stimulating hormone is also secreted during sleep: So you can see that even though we're 'out of it' during sleep, our bodies have a lot of scheduled maintenance between 9  PM and 6 AM

Is exercise a regular part of your day? Not the exercise you get walking to the office copier or the exercise you get as you walk to the mailbox. That is your lifestyle. But the exercise you get walking the dog, riding your bike, walking briskly on the treadmill, playing tennis. The American Heart Association recommends that you sustain an elevated heart rated for 30 minutes every day.

Other wellness behaviors might be those of getting your yearly physical, keeping up to date on tests (like mammograms or PSA) and periodically checking your blood pressure. Excess drinking should be avoided and decreasing, if not stopping, smoking are other changes in behavior.

Controlling your stress level is important. We're all confronted with stressors; it's how we handle stress that is important. We all know people who aren't bothered by getting caught in traffic. Then again, there's the person, like me, who frets and getting caught in rush hour traffic ruins his whole day. Stress management classes, yoga, tai chi, qui gong, meditation and visual imagery are but a few ways to manage stress.