Live Life Like a Champion
It’s that time of year again -- time for college basketball fans to put their pride on the line and choose who will emerge from the big dance and win the NCAA college basketball championship! While you’re organizing your office brackets and choosing the big winner, you should think about how to organize your own life to optimize your health and wellness. As March Madness takes hold, take a page from the playbooks of those young, fit teams of athletes and work your way to better health and fitness. It’s not just one big step that gets you there, but many small steps along the way to help you claim your victory.
The First Quarter
If you want to make health and wellness a priority in your life, then you need to find a way to deal with stress or you won’t be making it to the Sweet 16! You can’t get rid of stress completely, but you can do small things that can help such as reading a book you enjoy, listening to soothing music, going for a walk in nature, or learning a few deep breathing exercises. Why is learning to de-stress so important? It’s because prolonged stress is bad for your overall health. It can contribute to a variety of health problems, including: Stroke, Heart Disease, Depression, Obesity, Migraines, High Blood Pressure, Ulcers, and Irrital Bowel Syndrome.
Protect your health by managing your stress in a healthy way, but don’t let finding the time to do it add more stress! Even just a few minutes of a relaxing activity at a time can help. If you can carve out 10 minutes, then you’re doing your body good.
The Second Quarter
It’s time to a take a hard look at what you’re eating because your diet is a major contributor to your overall health. You need a varied diet full of fresh fruits and vegetables, lean protein, and whole grains. The less processed something on your plate is, the better for your health it will be. Also, watch how much salt you’re eating. It can be really easy to eat too much salt, and that can lead to high blood pressure and heart disease. Instead of using salt when you cook, use fresh herbs and spices to flavor your food. It’ll help you to move your health into the next bracket! It’s not called the Elite Eight for nothing.
The Third Quarter
To be healthy, you need to find ways to work physical activity into your day. Those college basketball players spend a couple of hours running up and down the court; do you think they take shortcuts to get into that kind of shape? No way! No one is saying you need to have the body of a 20-year-old college student to reap the benefits of exercise, but you may be surprised to find that you don’t need a gym membership to get your groove on. Instead, try to work more physical activity into your day in much simpler ways. If you can’t find a pickup basketball game at lunch, or in the driveway with the kids, bypass the elevator and take the stairs when you’re at work. It will get your blood pumping, exercise your heart and lungs, and work the muscles in your body. In fact, if you can aim at taking 10,000 steps a day then you can make an impact on your overall health and wellness. The Final Four is not for the weak of heart.
The Fourth Quarter
At the end of the day, one of the most important things you can do to contribute to your overall health is to pay attention to your posture. Paying attention to your posture can help you beat a prevalent problem in society today -- back pain. According to the American Chiropractic Association, 80 percent of Americans will experience back pain at some point. It also happens to be the leading cause of disability and missed work in the United States. But you don’t have to be a slave to statistics; if you become proactive about your spinal health with the help of your chiropractor, you may be able to avoid back pain that would otherwise keep you out of the lineup!