When you think about ways to be healthier, what springs to mind? Changing your diet completely? Joining a gym? Perhaps. And the truth is, doing these things will help you to become a lot healthier. However, the problem is that they are big changes, and putting them into action and sticking with them can be hard to do. Making such big changes, especially if you’ve never tried to be particularly healthy before, can be a shock to the system.
The best thing you can do is to think of everyday tasks that can be good for your health and ensure you do them regularly – every day, ideally, hence the name. These smaller, but still important, jobs, could be doing a lot more than they seem to on the surface. Read on to find out more.
Housework
One everyday task that many people dislike and try to avoid is housework. Whether it’s dusting, vacuuming, tidying, or cleaning the bathroom, it’s not a fun thing to do. However, it is also excellent in terms of your health.
Firstly, you are moving about the house, and even if you don’t feel it at the time, you can add a good number of steps to your daily total in this way. Plus, carrying a vacuum and dusting shelves is another form of exercise. Then, when the place is clean, your mental health will get a boost because you’ll feel more comfortable, more relaxed, and more productive in a clean house. If you can’t do the housework yourself, you can call on experts like Highland Park Housekeeping and still benefit from the positive mental health aspect anyway.
Flossing Your Teeth
It’s highly likely that you brush your teeth twice a day, and that’s excellent. If you’re not doing that, it’s a habit you must get into for your oral health. It also eliminates bad breath, and it helps to prevent gum disease, which can lead to tooth loss and other ailments like heart disease.
On top of this, however, you should also be flossing when you brush. It can feel like an extra burden to do this, especially a night when you’re tired and just want to go to bed or when you’re in a rush in the morning, but flossing has a number of health benefits associated with it. It’s an extra defense against gum disease and the problems that it can cause for one thing, and lack of flossing has even been shown to lead to diabetes.
Playing With Your Pet
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has some good news for pet owners: taking care of an animal can lower a person’s risk of developing high blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides, as well as alleviate loneliness.
Walking your dog is a great way to get some exercise and stay healthy, so it may have additional benefits for dog owners. A study of 2,000 American adults conducted in 2011 and financed by the National Institutes of Health found that dog walkers were more active and less likely to be obese than those who did not frequently walk their dogs or didn’t have a dog to start with.