Your Wellness Checklist
Do you ever have those days when you wish your body came with a manual?
Maybe you’ve felt tired for days, had a sore throat that won’t go away, or a headache that comes and goes as it pleases… And you just can’t quite figure out what you’re doing wrong!
A lot of us live busy lives, and paying enough attention to our health can be a tricky feat. Health however, like all of the things we value, does require attention.
Before you run away thinking “here’s another lecture like that one my doctor gave me 3 weeks ago...“ Just wait. We’re here to make it easier! A clear place to start. As close as you’ll get to a maintenance manual...
How many of these can you tick off?
As Exercise Physiologists we are well aware that exercise is just one piece of the wellness puzzle. We often find ourselves recommending a range of lifestyle changes to yield the best results for people's health. Lucky for all of us, they’re not nearly as complicated as we sometimes think!
Move for 30-minutes every day
Vacuuming, walking the dog, yoga, chasing the kids around, gardening... Whatever it looks like for you. While structured exercise is great, even those activities that you do every day, like housework and gardening, can count towards your activity minutes!
Sleeping at least 7 hours
The national “Sleep Foundation” (yes, that’s how important sleep is!) recommends 7-9 hours per night. We know all too well that sleep quality comes into play as well, but hitting your base hours is a great place to start!
Drink at least 6 glasses of water per day
A bit different from the usual 8 glass recommendations, we’re factoring in water from food here and providing you with the baseline! It just takes a quick investigation into “the effects of dehydration” to know why water intake is so important - you can expect decreased cognitive performance, impaired digestion, decreased skin health and many more!
Eat at least 5 fruit & veggies every day
Even better, try eating as diversely as you can with your plant-based foods. Have you ever heard the saying “eat the rainbow”? This refers to the recommendation to try and include a range of different colours of fruit and vegetables in order to increase the nutritional diversity!
Go outside
This is a super simple one but many of us don’t realise its benefits for health. Spending time outside is a great source of vitamin D and also has proven benefits for stress and mental health.
Technology free time or “you” time
Ideally, both! And ideally, for 60 minutes. . Switching off, literally and mentally, is a good way to reduce stress. Anything that reduces stress should definitely be on the checklist.
What does Wellness mean to you?
When reading this checklist, are there any that stand out to you that you have been neglecting lately? Which of these points didn’t receive the tick? And what changes can you implement to ensure your well-rounded health?
One of our favourite things about working with people is that we are all well and truly unique beings. And different things work for different people! Maybe, you discover you need 10 hours of sleep, maybe meditating daily is the key to keeping your heart rate down, or maybe that handful of nuts at 2.00pm is what keeps you energized through the afternoon.
So we’d like to stress that our checklist is a great foundation, but overtime, developing your own “must-do’s” for feeling your best is the way to go.
Whatever your unique checklist has on it, we know first hand that prioritising these basic wellness to-do’s (ahead of all your other ones!) can go a long way to solving many of those health maintenance issues you’ve been wondering about!
Author: Tessa Neilsen
