Your health is your greatest asset and good health far outweighs almost all other considerations. Health allows you to engage in productive activities, at work and at play. It allows you to enjoy the company of your friends and family. And it allows you to live with vigor. Eat healthily. Exercise regularly. And if you drink or have other vices be moderate in their application.

Keeping reasonably fit and eating healthily is important not only to help keep you from wasting huge amounts of time through being tired for much of the day and being regularly sick, but also to keep you alive and capable for longer. Whilst there are no guarantees, and bad luck can happen to anyone, in general people can have an extra ten or twenty years of meaningful and productive life through moderate exercise, having a good diet, and avoiding particular habits such as smoking, lots of alcohol, and frequent dangerous drug use.

Your body is your body. It’s you. You don’t need to look like someone else. Don’t get it artificially altered just because you’d like to look like someone else. And if you do want to go ahead with alterations, be aware that sometimes things go wrong, and often whatever you get done causes significant problems later in life. If you want to look younger then being happy and smiling will be far more effective than artificial alterations of your face or body.

Being healthy as you grow older is a major, possibly the major, contributor to the quality of your life. The best way of being healthy as you get older is to follow good healthcare advice. Don’t pretend you don’t know what it is, you do. And don’t use the excuse that some of it is contradictory. Some of the precise details may be contradictory, but the basics aren’t. Ignore it at the expense of your own health and the quality of your life.

Be aware of the limitations of your body both when exercising and in normal everyday life. In particular be careful about carrying and lifting things. Back problems are common, and are largely self-created

Look after your teeth and gums. It doesn’t take long to ensure you properly clean your teeth in the morning after breakfast, and at night after you’ve finished eating and drinking for the day. Problems due to bad teeth and gums can be very disabilitating later in life, and significantly reduce the joy of life.

If you smoke, give it up. It is a habit that is slowly killing you, lowering your quality of life now and in the future, and is also a waste of money that you could do a lot of other things with.

Regular alcoholic drinking not only loses you the time drinking, but also seriously impairs the rest of the day or much of the day after, and leads to long-term health problems. You can have a good time drinking without getting drunk or having hangovers. Add sparkling water to your wine, keep toping up your gin and tonic with extra tonics, top up your beers with lemonade, drink slower.

Too much stress over a significant period of time can seriously damage your health and your quality of life. Be aware of it, and deal with it. See advice given elsewhere on this site or readily available elsewhere on the internet.

If you have concerns about your own, or your children’s health, seek medical opinion. People have died through not having things checked early enough even though they were worried about them. Catching problems early makes a huge difference to the quality of your life and can literally save your life.

How healthy we feel and are is strongly influenced by our state of mind. If we are negative or stressed our bodies will feel and be less healthy than if we are positive or relaxed. And just as we can often make ourselves feel and actually be physically healthier through positive thinking, negative thinking can be physically doing us damage and contributing to the onset of more serious illnesses.

Your body will react to how your mind perceives it. If you think of yourself as getting old and on an inevitable decline, your body will feel that way. You can’t stop your body aging, but you can slow it down considerably by having a positive mindset.

Learn how certain foods and drinks affect your energy levels, and use this information to optimize your energy levels in support of complex tasks.

Vitamin C helps protect the body from infections and helps the body repair itself. It helps reduce certain types of body stresses that contribute to various cancers, and also helps prevent heart disease. It helps reduce lead toxicity levels which can cause health problems in urban areas and also helps keep the eyes healthy. Our bodies are unable to produce vitamin C for themselves and thus we obtain it through various fruits and vegetables such as blackcurrants, oranges, watermelon, cabbage, lettuce, and peas.

Your brain cells need a good supply of oxygen, and a lack of iron in your diet will reduce your blood’s ability to carry oxygen, leading to poor concentration, a lack of energy and general tiredness. Sources of iron include lean red meat, egg yolks, red kidney beans, lentils, dried apricots, fortified breakfast cereals, broccoli, wholegrain cereals and wholemeal bread.

A small snack if you haven’t eaten for about 3 or 4 hours helps keep your blood sugar level stable: some nuts or a piece of fruit. However you need to manage your overall daily calorie intake.

Coffee or tea is good for boosting your brain performance, in small doses. 2-4 cups a day is fine, but don’t add sugar or cream. Too much coffee or tea leads to a degradation in your performance. Go for the high quality coffees with minimal treatment of the coffee beans.

Eat some fish regularly: salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, tuna. Have it baked, boiled, grilled, or poached. Not fried.

Organic foods are better for your health and for the environment.

Many herbs and spices have health benefits and you should add them, in moderation, to your food if you get the opportunity. Examples of those believed to have benefits include: Rosemary, Thyme, Sage, Mint, Basel, Oregano, Cinnamon, Parsley, Garlic, and Chili Peppers.

Drink enough water each day to maintain a healthy level of hydration – generally a couple of litres though the bigger you are the more you should drink. Note that most drinks contribute to this though you should ensure most of it is water itself. Drink more if you get a lot of exercise or live in a dry climate, or if you are pregnant or breast feeding. Spread your drinking out during the day.

Some foods or ingredients which sap your energy or are harmful to the brain include: Alcohol, Artificial food colorings, Artificial sweeteners, Corn syrup, Frostings, High-sugar “drinks”, Hydrogenated fats, Junk sugars, Nicotine, and White bread. A little occasionally won’t do you any harm, and indeed you can’t avoid some of them in moderation, but they will be bad for you long term if they are a significant part of your diet.

Bad for your brain and bad for your general feeling of well-being is overeating. People who regularly eat too much sugar over a long period of time often become diabetic. They are significantly more at risk of becoming regularly depressed, having problems with their memory and ability to process information, and getting dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

As you get older, particularly past 40, your metabolism slows. This means that if you continue to eat as much as you did when you were younger you will put on weight.

Takeaways and restaurant and café foods generally contain far more fat, salt, and calories than food prepared at home. Be wary of eating a lot of it, and look for options that at least reduce the amount of the fat, salt, and calories you are eating – such as smaller portions, and fewer starters or deserts

Be wary of snacking. There are often a lot of calories in snacks, it can add many hundreds of calories to your daily intake without you noticing. You don’t need to cut it out altogether, but try to cut down on it, try to have less when you do snack, and go for healthier snacks.

Most people underestimate how many calories they consume.

Generally eat less. Stop short of feeling full, irrespective of how much you still have on your plate. A full belly will generally dull your brain in the short term, and there is lots of evidence that thinner people live a lot longer than fatter people.

Rather than focusing on what you shouldn’t eat, focus on what you should. Eat healthy foods whenever you’re hungry and there will be less desire to eat unhealthy foods.

Heavy meals at lunchtime will make you tired and sluggish in the afternoon. Keep lunches light.

Avoid eating late at night. You should leave at least 3 hours between eating a meal in the evening and your normal bedtime. If not you are likely to find your sleep disrupted.

Lack of vitamins and minerals are significant contributors to general apathy, having difficulty concentrating, and general negative moods. You need a variety of foods such as fruit, vegetables, fish, dairy products, cereals, meat, albeit much of it in moderation and with alternatives if you are vegetarian or you otherwise can’t or won’t take particular foods. If you don’t get a varied and balanced diet, take a multivitamin: once a day.

The reason most people fail with their own control of their weight is they are continually looking for ways around the simple commitment of eating fewer calories and getting more exercise so that you consume fewer calories than you burn. The diet industry implies there are ways around this simple commitment, which there isn’t.

Dieting is usually counterproductive in the long term. It is easy to lose weight, and almost any scheme you try will enable you to lose weight. But your body adapts by learning to better store fat, which then leads to increased weight when you stop dieting. Rather than diet, it is far more important to adjust your life style through good eating and exercising habits. New habits leading to you losing a pound a week or every couple of weeks will be far more successful in the longer term than a crash diet to lose 20 or more pounds in a couple of months and then a promise of changed habits.

There is little difference in effectiveness between different types of diets. They result in reductions in calories and thus whilst you stick with the diet you will lose weight. Rather than agonize about which diet to adopt in terms of which would be most effective, instead adopt whichever diet you believe will be the easiest for you to stick to.

A particular danger for dieters is if on a given day they exceed their self-imposed allowance, they consider the day a failure and are likely to lose their self-restraint for the rest of the day. They will then binge eat far more than they would normally, putting themselves back not just a day but potentially a week or more.

Some tactics for successful long term weight loss and control include (1 of 2):

◦ Don’t have sugar rich foods to hand;
◦ Wash your teeth earlier in the evening, to discourage late night snacking;
◦ Lose weight slowly through changing habits rather than special diets or fasting;
◦ Develop automated habits for specific circumstances when you are liable to adopt bad habits;

Some tactics for successful long term weight loss and control include (2 of 2):

◦ Eat off smaller plates and drink caloried drinks from smaller glasses;
◦ Eat more low calorie high volume foods – fruit and veg;
◦ Chew your food for longer and leave some of your food on your plate uneaten;
◦ Put a picture of a fat person on the fridge.

If you are struggling to lose weight, keep a food and drink journal, where you keep a note of everything you eat or drink. Best to record it before you eat, and write down the calories. If you don’t eat after noting it down simply cross it out. People who do so generally lose weight twice as quickly as those who don’t.

Control over what you eat starts with control over what you buy. Don’t go food shopping when you are hungry, and don’t get seduced into buying more than you intended through special multi-buy offers.

Occasional fasting, once a week or so, is good for you and helps you live longer, so long as you don’t then look to compensate by overeating on other days.

Don’t kid yourself that a little bit of exercise will compensate for poor eating habits. To burn off the calories of a fast food meal you would need to vigorously exercise for most of the day. Exercise has many benefits but for most of us controlling our calories is far more important for weight control than lots of exercise.

There are many forms of moderate physical exercise. Try different types of exercise – walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, aerobics, dancing. Gardening or housework can also be a form of exercise so long as you make it so and let it get you a little breathless from time to time..

Our brains need oxygen. If you increase your lung capacity through exercise or breathing exercises you can increase the amount of oxygen that gets to your brain, and your brain will work better.

Trying to be super fit is not a particularly good thing unless you are a professional sportsperson; and it can and often does lead to problems such as injuries and long-term damage to your body.

Don’t rush to get fit. If you try to do lots of exercise when you are not used to it you will almost certainly injure yourself and thus be unable to continue. See getting fit as a medium-term goal, and build up gradually. It is far more important to do a little frequently than to do occasional heavy sessions. If you do a little frequently you will find yourself slowly increasing what you do.

Excellent forms of exercise almost anyone can do at any age are yoga and tai chi. Some of the benefits of yoga and tai chi are: flexibility, strength, agility, muscle tone, mental calmness, improved balance and body awareness, better mental concentration, improved circulation and detoxification, and a general reduction in stress. But don’t rush into it. Start slowly and gradually build up.

As you grow older your muscles will grow weaker. Most people as they get older will benefit from a little strength training a couple of times a week. This is not about building up big muscles, but about retaining the muscles you have. There are many forms of strength training ranging from structured gym sessions to simple home exercises using little or no equipment, with the latter being most appropriate for most people. It is important to leave 48 hrs or so between strength exercises to give your muscles time to rebuild. It is this rebuilding which is the source of the increased strength.

You should look to do some aerobic type exercise where you get slightly out of breathe for a minimum of about 2 hours a week, though preferably spread throughout the week in 15 to 30 minute sessions. Most sports provide aerobic exercise, as does brisk walking, jogging, swimming, bike riding, dancing, running around with the children or grandchildren, or even use of certain games consoles that encourage physical interactions. It can also include some of the more physical household or gardening chores. It is often more motivating to do aerobic type exercise with a partner or in a group or class.

Try to do balancing and stretching exercises at least 2 or 3 times a week, for periods of about 10 or 15 minutes. Look to schedule this for a regular time during the week. Be careful however not to push yourself and end up injuring yourself. Stretching helps keep you flexible, helps reduce stress, and generally improves circulation and energy levels.

Some variation in your exercise routines can help avoid them becoming boring and have you lose the motivation to keep them up, as well as ensuring a more balanced strengthening of your body. You should try different types of exercises from time to time, maybe a bit of swimming now and again, or some jogging. Different types of exercise will exercise different muscles and different parts of your body rather than have you only strengthen or flexing a relatively small part of your body.

Be mindful of potential injuries. If you are about to do an exercise session do some light warm up exercises first. If you have pains be mindful of them. Remember your longer term exercising will be significantly hampered if you have injuries.

It is important to be able to differentiate injury pain, which is your body telling you something is not right, from discomfort which arises from pushing yourself and which you can keep going through. The former tends to come on quickly as a sharp pain. The latter tends to slowly build up from an initial aching, though again if it becomes a sharp pain you should stop, unless you are a professional with expert advice.

Don’t sit around too much during the day. If your job or daily life style is one that involves you sitting down all day, look for opportunities to get up and walk around, or spend some time standing up. Your brain will respond well to increases in oxygen arising from just moving around a bit rather than continually sitting. You are more likely to get creative ideas and thoughts whilst walking around. You should look to get up and walk around for about 5 minutes or so each hour to 90 minutes.

Regularly going for a walk is good for you. Not only is it a bit of mild exercise, but walking can be excellent for clearing your head. You will find good ideas often occur to you whilst walking, so long as you don’t drown them out through continually listening to music.

From time to time spend 5 minutes just mindfully breathing. Find somewhere quiet where you won’t be disturbed, sit comfortably, and just breathe in and out whilst being aware of yourself. Let thoughts come and go but keep bringing yourself back to being aware of your breathing. Look to count 1 – inhale, 2 – exhale, 3 – inhale – up to 10, and repeat. Keep practicing and it will become a very useful technique for bringing calm during what may be hectic days.

A breathing exercise to help you relax. Close your lips and breathe in through your nose for about 4 seconds. Then hold your breath for about 8 seconds, and the slowly exhale through your mouth for about 8 seconds. Repeat 4 or 5 times. Then continue just breathing normally but remain aware of your breathing for a while.

Many problems arise when you do not get enough or good enough sleep, such as: increased susceptibility to colds and other infections and slower recovery times; general fatigue and lack of motivation and self-control; difficulty concentrating and poor memory; poor problem solving skills; general moodiness and irritability; general feeling of being overwhelmed with small problems; increased likelihood of accidents; tendency to put on weight; and increased risks of general health problems.

People vary in the amount of sleep they need but most adults need between about 6 and 9 hours a night, and children into their mid to late teens need more. If you feel tired during the day, or find yourself stressed not long after waking up, then it may be that you are not getting enough sleep, though there may also be other factors such as poor diet.

Generally, getting up at around 6am, or sunrise if it is earlier, seems to be an optimal time for having high levels of energy during the day, though if you are sure a different time works for you, so be it. This means the time you go to bed should be such that you get a good night’s sleep, generally no later than about 11pm, preferably earlier, though again learn and do what works for you.

Seek medical help if you cannot solve your sleeping problems; though note that many of the problems with sleeping arise from poor application of good sleeping habits, from being overweight, and from stress.

Do not do work or chores at the expense of sleep time, unless there is a particular rare and urgent need. For the most part lack of sleep will cause many more problems than delaying a particular task.

To help you sleep well (1 of 3):

◦ Eliminate bright lights and any significant sound. This includes the light and sounds from clocks or electronic devices in your room. You are likely to sleep better in total darkness. Use comfortable earplugs to eliminate noises if necessary;
◦ Have good quality bed linen and nightclothes if you wear any;
◦ Ensure comfortable temperature and avoid humid extremes. Note that it is better to have your room cool rather than warm, so long as you are warm under your bedding;

To help you sleep well (2 of 3):

◦ Develop regular schedules allowing for in general about 7 or 8 hours of sleep, though individuals do vary in needs. Try to go to bed at a regular time, not too late, and get up at a regular time, preferably fairly early;
◦ Try not to stimulate your brain in the 30mins or hour or so before you intend to go to sleep: reading something not too thought provoking is better than watching TV or browsing the internet;
◦ Limit what you eat and drink in the 2 or 3 hours before you go to bed, and certainly avoid anything with sugar or stimulants for at least 4 or 5 hours before;

To help you sleep well (3 of 3):

◦ Avoid exercising in the 3 or 4 hours before you go to bed, though do ensure you are getting some exercise during the day;
◦ Develop a bedtime ritual. This could include a relaxing bath (not too hot or cold), listening to relaxing music, slowly dimming lights, a jotting down of things on your mind including reminders for the next day;
◦ If appropriate make arrangements with your partner to ensure they don’t disturb your routine.

If you spend a couple of hours unable to get back to sleep in the early morning start to get up earlier. Let your sleep patterns adjust to finding a new earlier get up time.

Tips for getting back to sleep if you wake in the night include:

◦ Keep pen and paper close by and write down things that are on your mind and what you are going to do about them;
◦ Read something not very exciting or thought provoking;
◦ Have a warm milk based drink.

During the night our emotional minds dominate. When we wake up in the night we often have worrying thoughts which during the night we find difficult to control. Our more rationale mind is only able to put them into perspective during the day. Don’t get overly concerned about your night time terrors.

Whilst you may feel that alcohol can help you get to sleep, it leads to less restful sleep.

Getting too much sleep can be as bad for you as too little. Unless you have trouble getting enough sleep look to see if you can get by on a little less sleep. In particular getting up early in the morning can give you some time to get on with your own important tasks for an hour or so before the pressures of the day lead you off doing things which are largely driven by other people’s priorities.

There are different views even amongst the experts on whether a nap at lunch time or in the afternoon is good for you. If it works for you, don’t feel guilty about it, but generally it will be best between 12 and 3pm. Note however you need to keep it to a shortish period of between about 20 and 30 minutes. Longer than this and you will feel more sluggish for much of the rest of the afternoon rather than refreshed. Drinking a strong coffee before you take a nap should help in that it takes about 30mins to have an effect.

It is important to be able to calm your mind from time to time. Meditation is a technique to enable you to do this. Meditation can significantly reduce feelings of stress and significantly slow aging and deterioration of the brain. Regular short periods of meditation, say 5 or 10 minutes a day, can also significantly improve your general ability to focus.

The following is a simple general meditation technique. Sit in a chair, still, away from distractions or noises. Have your feet flat on the ground, sit up straight, and have your hands on your lap. Don’t fidget. Close your eyes. Become aware of your breathing. Say to yourself ‘inhale’ and ‘exhale’ as you do. If your mind wanders bring it back to ‘inhale’ and ‘exhale’. Once you are focused without your mind wandering you can stop saying to yourself and simply focus on your breathing. Whenever your mind wanders return to ‘inhale’ and ‘exhale’. Try this for 5 minutes a day at first, building up to about 15 minutes a day. Don’t get downhearted if you fail to keep focused. Just keep practicing. You will start to see benefits so long as you keep trying. There are many other general meditation techniques you can read up on. Find one that works for you.

Practice visualization. Find somewhere quiet where you can be comfortable and not disturbed. Close your eyes and imagine yourself being somewhere you know reasonably well and that you find peaceful. Maybe somewhere in the woods or by a lake or the sea. Then imagine being there, with all your senses. Feel yourself being there; try to imagine the details and the colors. Imagine the sounds and the smells. Try to feel a breeze or the warmth. You could use natural nature sounds from CDs if appropriate to your visualization – they are easily obtainable. If you keep practicing visualization you will get better at it.

Look to make relaxation techniques a part of your way of life. Set aside some time each day or each week for application of your preferred technique or techniques. Don’t worry if you can’t instantly get into great technique, just keep practicing and you will get better at it. Avoid applying relaxation techniques when you are sleepy: you are likely to simply fall asleep.

Having a good body posture has many benefits. I helps ensure you breathe properly, which has the knock on effect of increasing your concentration and thinking ability as a result of getting more oxygen to the brain. It helps you feel more alert and comfortable in everyday life. It improves your image, noting that people with good posture appear to be smarter and more attractive: people with a good body posture exude an aura of confidence and capability. People with good body posture tend to feel more self-confident. Good body posture helps avoid health complications that arise due to bad body posture. Many back problems or circulation problems arise from bad body posture.

Good body posture is about maintaining the nature curves of your back, one you feel comfortable with and can maintain with little effort. It is not about keeping your spine totally straight, which can be as bad for you as always slouching. When sitting, a good body posture is one that is between a slouched position and a forced sitting up straight position. This is sometimes described as a ‘poised’ sitting position, and is one in which the weight of the head is being passed by the spine into the chair, and the ribs can move freely. When standing it means your weight being distributed evenly across the balls of your feet. Look up on the internet pictures and descriptions of what good posture looks like in different circumstances, and make the effort to ensure you have it by practicing in front of a mirror.

Some common causes of poor body posture, often leading eventually to poor health include: repetitive motions without frequent breaks; being immobile for long periods of time during the day such as staying sat down for hours at a time; slouching over using a computer or other electronic devices for long periods of time; frequent walking with heavy backpacks; lifting heavy objects without ensuring you keep your back straight whilst doing so.

Some tips for developing and maintaining a good body posture (1 of 3):

◦ Be conscious of your body posture and when you are aware it is not good, put it into a good posture;
◦ Eliminate bad habits which lead to poor posture such as lying down whilst reading or watching TV, or working in bad light which invariably leads to you slouching;
◦ Try not to sleep on your stomach;
◦ Try to use good quality chairs that have a firm, but not hard, back support, and preferably a high back that allows you to have your shoulders supported;

Some tips for developing and maintaining a good body posture (2 of 3):

◦ Place your backside into the innermost edge of the chair, not the middle or edge which will lead to you leaning or slouching badly;
◦ Sit with both feet flat on the floor. Sitting with legs crossed will result in your back not being straight;
◦ Try to have a good bed and pillow. A bed that is firm, though not hard, and a pillow that supports your head;
◦ Avoid regularly carrying heavy items that put a strain on your shoulders and back and lead to you frequently adopting hunched shoulders and back. If you do need to regularly carry heavy bags consider using a bag with wheels or rollers;

Some tips for developing and maintaining a good body posture (3 of 3):

◦ Do exercises to strengthen your back such as simple stretching or yoga. Though take it easy at first, ensure you are using the right techniques, and only push yourself as you feel comfortable doing so;
◦ If you find it difficult to change your posture consider getting a shoulder and back massage. This should loosen your joints and make it easier to adopt a good posture;
◦ If you have frequent back problems then see a chiropractor or physical therapist and get a proper assessment of the causes, which is likely to include poor posture.

When you get stressed and overwhelmed, take a walk. When you have a tough decision to make or problem to solve, take a walk. When you want to be creative, take a walk.