”Boost Your Health in 2 Minutes or Less” is a collaborative post. Please see the disclosure page for more information. Disclaimer – always verify medical information with your doctor or a professional.
Lifestyle changes and long-term modifications to your diet and exercise can certainly boost your health, but there are short-term options too. While changing your lifestyle habits can revolutionize your physical and mental health, it can sometimes take a while for their beneficial effects to become apparent.
By embracing short-term changes too, you can reap the benefits straight away. Feeling better is an effective way of motivating yourself to continue with a healthier lifestyle, so by boosting your health in two minutes or less, you may find it easier to make larger changes to your lifestyle too.
To improve your mental and physical health quickly, try these two-minute boosts…
Stop sitting
Many of us spend an inordinate amount of time behind a desk, and this can have a detrimental effect on our mood and our physical health. Sitting for long periods of time tends to lead to poor posture, which can result in headaches, back pain, and muscle strain. Switching to a standing desk can alleviate many of these issues, and help to improve your physical health.
In addition to this, moving around more can have a beneficial effect on your mental health. Instead of gulping down your lunch at your desk, head outside and spend some time in the fresh air. Similarly, take regular breaks throughout the day and get outside whenever you can. As well as reducing eye-strain caused by staring at screens for long periods of time, you’ll notice an improvement in your mood and your outlook.
Increase offline interactions
The way we communicate and socialize has changed markedly in recent years, with more and more of us relying on apps, emails, and the internet to engage with colleagues, friends and family members. Whilst technology can be great in certain situations, such as connecting with friends overseas, it shouldn’t replace face-to-face interaction.
Instead of sending an email to a colleague, spend a couple of minutes walking to their office and engaging with them directly. If you’re into gaming, invite friends to play the latest releases, instead of playing over the internet with headsets.
While most people are keeping their head down to look at their phones or tablets, interacting with strangers has become a thing of the past. However, smiling, nodding or saying hello to people can brighten their day… and yours! When you’re commuting to work or heading to the local shop or strolling around your neighborhood, take your eyes of your tech and engage with the people around you instead.
Try CBD for anxiety
With increasing pressures, fast-paced lifestyles and never-ending demands on our time, it’s not surprising most of us experience anxiety from time-to-time. In fact, stress and anxiety have risen dramatically in recent years, with many people suffering from low mood, panic attacks, and burnout.
Whilst meditation, yoga, and exercise have been shown to have a beneficial effect on anxiety, many people are still struggling to contain feelings of worry and nervousness. However, CBD has been shown to have a positive effect on anxiety, and it could help you to feel calmer and more relaxed.
Available in various forms, you can use CBD for anxiety in a variety of ways. Oils, creams and evens foods can be purchased or made with CBD, and you can also vape it. By choosing a CBD product without THC, you’ll avoid the psychoactive effects commonly associated with marijuana, and just get the health benefits associated with CBD.
With medical practitioners now starting to acknowledge the beneficial effects CBD can have, it’s becoming a mainstream product and is commonly associated with anxiety-reduction. By incorporating CBD into your lifestyle, you could find a way to successfully reduce feelings of anxiety and nervousness.
Cut sugar
Giving up sugar completely can be challenging, particularly as it’s incorporated into foods in various forms. Even natural products, such as fruits, can contain high levels of sugars, so cutting it out of your diet completely may be tricky. However, reducing your sugar intake could have a dramatic impact to boost your health.
Too much sugar is associated with dental decay, obesity, fluctuating moods, changing energy levels, and poor cardiovascular health, so there’s every reason to minimize the amount of sugar you consume.
If you’re used to snacking on dried fruit or cookies, for example, find a tasty alternative with a lower sugar content. Whilst reducing the number of processed foods you eat will inevitably reduce your sugar intake too, be sure to identify natural products which contain high levels of sugar, such as fruit juice, and reduce your consumption of these too.
Avoid artificial sweeteners
If you’re determined to reduce your sugar consumption, switching it out for artificial sweeteners seems like a logical step, right? Not really. In fact, artificial sweeteners have been associated with various health problems, including coronary heart disease, cancers, hormonal issues, and kidney disease.
Despite being marketed as low-calorie, artificial sweeteners could be doing you more harm than good. If you can’t do without adding something sweet to your food or drink, choose a natural sweetener, like Stevia or raw honey, instead.
Incorporate plants into your environment
Bringing nature inside can enhance your mood and have a positive impact on your physical health too. Certain house plants, such as dracaena and jade, have been shown to reduce the amount of pollution in the air, which will prevent it from damaging your body.
Volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, are present in the air around us, but they can cause a range of health problems. When you’re exposed to too many VOCs, you may experience dizziness, tiredness, itchy eyes and headaches, but house plants could resolve these issues.
By removing VOCs from the air, house plants minimize the amount of pollution you’re exposed to and can reduce the harmful effects that VOCs can have on your health. As well as being an aesthetically-pleasing way to decorate your home or office, inviting nature into your environment can directly improve your health too.
Big changes to boost your can be made faster than you think!
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