Five ways to get healthier in 2024
As we prepare for a new year, Dr. Keith Berkowitz has some simple suggestions for becoming fighting fit.
It’s the season for making New Year’s Resolutions — statistics suggest at least a third of us are planning on setting a goal or objective for the year. Chances are, many of those resolutions involve getting fitter and healthier in 2024.
How can you improve your chances of success?
We asked Dr. Keith Berkowitz, Founder and Medical Director of the Center for Balanced Health, for his top tips on getting healthier than you are right now.
He had five simple, very achievable suggestions:
Improve your sleep
“One of the big ones I’m going to start with is sleep,” says Dr. Berkowitz. “We don’t sleep well.”
Good sleep is essential for both our physical and mental health. A lack of sleep can be linked to higher risk of disease and obesity, poor focus and reduced cognition, and lower productivity. Alarmingly, about 1 in 3 Americans suffers from a lack of sleep.
Exercise more
Dr. Berkowitz says we should all have an exercise regimen, but what that looks like will vary from person to person. So don’t worry if you’re not a gym rat. There are many ways to look at exercise.
“As we age, exercise should focus on flexibility and mobility,” he says. “When we lose those things, we become more and more disabled.”
More physical activity will certainly help you sleep better and a lack of sleep may contribute to low exercise levels, so there is a strong relationship between these two recommendations.
Eat better food
There’s no silver bullet approach to eating that’s going to work for everyone; some will love a carnivore diet while others will thrive on being vegan. But Dr. Berkowitz reminds us there are some basic things we should all be doing: for example, seeking out foods that don’t cause inflammation and restricting eating to a certain window in the day.
“Watch out for refined carbohydrates and sugars,” Dr. Berkowitz warns. “Eat more of a balance between protein and fat, limit processed foods, and avoid artificial flavors.”
Ideally, if it’s achievable for your lifestyle, practice the 16/8 rule — fast 16 hours, eat 8 hours. This is referred to as ‘intermittent fasting.’ If you integrate the fast into your sleep routine (say you sleep on average about 8 hours) you only need to stop eating 4 hours before bed, and 4 hours after you wake. Black coffee or tea won’t break your fast, so mornings won’t feel like a zombie apocalypse!Stimulate your intellect
Just as we should focus on strengthening our muscles or boosting our immune system, it is also important to keep our brains engaged and active to stave off conditions like dementia. Intellectual stimulation can take many forms, from reading, to learning a new language, to discovering how to play a musical instrument. Draw, write, dance, or do anything else to express your creativity. The important thing is to keep your brain actively engaged.
Find ways to relax
On the other hand, don’t keep your brain so busy that it never gets a chance to recharge. Dr. Berkowitz’s final suggestion is to find some kind of activity that allows the brain to wander a bit.
“We live in a very intense world and a lot of people don’t allow their brain to take a break,” he says, which leads to stress, burnout, and a higher incidence of illness. “We have this new thing where we’re chasing the dollar, we’re chasing our next activity. We’re always running around. So I find [relaxing the brain] is important, and we don’t really talk about it that much.”
There you have it — five easy-peasy, highly-achievable ways to improve your day-to-day living from Dr. Keith Berkowitz. These are especially important tips as we enter what promises to be a hectic and chaotic year ahead.
Collapse Life is all about helping our readers navigate the challenges of a changing world. What better way to develop personal resilience than to focus on being as healthy as possible.
Happy New Year!