5 Most Important Things You Need to Know About Health

1. Nutrition

2. Exercise

3. Sleep

4. Positive Mental Attitude

5. Properly Functioning Nervous System 

1. Nutrition

It is important to eat a balanced diet containing a variety of foods.  Variety helps to assure that you are obtaining all of the necessary vitamins from natural sources that are required for the bodily processes.  Generally, we also want to take into account that we need to obtain our food from a few different sources;  20-30% protein, 20-30% fat, and 45-55% carbohydrate.  Individuals vary so this is a general guideline.  It is additionally important so mention the source of each of these nutrients.  Protein is found in beans, nuts, meat, eggs, tofu, and vegetables have some protein (while it is a small amount in vegetables, it is very effective source).  There is good fat and bad fat.  Obviously you want to get your fats from good sources such as nuts, cheese, vegetables.  Try to stay away from butter, margarine, potato chips, deep fried or fried foods, and animal fat.  Carbohydrates have two main categories: simple and complex.  Simple carbohydrates or simple sugars will include things like table sugar, brown sugar, white flour, white bread, sweets, junk food, sugar cereals, and anything else that is refined excessively.  Stay away from these.  The exception to this would be fruit- there is still a different chemical design to this simple carb which is very beneficial to our bodies. Complex carbs are the best way to go.  These include whole wheat flour, brown rice, oats, vegetables.  And of course, drink plenty of water.  In fact, if water was the only thing that you drank, you would do your health a lot of good.

1. Exercise

It is very important for many different reasons to get proper exercise each week.  Exercise helps with metabolism, mentality, hormone and enzyme production, immune function to resist diseases, and resisting injury, just to name a few.  To begin with, 30min of aerobic exercise (light jog, swim, bike ride, etc), 3 times per week is a good place to start.  All you need to worry about to begin with is to keep your heart rate slightly raised during exercise.

1. Sleep 

Rest is important to recovery from a long day.  It is important mentally but also for the recovery and regeneration of our body’s tissues, hormones and enzymes, and various mechanical structures.  For most people, eight hours of uninterrupted sleep is needed.  Try not to eat or drink within a couple hours of going to bed so that your digestive system can also rest.  More energy during a day is devoted to digestion than anything else.

1. Emotional

Try to reduce the stress in your life.  Of course, this can be difficult to do but you can do different things to lessen or diffuse stress.  Exercise happens to be a great outlet for stress.  Calming music, walks, reading, getting the right amount of sleep, and improving your communication skills are just a few suggestions.

1. Properly Functioning Nervous System

Not many people think of this one or have even heard of it when it comes to health.  However, the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) controls all of the functions and processes in your body.  This includes things like muscle function; how you walk; your digestive system, how you break down and remove wastes; your lungs and how you breath or why you may have respiratory conditions; your heart and blood vessels and the circulation of your blood; your immune system and the ability to resist disease or infection; and joint function which plays a role in whether or not you have degenerative processes brought on by injury.  These are just a few of many that could be mentioned.  Due to stress on the spine (from injury, birth trauma, accident, bad posture, muscle tension, and many others) minor misalignments of the bones of the spine, called vertebrae, cause inflammation to the various joints of the vertebra in question.  This common occurrence puts pressure on the delicate nerves which leave the spine from the spinal cord, going to all of the tissues and organs of the body.  Pressure on a nerve causes interference with the signals going in and out of the central nervous system and therefore, the function of the nervous system is not 100%.  In turn this means that the function of tissues and organs is not 100%.  Without proper functioning of the nervous system, pain and disease result.

Chiropractic is the only profession which locates places in your spine where pressure is on the nerves and interfering with nerve conduction.  Once these areas are found, the chiropractor moves the misaligned vertebra back to its normal position, allowing for proper nerve function and healing to result.