Mums good health guide
As a busy mums it is even more important that we should eat well, sleep well, take regular exercise and not worry. Of course that is sometimes easier said than done! If you are looking for some simple guide to good health for yourself and your family, then what you need is some common sense. You need to eat well, sleep well, take regular exercise and stop worrying. It sounds simple enough, but many people struggle. Here are some tips to help
Sleep
Sleep is a necessary part of every day and we should make it regular and take as much as we need. Sleep is a time to “recharge the batteries.” If we suffer from a chronic shortage of sleep, then we may lack energy and be irritable. Certainly we are not as efficient.
If we find difficulty in sleeping then we should look for the cause. The way to good health is not through a bottle of sleeping tablets.
Exercise
We should exercise to become fit. But fit for what? Exercise leads to strength, stamina, coordination, flexibility and gives us a sense of well-being. To develop healthy hearts and lungs and reduce the risk of having a heart attack, the exercise needs to be regular and sustained. It’s got to make you sweat. Slow, long-distance exercise is best.
Weight training increases muscle mass, but it does little to improve the efficiency of the heart. Isometric exercises are similar. They build up individual muscles but do not extend the heart.
Exercising only once a week is more dangerous to your heart than taking none at all. Three times a week is the minimum, four or five times is better.
Exercise can also lower the amounts of fats circulating in the blood, especially triglycerides. This brings us to the question of diet. We all eat too much, and we eat the wrong things.
Balanced diet
What we need is a balanced diet containing all the essential food factors.
We need protein to build up or replace our body tissues. Proteins are made up of amino acids and we need a variety of these. A mixture of animal and vegetable proteins gives this.
Carbohydrates are useful as a readily absorbed and quickly available source of energy. If we have too much, we store the excess as fat.
A small amount of fat provides energy and the essential fatty acids. Vitamins act as catalysts or chemicals that enable other chemical reactions to occur. Fiber or bulk allows proper functioning of the bowel.
High levels of fat in the blood is one of the factors leading to coronary artery disease. This blood fat is made up of triglycerides and cholesterol. To keep down the level of triglycerides circulating in the blood stream, we should reduce the amount of sugar and alcohol we consume.
To reduce the level of cholesterol, we should lower the amount of animal fat in the diet. Animal fat is mostly chemically saturated while most fats or oils of vegetable origin are unsaturated. Polyunsaturated fats are those in which the fatty acids of which they are made are almost all unsaturated.
The word poly means many. It appears that if the intake of saturated fats is reduced while the amount of polyunsaturated fats is increased, a greater lowering of cholesterol occurs.
Relaxation
Relax and don’t worry. It probably won’t happen anyway. If you can’t relax, and for most people this is so, then you should learn how to. Relaxation is like any other skill. It can be learned. And like any other skill, to be good at it requires constant practice. Check out “Relaxing bath ideas at home” from Life Tips when you’re planning a special bath to soothe your tensions.
Your guide to good health is the use of that unfortunately rare commodity, common sense – so if you are a very busy mum constantly on the go – take note.
