Planning for Good Health (a guest post)

All my good intentions for the new year were placed on hold until February. It’s the month people with children seem to start their resolutions. I was too busy keeping the kids entertained, labelling all the things and counting down the days until school started to get a move on in January.

One of my resolutions (like every other year) is to improve my heath and my family’s health. Today on the blog I have Sally from Health Insurance Comparison sharing some tips on how to actually plan for better health. I am quite fond of plans – they tend to be what it takes to get things to happen in my life.  Over to Sally ….

planning for good health

Planning for Good Health

Have you made any New Year resolutions to improve our health and wellbeing in 2016? One of the best things that you can do on this front is to plan your health-related activities so that  you can lay the groundwork for a happy and healthy 2016 for your family.

Promising yourself that you will exercise regularly is often prominent when it comes to health goals for the upcoming year but things like making sure that your family attends key check-ups can be easily overlooked when life gets busy. Here are some of the key health related plans that we recommend families to think about for 2016 and how you can plan to stick to them.

Eating Well

Did your family regularly eat the recommended number of portions of fruit and vegetables each day in 2015? If not, this is something you’ll probably want to address in 2016, along with other making sure that your family’s diet includes plenty of fibre, drinking lots of water, eating less red and processed meats, limiting the amount of salt and sugar and being within the recommended alcohol limits.

Struggling for Time? If you don’t have the time or energy to prepare healthy meals every evening, you might find it easier to batch cook a week’s worth of them in one go.

Getting Active

Regular exercise is important for both physical and mental health but many of us don’t get nearly as much as we should. Experts suggest that you should be doing 2-3 hours of aerobic exercise such as jogging, running or cycling per week and that this is accompanied by activities to strengthen the muscles such as sit ups, bicep curls, leg presses and yoga.

Struggling for Time? It can be easier than you might think to squeeze exercise into your everyday life. Use opportunities such as waiting for the kettle to boil to fit in a bit of jogging on the spot or some stretches, for example.

Reducing Stress

In short bursts, stress can actually be beneficial for us but when it becomes chronic, it can lead to a range of physical symptoms that are unnerving and debilitating. Life can get very  stressful and while you may not be able to prevent this, you can take steps to try to keep positive well being. This includes making a regular commitment to managing stress and anxiety by learning relaxation techniques, exercising on a regular basis to release feel good endorphins, and engaging in mindfulness techniques.

Health Checks

Even if no-one in the family has any medical conditions that need to be monitored, don’t forget to keep on top of regular health checks. I have promised myself this year that I will have a look into neotericnutra.com in further detail so I can start using their products. They are known to prevent heart disease, joint problems, and also helps maintain healthy blood sugar levels.

Some health funds cover health checks on extras cover through services such as Health Checks or Preventative Tests but this will not always be an option, even on higher cover levels. It generally covers things like screening tests but depending on the health fund, it may include annual health checks.

Some tests can be done by your GP such as cervical cancer screening, and cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar checks and these are recommended from your 20s onwards. As you get older, eye checks become increasingly important, along with screening tests for things like breast cancer, and for osteoporosis and bowel cancer also become increasingly important).

Health checks can be crucial for children too, particularly eye tests.

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Do you have plans in place for good health?
Do you start your year in earnest in February?


This not a sponsored post,
although Health Insurance Comparison have advertised on this blog in the past. 

2 thoughts on “Planning for Good Health (a guest post)

  1. Flat Bum Mum says:

    For me its all about habits. I build something into each day that is non-negotiable. At the moment I am doing a walk everyday. So far it seems to be working. I haven’t missed a day. Bron x

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