If you are a health care professional, you likely have a demanding schedule. The industry is fast-paced, stressful and usually requires working long days. The emotional issues you deal with each day can cause mental fatigue. You may be helping patients who are faced with life-limiting illnesses or recovering from a medical crisis. These factors all combine to make it more difficult for those in the health care profession to lead a healthy life.
There are, however, some minor changes you can gradually make that can help you take better care of you in 2014.
5 Healthy Lifestyle Habits to Adopt
- Slowly replace bad food choices with healthier ones. If you try to gradually adopt a better diet you will be more likely to stick with it than if you give up all of your favorite indulgences at once.
- Try to get some form of exercise almost every day of the week. Your goal should be to work up to 30 minutes of daily exercise. You can break it up in to 10 or 15 minute chunks to make it easier and still receive the same health benefits. For example, try walking the halls for 15 minutes mid-morning and marching in place while you are on the phone for another 15 minutes in the afternoon.
- Find an outlet to manage stress. You could try morning meditation or 10 minutes of yoga before work. If you find a healthy outlet for the stress you deal with each day you may be less tempted to reach for a donut or other unhealthy snack.
- Make time for your yearly physical and age-appropriate health screenings. That includes the flu shot. Mark it on your calendar at the start of each year and make it a priority. It is much easier for your physician to help you manage your blood pressure when it first starts to creep up than when you reach the hypertension category. The same applies to treating nearly every other type of illness.
- Learn how to say “no.” For people working in the caring professions it might be really tough to do. But setting limits and sticking with them is one of the best ways to stay healthy in the long run.
Have you found a way to take better care of you this year?
We’d love to hear it in the Comments below!
This entry was posted in Assisted Living and tagged exercise, healthy, lifestyle, Senior Care, senior living. Bookmark the permalink.
Author: Ann Jamison
Ann Jamison is an experienced senior advisor who has successfully worked with hundreds of families to help them find the best care and home-like environment for themselves or their loved ones. Prior to launching Senior Living Options, Ann was an eldercare advisor for a national placement agency and served as sales director at a senior living community. Thanks to her 25-year career in advertising sales and marketing, Ann is able to discern between hype and reality for her clients. Ann recognizes that there are objective factors that need to be weighed when making a life-changing decision, but she can also assess the important softer attributes by getting to know her clients and by using the gut instincts that can only come through extended experience.
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