1. Exercise: Regular exercise, preferably 30 minutes a day, has benefits on mental and physical health. Any physical activity can release hormones to combat illnesses. Physically, your immune system tends to become stronger, a healthy heart-rate is maintained, and the oxygen consumption increases. Adding to this, exercises maintain body-weight. Exercising can help to change a negative mood and improves a feeling of well-being.
Twist: Change your form of exercise once a week, shift from walking to dancing, gym to yoga, jogging to aerobics.
2. Diet: Maintaining a healthy diet is also very crucial to maintain your health. Diet is a controllable risk factor for many leading causes of chronic diseases. A healthy diet also tends to impact your mood and thought processes. A healthy diet regulates your body to function better and also maintain your body weight and hence keep it active.
Twist: Embrace a cheat day once a week to give some importance to your taste buds.
3. Laughter: Laughter is the best medicine as we have always heard. Laughter is responsible to induce the “happy hormones” in our body useful for combating stress. Take yourself out for a laughter show/movie, spend some quality time with friends.
Twist: Once a week, join those laughter clubs with old people at the nearest park.
4. Leisure: Leisure time activities are highly important. Having a fixed routine can make your life seem mechanical. These activities are responsible to create a healthy communication between neurons in the brain. Studies also show that leisure time activities boost our memory and improve concentration and attention.
Twist: Explore your talents. Pick a hobby as simple as calligraphy or coloring. Play a board game or plant some flowers.
5. Travel and Outings: Traveling is one such activity that helps you to bring a fresh change to your rigid routine. Outings are important to get rid of the tiredness of the mind. Studies show that taking that weekend off and going on a vacation improves performance at work, builds healthy relationships, and helps to gain a new perspective on situations, hence maintaining positivity.
Twist: Get out of that chair, pick a place, pack your bags for a weekend and go on a road trip or a far-off resort.
6. Spa: Pamper yourself every time you feel a lack of energy. Massages are a great source to release the tension off your muscles and improve nerve functioning. With this physiological change, you can immediately feel a sense of ease in your mind. A spa-day can help alleviate pain, anxiety and other stresses, making you feel rejuvenated.
Twist: Book a lavish spa-day with water therapy (jacuzzi or pool).
7. Sleep: A sound sleep is highly crucial to maintaining a balance in the body and mind. Poor sleeping is likely to have an adverse effect on health by lowering the immune system functioning and cardiac health. Sleeping too much or too little for a persistent period of time could likely be a symptom of psychopathology like a mood disorder.
Twist: Sleep in! And massage your feet and neck with an aromatic oil or light some scented candles once in a while before bed.