The Importance of Healthy Living and Exercise Essay Sample

Have you ever wondered if you have been doing everything possible to keep a healthy lifestyle? Well, there are a lot of factors that go into being and staying healthy and fit. Healthy living consists of a good nutrient-dense diet, mental health, and even mindfulness. By learning how to incorporate all of this into your life will help you achieve healthy living. But, to achieve a fully healthy lifestyle you also have to exercise. By learning how much physical activity is needed, what and when to exercise, and how to exercise safely you can become the best person you can be to fully enjoy your lifestyle.

A big part of healthy living is diet. We need to find a good balance of foods to create a nutrient-dense diet to create a healthy lifestyle. A wholesome diet can consist of a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat foods. We also need to try and stay away from saturated fats and eat lean protiens. Eating a nutrient-dense diet doesn’t mean you can never eat a chocolate bar or your favorite chips again, you just need to eat them in moderation or in smaller portions less often. You may ask how do I know how much to eat and what to stay within my daily calorie needs? Well, you can use the myplate plan to help keep track of your diet. Diet is not the only factor when it comes to a healthy lifestyle you also need to have a healthy mind. “Mindfulness practices can help relieve stress, improve sleep, and reduce chronic pain. Studies have found that activities such as meditation and yoga increase the number of signaling connections in the brain and provide better control over processing pain and emotions.” (NAMI) By adding mindfulness practices into your daily routine can greatly contribute to a healthier lifestyle. 

To be fit and stay fit healthy exercise is the way to go. When exercising we have to know how much and how often we should be doing certain exercises, and if you exercise wrong you can end up with an injury. The average teen should exercise around 60 minutes on most days to keep healthy. If you have been doing less than this it is healthy to slowly progress into this amount of activity. Various activities you can do are running, biking, dancing, swimming, hiking, and even walking. Benefits to daily exercise improve blood circulation, improves blood cholesterol levels, prevents and manages high blood pressure, boosts energy levels, increases muscle strength, and much more. Now how do you exercise safely? To exercise safely you should warm-up and cool down before every workout. Some examples of warm-up and cool-down stretches are brisk walking, lunges, arm swings, stretching, and sidesteps. “Encouraging healthy lifestyles in children and teens is important for when they grow older. Lifestyles that are learned in childhood are more likely to stay with the child into adulthood.” (URMC) By making healthy exercise changes now you can better your health for the long run and avoid many health issues later in life.

By letting your healthy living and healthy exercise work together you can become happier, fitter, and more energetic every day. These factors are all helping you live the greatest, healthiest, and longest life possible. “It’s always better to adopt healthy lifestyle habits as early as possible, but even adopting them relatively late in life is still going to have substantial health benefits later on.” (Park) By making those healthy habits now as teenagers we are able to live a longer life disease-free life becuase of the lifestyle we created at a young age. In conclusion, there is no shortcut to living the best life possible. You have to want it and make the changes for yourself to become the best you can be.