The sweat equity of a healthy lifestyle.
You’re making smart investments in your finances to help you achieve your dreams, and now you want to protect and secure that investment.
The same goes for your body.
You want to invest in the best products for you, your health, and your family’s health. You’re working hard and eating right, but you want to ensure that you’re getting the right energy to perform your best work and have some reserves for individual time, however you may choose to spend it.
There is not a one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Many of us feel that it’s a struggle to eat well and stay healthy and fit. Most people are not doing what they need to do to stay healthy.
They’re thinking about health in the wrong way.
An investment in yourself is always worthwhile. In fact, you are more valuable than any real estate property, gem, or limited edition collectible. You raise your own value by taking care of yourself, particularly, by maintaining your health and well-being.
Think about and work toward these 19 ways to invest in your health so you can be healthier and enjoy all the benefits that come with it.
1. Get an Exercise Routine
The World Health Organization warns about how a sedentary lifestyle can hurt your health and shorten your life. Physical inactivity causes increases in a variety of health problems like diabetes, obesity, depression, anxiety, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.
Follow these tips to get more active every day:
- Go for a 30-minute walk or run
- Take stretch breaks often if you sit for long periods of time
- Try out a new exercise routine like cardio or weight training
Do what you can to stay regularly active, and any additional workouts you can integrate into your weekly routine will be supportive.
2. Eat the Right Foods
Your diet is one of the most important factors in your health. It’s not a secret that eating fast food every day will give you abs of steel. Keep your plates colorful with a variety of fruits and vegetables. Strive to have enough nutrients, particularly proteins, vitamins, and minerals, to fuel your day.
Your body needs fuel to run properly, so ensure you give it the nutrients it needs. Eating healthy can help optimize brain function and improve your quality of life.
Here are some ways to nourish your body:
- Increase the number of fruits and vegetables in your diet
- Drink at least three liters of water a day
- Take supplements for any vitamin or mineral deficiencies
3. Get regular checkups
Regular check-ups can help find potential health issues before they become a problem. When you see your doctor regularly, they are able to detect health conditions or diseases early. Early detection gives you the best chance of getting the right treatment quickly, avoiding any complications.
You are taking important steps toward living a longer, healthier life by getting the correct health services, screenings, and treatments.
The benefits of regular check-ups include:
- Reduce your risk of getting sick
- Detect potentially life-threatening health conditions or diseases early
- Increase chances for treatment and cure
- Limit the risk of complications by closely monitoring existing conditions
- Increase lifespan and improve health
- Reduce healthcare costs over time by avoiding costly medical services
- Form a good partnership with the doctor so treatment can be more efficient
- Get updated on new medical information or technologies that are available
4. Reduce your stress
Stress is part of being human, and it can help motivate you to get things done. Even high stress from serious illness, job loss, a death in the family, or a painful life event can be a natural part of life. You may feel down or anxious, and that’s normal too for a while.
In the meantime, there are things you can learn to help you manage stress before it gets to be too much.
These tips may help you keep stress at bay:
- Keep a positive attitude.
- Accept that there are events that you cannot control.
- Be assertive instead of aggressive. Assert your feelings, opinions, or beliefs instead of becoming angry, defensive, or passive.
- Learn to manage your time more effectively.
- Set limits appropriately and say no to requests that would create excessive stress in your life.
- Make time for hobbies and interests.
- Don’t rely on alcohol, drugs, or compulsive behaviors to reduce stress. Drugs and alcohol can stress your body even more.
- Seek out social support. Spend enough time with those you love.
- Seek treatment with a psychologist or other mental health professional trained in stress management or biofeedback techniques to learn more healthy ways of dealing with the stress in your life.
5. Enjoy the outdoors
Spending time outdoors can boost physical and mental health in a range of ways. You don’t have to spend hours at a time outside before those benefits kick in, either. According to a 2019 study that included data from 19,806 participants, spending at least 120 minutes in nature per week can significantly boost health and well-being. You can go for a 2-hour chunk all at once, or break it up into smaller daily segments — the benefits still hold.
Even without any greenery around, spending time in sunlight and fresh air may help you feel better in your mind and body.
You’ll soon realize these benefits of spending time outside:
- Better breathing
- Improved sleep
- Reduced depression symptoms
- More motivation to exercise
- Mental restoration
- Boosted immune function
- Protection from short-sightedness
- Improved emotional well-being
6. Get Some Sleep and Rest
Sleep deprivation is more than just being tired. It comes with many negative health effects for your body and brain, like increased risk of high blood pressure or dementia — it’s even shown to age your brain three to five years from lack of sleep.
Try out these good sleep habits to get your eight hours in:
- Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day
- Use a sound machine to help lull you to sleep
- Create an evening routine that helps you wind down at night without technology
7. Invest in Healthy Financial Habits
Your physical and mental health can be harmed by your financial situation, and your physical health can also hurt your financial situation. Engaging in healthy financial habits will holistically improve your health.
Many people who are having a tough time worry about their finances and have unhealthly coping skills. They resort to abusing substances, unhealthy eating, and other unhealthy behaviors.
This affects their health, and it’s linked to heart disease, obesity, diabetes, accelerated aging, and early death.
There are positive aspects of living a healthy lifestyle that can lead to more financial health. Both are symbiotic in nature and your health and wealth are a balance that you must reach.
Medical Bills Are Expensive
When you have healthy habits and avoid sickness, you’ll be able to save money on medical expenses.
Are all injuries or illnesses preventable? No, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound in medical care. Going to the doctor’s office or a preventable trip to the ED is very expensive.
Even with insurance, some co-pay can range from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars. When you invest in self-care and engage healthy behaviors for yourself and your health, you will get sick less and reduce the cost of your healthcare.
Health Insurance Becomes More Expensive
If you already have health insurance, your premiums can still be costly. Getting treated by a doctor is expensive the best way to keep the insurance cost down is not to get sick or have an episodic event that will increase your treatment and episodic health events.
As more hospital and physician encounters come into play, your co-pay, out-of-pocket costs will compound.
Exercise Is Free
You’ve made a great deal if you pay nothing and get plenty in return. Jogging, yoga, or dancing is free and can improve your physical and mental health. This is why you should do it, to enhance your investment in your self.
You’ll find many free resources for beginners and free workout programs, including on-demand workouts that you can stream on YouTube. Challenge yourself!
Healthy People Can Stay Productive Longer
The more energy you have, the easier it is to earn money. You can keep earning money further and later in life. Most of our income is directly tied to our earning potential and staying healthy will allow more income opportunity over the course of our lifetime.
8. Practice Self-Care
Self-care requires you to pay attention to your well-being and to do things that safeguard it. Practicing self-care entails doing whatever you need to recover, recuperate, or re-energize. Here are some ideas for practicing self-care on a budget.
- Spend time with loved ones
- Make a habit of journaling
- Take a break or a vacation
- Spend time in nature
9. Feed Your Brain
As you age, it’s important to keep your brain active to maintain healthy cognitive functions. Take the time to feed your brain by engaging in new, complex, and challenging activities like the ones listed here
- Learn a new language or skill
- Express yourself in writing
- Practice painting or art
10. Indulge in Life
Do you feel like soaking your feet in a warm, salt-infused bath? Do you feel like spending the weekend binge-watching your favorite TV series? Listen to what your body craves and, every so often, indulge.
This will work wonders for your mood, decrease stress, and improve your mental resiliency. Try to make time for yourself and do something that makes you feel good.
11. Take Digital Breaks
The devices that we use to connect to the internet are designed to tap into the brain’s reward system, triggering the release of tiny hits of dopamine with every notification we receive.
Taking regular time away from screens can boost mental and emotional health, improve sleep, and reduce the physical side effects of constant digital immersion.
12. Use Health-Supportive App
As the relationship between smartphones and humans becomes increasingly symbiotic, we might get some positive side effects from this increasing symbiosis. These side effects might encourage us to behave more positively toward ourselves.
With apps such as Quit Start you get a proven-effective, science-backed approach to helping you stop smoking. It takes a unique look at how your brain thinks, and what happens when it thinks about smoking.
Insight Timer and other apps like it are guided meditations that help with things like getting to sleep, reducing stress, and building confidence.
13. Check Out Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Western medicine has been using costly pharmaceuticals for thousands of years. But over the last decade or so, as healthcare costs continue to soar, conventional medical treatments are becoming much more expensive.
Alternative practitioners such as acupuncturists and chiropractors may be able to cure some of your ailments. Before receiving treatment or taking herbal supplements, talk to a professional who understands how herbs interact with medicine.
Other complementary methods, like Reiki, may also help with pain management and long-term problems like insomnia and depression.
14. Buy the Right Gear
What activities are you into? Does the activity require equipment – ie, biking, skiing, hockey? You need the right equipment for the sport or activity that you’re going to be participating in to make sure that you are able to have the best experience possible.
15. Invest in a Health-Club Membership
Most health club memberships are relatively affordable. It’s a small investment in cost but will yield big dividends in terms of health maintenance.
Health clubs are often well stocked with cardiovascular equipment and strength training gear; some even have pool saunas and other equipment to help you de-stress and get fit.
Alternatively, you can also try a crossfit, yoga, or martial arts class to add spice to your workout and learn some new skills.
16. Consider Screening and Lab Tests
Diet and lifestyle modifications can get you on the road to health for the most common ailments.
However, when you have consistent health ailments or reach a certain age, preventative lab tests and screening can help find treatable conditions before they progress and require more healthcare treatment.
Your doctor can look “under the hood” to see if there are any clues to be found in a regular health screening at certain ages.
Make Connections
The best things in life — love, relationships, leisure, and adventure — may not have a material cost, but bring you health and well-being to your life. these connections to others is the fabric of being human.
Many people enjoy traveling, going out to dinner with friends, and other such experiences. The next time you spend time connecting with friends and loved ones, raise a communal toast to the positive investments you’ve just made in your connections with others.
18. Seek Out a Health or Nutrition Coach
We frequently seek advice from our healthcare providers. However, they often aren’t the best source of actionable insight.
Whether your goal is to improve your diet, learn how to golf, or improve your diet, a coach can help you learn new skills, set goals, and achieve success that you can build on.
19. Get a Pet
There’s strong evidence that owning a dog or cat is linked to a longer life span and a lower rate of cardiovascular disease.
Dogs help support our microbiomes, improve our immunity, make us more healthy, encourage us to exercise, and support our mental health.
There are many benefits to be had from owning dogs, but it’s not just dogs that can benefit humans. Pets are especially helpful when living alone. They’re loyal, and affectionate, and can bring a special companionship that no human friend can offer.
The Health Challenge
There are many at actionable task that you can incorporate into your life for better health. Are you going to invest in at least a few of these recommendations to make the decision to improve your health?
You can make positive changes in your life today. If you are up to the challenge, you will live longer, enjoy life more, and decrease your cost of healthcare over a lifetime.