Learning how to improve durability should be your ultimate health goal. Do you know why? Come and find out. It’s easier than you think if you have a plan and goals.
Health and wellness activities for adults are a topic of concern for everyone. We will discuss the two main elements you must address to reach and maintain the highest state of mental, physical, and spiritual health.
Your Health Goal — Your Durability
The longer we stay alive, the greater the likelihood of something negative impacting our health. We are better equipped to handle challenges and unexpected events if we are durable and aware.
Health Durability is the ability to defend ourselves mentally and physically against threats. It is a measure of health that helps us avoid accidents, overcome illnesses, heal, and withstand stress. The more durable we are, the better we are handling the unexpected.
Strength, stability, flexibility, agility, and endurance become more critical the longer we live. These are the elements of your durability. Finding the right balance is the key, but it’s challenging because the mix changes over time.
So, your health goal should be durability because it helps us enjoy life to the fullest. Learning to enhance overall wellness is the best way to get the most out of life.
Several factors affect our mental and physical health. Because we are all different, there isn’t one way to deal with them. We have unique backgrounds, DNA, body types, and other genetic dispositions.
The environment where we live and work complicates things further. What we do in our free time also impacts our health. Similarly, what we eat and drink affects our health.
Then we each have a variety of unique family and social influences. And last, there is the possibility of accidents and illness. These factors impact our health to some extent. We take our health for granted, but it is a fragile thing.
Do you see why your durability should be your health goal? It makes you less likely to suffer illness or injury. And, if you become sick or hurt, you’ll recover more quickly.
Health and Wellness Activities for Adults
When you hear the word activity, you probably think of physical exercise, but what we eat and drink has a larger impact on our overall health. Wellness activities start with a proper diet. You cannot exercise your way to health if you don’t eat the proper diet.
Caloric intake is a critical factor in maintaining health. It is even more important if you are trying to reach specific health goals. Health and wellness activities for adults does include proper exercise. However, many wellness experts tell us what we eat and drink is even more critical.
What we eat affects not just the body but the mind and spirit. If you are looking for a place to begin, start with diet. You can’t exercise your way to health if you don’t give your body the proper nutrients. An unhealthy diet will erase any potential gains from exercise.
Since we are all different, there isn’t one plan that fits everyone. However, several elements apply to everyone. Your current level of health will determine what you need. How do you do it?
How to Improve Durability by the Numbers
1) Start with a realistic Assessment
Assessing your health means taking a look at yourself. What can you do, what can’t you do, and why? If you live in the United States, chances are high that you are overweight. It affects your ability to do things and your durability.
2) Create a flexible Plan
Put your plan in writing. You are less likely to meet your goal if you don’t write it down. There are applications for smartphones that can help. Use your smartphone to set benchmarks for your diet and exercise.
3) Track your progress, and hold yourself accountable
Working “the plan” means tracking your progress and making the necessary adjustments to account for unexpected health issues.
To summarize, the first step in learning how to improve durability is to make a realistic assessment of your health. Then you create a plan in writing to reach your realistic goals. Your goal needs to be realistic. The plan must include the following two elements:
1) Proper Diet
Unfortunately, diet is the first and most crucial element. The food you eat is doing one of two things: improving or harming your health. The more processed and the greater the food’s shelf life, the less nutritious the food is. In fact, “fast food” isn’t food. It’s a food-like substance. It may taste good, but it is harmful to your whole health goal.
Health and wellness activities for adults start with treating the food you eat as fuel. We all like to eat things that taste good, but as an adult, you must take responsibility to ensure what you eat has the right nutrients and overall caloric value.
If you need to lose weight, you must consume fewer calories than you burn. An adult usually burns about 1400 calories a day. When you start looking at the calories, it will be obvious. One donut will run from 600 to 1000 calories. One high-intensity workout will burn 400 calories. It is why you can’t exercise your way out of a bad diet. Remember, you are what you eat. Your body cannot make healthy nutrients from junk food. When you eat, keep in mind how it will affect your health.
Learning how to improve durability starts with planning and monitoring yourself to stay on track. There are several applications for your smartphone which help you track the caloric value of the food you eat. But tracking a bad diet won’t help you increase your health. You need to create a plan.
Look at the ingredients on the package. You probably shouldn’t eat the ingredients if you can’t pronounce them. Look for products with the least fat and the greatest amount of moisture.
Here’s a big secret to eating. If you feel full, then you don’t eat more. So, eat fruit and vegetables high in moisture content. You’ll fill up but with fewer calories. Avoid high sugar additives, which are found in most popular soft drinks. Sugary drinks are addicting and harmful.
Part of your health goal is to simplify your life by decluttering—Declutter your refrigerator and pantry of all the food-like substances that aren’t good for you. Decluttering is part of the health and wellness activities for adults.
2) Proper Exercise
Once we eat the right foods that fuel the body, we are ready to work on repairing and making our bodies “better.” Exercise programs are a substantial commitment to doing something today to make you better tomorrow.
Sticking with an exercise regimen is challenging because we have so many things going on in our lives. Like most people, you’ll start and restart and then begin again. We recommend starting with walking for 10 to 20 minutes, then once your body starts getting used to moving, add a CD program in the 30-minute range. You don’t need 30 minutes of extreme exercise to get the benefits.
All our bodies are different. How we use it and exercise makes us healthier or decreases our health. Exercising the physical body has a tremendous impact on your mental health. But, if we don’t train our bodies properly, we lose vital physical and mental capabilities. An exercise program should include the following elements:
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- resistance training for slow and fast-twitch muscle groups
- cardiovascular exercise,
- flexibility, balance, and stretching exercises
The way you combine these elements depends on your health goal. Remember to follow the advice of trained health professionals. They should take precedence over the opinions of political and religious sources.
Your Durability Enhances the Quality of Life
The quality of life is different across cultures. How we perceive life as positive or negative doesn’t depend so much on our material wealth or possessions as our state of mind. (1)
Nations with a high emphasis on material wealth have the fewest people who perceive their lives as fulfilling and high quality. Even those with substantial wealth do not find their lives high quality. They may have more than one residence, take lavish vacations, and have expensive cars and clothes, but these things don’t improve their quality of life.
If anything, all these things are the source of stress and anxiety. It takes a lot of effort and resources to maintain this lifestyle. They must always be “busy” experiencing the next new thing, but when they encounter major health problems, they find no amount of money that can give them the level of health they need to enjoy life. They realize chasing the elusive thrill of the next big thing was a counterfeit.
The modern lifestyle of excess contrasts with those who work hard to earn a living. However, they appreciate life more and believe they have a high quality of life because of the people in their lives and their contributions to society. They enjoy being alone and in solitude.
The bottom line is that the quality of life does not come from acquiring things. There is a direct link between the quality of life and positive contributions and connections. You find the real quality of life by living a life of balance, but how do you find balance?
The Need for Physical Durability
Many Sages and Avatars traveled to remote places, the wilderness, or climbed mountains. And, while doing this strenuous activity, have time to meditate. Some spend days and months in isolated locations. Hiking in the wilderness is physically and mentally demanding.
So, they had to be in good shape for these Sages to travel and stay in the wilderness. They had to forage for food and find shelter from the weather. Plus, they had enough energy left to engage in extraordinary spiritual adventures. This physical fitness level is a lesson and example we can use today.
Your experience in life depends a great deal on your durability. Everyone can engage in some level of spiritual exploration.
The Enneagram Personality Profile is an excellent example. The primary tools are a set of questionnaires that help us identify our default settings. It will help you understand the thought processes and preferences of personality and instinct.
Not all spiritual technologies have “off-the-shelf” usability. You’ll need to prepare your body, mind, and spirit for more advanced levels of meditation, like the Siddhis of Patanjali. Tai Chi and other moving meditation forms also require a certain fitness level.
Many kinds of Yoga and exercise programs fit every fitness level. It is easy to get confused about where to start. And we use this as an excuse not to begin. The best advice is to pick something you know you can do safely. You can always try something else if you try it and don’t like it or find it challenging enough. The important thing is to begin.
If your ultimate health goal focuses on durability, what you need will become your priority. Again, we emphasize that diet is a wellness plan’s first and most important aspect. You probably know what you should eat versus the things you should avoid.
Spiritual Technologies
When you think of wellness, you may not immediately associate it with spiritual exploration, but remember our discussion about the ancient sages? The healthier you are, the more options you have; your spiritual health is linked with your mental and physical health. Here are the four main categories of tools that can help you enhance and expand this vital connection.
In Conclusion
Your durability should be your whole health goal. Each element of this component affects the others. The longer we live, the more critical it becomes. Don’t just survive, but thrive by enhancing your overall health and wellness.
