8 Simple Ways To Improve Your Personal WellBeing

Personal wellbeing is the ultimate goal we must all aspire towards as for so many of us today, it seems so far from reach. However, there are a lot of simple yet effective ways one can improve personal wellbeing that will be elaborated here just for you.

Generally speaking, if a person wishes to improve personal wellbeing, some changes must be introduced to their daily lifestyle. Meaning, common life aspects such as living environment, sleep patterns, food habits and brand, work hours, exercise, sociable environment, sun exposure, etc. must all be checked and balanced to better suit each individual’s needs.

Make your environment fit your needs

Many people tend to overlook this ultra-important aspect of healthy living, the daily and close environment we surround ourselves by.

The environment holds a great impact on human’s mental and physical health, and as such, impacts for better or worse personal wellbeing. If a person stays too long in a negative physical or social environment their health will be harmed and illness may occur.

Changes in the environment don’t have to be huge but can start by adding more time in nature, even in urban nature such as a small park in the city center. 

For many, finding a fulfilling active role in life is a major goal and as such, moving to a more crowded place with a larger job pool and freedom of opportunities is a must.

As this transition happens many find themselves in the race to overcome daily challenges and still make it out with enough money in their pockets to fulfill their dreams. And all of this can be ultra stressy.

This “let’s make it happen in the big city” trend doesn’t come without its downsides. Moving to a crowded city usually means a more polluted environment.

This affects people’s health in a direct negative manner – the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the noise pollution we suffer from are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the influences a big city has on us.

Researchers have shown that air pollution is a big contributor to many of humanity’s biggest health problems. As a result, in many cities, people are already wearing face masks to prevent polluted air from being inhaled into their lounges.

While pollution is the obvious health hazard in modern life, stress is its ugly hidden relative. Stress is shown to be part of many health problems that people in the western world suffer from. 

While many wish to improve life and find their destiny by moving to the city, they are exposed to a larger dosage of stress. It’s a vicious circle. Let alone the understanding we’re engaging lately that air pollution is correlated with stress as a lead role in the creation of free radicals that cause oxidative stress in the lungs. What a horrible “fiesta”.

But not all is dark and negative in city life as the mobility comfort allows us to get more easily to park areas and spend some time in greenery. Trees are our best friends when it comes to air pollution (and quite frankly with everything I can think of), so every time you got some time, even 30 minutes go to a green park, sit, breath, eat something (preferably healthy ;)), relax your racing mind and if you sit most of your day in an office better yet go on a nice walk. 

If you have a park on your way to work, maybe walk to work through it for a decent portion of cleaner air, the trees around will improve the air you breathe and you will experience less noise in general. A good morning treat.

On the greenery note maybe worth reading about the impact green color has on our brain activity. If you wish to read more about it try our post – How nature affects mental health.

Social environment and your wellbeing

If what you eat is what you become then who you choose to spend your time with will eventually be what you become too. For instance, if the people you spend time with are not your “cup of tea” you’ll eventually become either like them or miserable or both and that will be rather “tragic”, make a change and socialize with people that make you feel as comfortable in your own skin. 

This minor yet significant change will greatly impact your wellbeing as a better suited social circle will improve your self-esteem and mood, which directly supports your mental wellbeing.

For example, if you wish to get in shape you can find people that can sympathize with your goal. But if your current social circle is computer gaming and unhealthy food eaters, then you will most probably find it a lot more difficult to fulfill your fitness goals hanging around with them.

The obvious solution is to go to seek for this positive encouraging environment by joining a gym or as I did, joining a Crossfit box, and start making significant steps towards fitness. This will be a positive and healthy environment with other like-minded individuals.

The impact of the social circle has been shown to highly affect animals and humans alike, with a big emphasis on the impact of family and friends. If you wish to read more about it there is a great book I read not long ago that describes this phenomenon in-depth –  The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, you can find it on amazon.

Sleep more than you think you need and improve your wellbeing

In this highly industrialized world, many of us don’t get the proper nor enough sleep we really need for our bodies to heal and develop. It has been shown and proven time and time again that people need anywhere between 6 to 8 hours of fine sleep, meaning, having at least 3 full sleep cycles during that time.

For many people, it might sound like a growling task, especially in this age of human existence resulted by the rising usage of stimulants during the day and sedatives during night time We seem to be constantly drugged.

This high use of drugs shows how imbalanced our sleeping routine is and comes as no surprise that many of these individuals will suffer from a lower quality of life and wellbeing.

When you’re constantly feeling tired your mind stops thinking clearly and keeping your body in an imbalanced health state and coming back from that can be resulted in hard work.

However, a drug-free good sleep routine IS doable. A couple of small simple steps that will greatly improve your wellbeing.

First, avoid eating “heavy” dinners and start eating light nutritional dinners. Our digestive system consumes large amounts of energy, and whilst it puts aside many other important tasks. In the evening, our body will be less likely to get us to sleep if it has a large stack to digest.

Second, avoid the use of electronic devices at least a couple of hours pre-bedtime. The light projected from our phone, computer screen, kindle, or any other device used has an awakening impact on our brains (and not in a good way when preparing for sleep is involved). Our brain functions using the information from its outer sensors, getting the body ready for sleep is mainly achieved by our eyes. 

The body gets less light through the eyes and starts releasing a hormone called melatonin into the bloodstream. This process is highly important for humans sleeping cycles as it sets the body for its daily rest time.

If you choose to use a lot of electronics after dark you might not be able to sleep properly soon after. Keep that in mind and maybe read an actual book or a magazine before getting to bed. Old fashion book reading has an added value on putting our heads to sleep btw.

Third, train and aim towards fitness. Fitter people tend to show better sleeping patterns with fewer interruptions during night sleep. Fitness gets our bodies into a healthy synchronization and improves all processes, sleeping amongst.

Fourth, workout as early as possible. These days as GYM and other fitness institutions are open for longer hours and sometimes even 24/7 many of us don’t feel pressured to train early enough. 

However, as many researchers show – morning training will have the biggest positive impact on sleep quality while late-night training will do the opposite for our sleep. So to improve sleep try and train as early as possible.

Yes, it is indeed better to train late than not at all but if I need to recommend a training hour it will be ideal to complete training by 19:00 latest (if can’t do morning train).

The last thing regarding improved sleep is stress levels which for many of us are in sky-high altitude. I won’t get into all the reasons why we are so stressed in our daily lives, but man we all need to relax a little – or a lot (and therefore will be explored and discussed lengthly soon in a separate article)

To reduce stress try and get your priorities organized and base decisions accordingly. In time it will create a positive chain effect of making you more organized and as a result less stressed that will have a direct correlation to a calmer sleep.

Eat healthier food to improve personal wellbeing

Well, this is a topic for a post of its own, but for the sake of understanding and getting a general idea to start with I have summed up some good useful tips for eating food that will most likely improve your wellbeing.

As it has been shown many times in the past what you eat is what you become. For that reason, eating in a balanced manner in which our body gets all the right ingredients for its prosper is essential. There are a few things that you want to make sure you do eat while others should be avoided as much as possible.

Let’s start from the “not eat” and move to the good stuff from there.

The things you should avoid: 

• White sugar – you’ll find it in almost anything you get these days from bread to serial, keep in mind to read the ingredients of what you buy and don’t be shy to ask the waiter in a restaurant of that dish contains white sugar. Remember, you are a paying consumer and as such entitled to know what is in the food you buy.
• White flour – after sugar, this is the second most common ingredient to avoid, as in almost every place you go to eat you will be served with bread or dish that involves white flour. Bare in mind – white flour and the bread that is made out of it is just another type of sugar in a sense. Yes, a good meal can include bread – just a different type of bread and not the one prepared from white flour. If you really a chunk of bread fancy be aware of the healthy types of it.
• Dairy products – this is still very hard for many to grasp, as we all grow up with that glass of cow’s milk a day (most of us anyway :)), however, more studies show that milk and other dairy products harm our bodies and induce production of inflammation. I even read a medical opinion that insinuated a correlation between cattle milk and the increase of breast cancer. If you insist on having milk in your coffee aim towards goat milk(which is considered as better in comparison to cow’s milk these days) perhaps or maybe sugar-free almond milk etc.

The things you should eat:

• Seeds and nuts – any type and kind that you can find, just make sure that it’s not roasted and buy the natural form, and make sure not to eat too much of them, a handful a day is good for your wellbeing.
• Eggs – this is one of nature’s wonders, eggs hold inside proteins, fats, and vitamins in magnificent proportions for the human body, it is very good for your health.
• Fiber-rich foods – this will improve body functions in 2 ways, first, it improves the digestion process and clean us from the inside, second, it makes us feel full for longer, which means fewer cravings during the day and potentially less weight gain. Please note that fibers might not be suitable for people with inflammation in the digestive system (in this case kindly advise a physician).
• More vegetables – this is super good for you, just eat as many as you feel like and try all of them, they give you more than you think. The colorful your salad is the better.

Food is a big part of our journey towards a healthy life and better personal wellbeing. It is another piece of the puzzle in combination with all the others mentioned above. 

Keep your diet balanced and feel healthy for longer.

Long Work hours negatively impact personal wellbeing

As mentioned above, personal wellbeing might be affected by external influence, for that matter work is a strong influencer as most of us spend a significant chunk of our day at work.

In many cases work will add stress, anxiety, and restlessness into people’s life. The big question is how can we monitor that pressure and keep it under control?

One technique that I love is meditation. I found in time that word meditation grasps as huge to some whereas, in fact, it is simply the ability to put one’s mind at rest.

Usually, it is recommended to start the day with 15 to 30 minutes of relaxing meditation. As even this can be too demanding due to stressy mornings I would even start with 10 minutes.

Meditation can be 5 yoga poses with breathing, simple stretch with proper breathing or even put your earphones and listen to the music you love can definitely do the trick. If you wish to deepen your meditation or new to it you can try this. This can help reduce all these bad effects of work and help balance your soul.

Last thing to consider and probably the hardest, try not to bring your work home or to GYM after work hours. Work should stay at work full stop. Keeping your mind busy with work stuff during your recreational time is bad for wellbeing. Let go of work when you’re not at work, it will help you relax and enable a fresh return to deal with it the next day with a fresh mindset.

All those are ways to reduce work stress and improve wellbeing without harming work performance, and in my opinion, it has a great positive effect regarding the time at the office too so it seems like a win-win stat.

Get more sun on your skin

A very important vitamin related to personal wellbeing is vitamin D which can be produced by controlled exposure to sunlight. The best and safest exposure lies in the window between late afternoon and sunset as opposed to the hottest hours of the day which are considered to be less ideal.

Make sure to expose your arms as long bone areas are required for the best absorption of the sunlight (that is a partner in the manufacturing of this vitamin in our bodies). Time of exposure should be for about 20 minutes a day. 

Another lovely tip I learned is to not wash your arms with soap in the following shower that day but only that day yes :)? 

Moreover, spending more time in the sun makes you feel happier and free, as night time for most people can be a bit depressing.

One other way of getting more healthy sunlight exposure is doing outdoor activities, from sports like football and surfing to hiking, just find something that gives you the desire to venture outdoors. We used to spend much more time outside and our body misses it.

Either way, get more sun than you used to. so many people have vitamin D deficiency and doctors recommend getting it from pills and liquids as it is such an important vitamin.

One of the main reasons this supplement is a consensus is due to busy daily routines where people can’t afford the luxury of spending time outdoors during the day.

Workout as much as possible to boost personal wellbeing

Workout and general fitness are both pillar stones that support wellbeing and health and as such should be a part of our daily routine. 

Many people tend to disregard workout’s ability to improve their lives and will put it lower in their preferences on the to-do lists. For example, time is the number one excuse I hear when it comes to training or moreover the lack of it. I fail to grasp if physical training is happiness and people tend to say they don’t have time for training would that mean people don’t have time to… be happy?

What if we would really understand the importance of exercise to our happiness and health? Would we still claim not having time for it?

In addition, when it comes to fitness some of us are simply afraid usually because we stopped training and don’t know how to get back on the horse. oThe effort and challenging physic involved can be rather intimidating.

However, those exact people will start new hobbies and find new areas of interest that both might involve hardships and commitment so why not put this energy in getting back on this horse? It’s a great horse ;). 

Having a good workout routine can help prevent so many future illnesses, from heart and cardiovascular related conditions to nervous and bone systems maintenance workout routine can prevent and frequently cures conditions. Being fit is so much more than just a perfect body or weight management. It is wellbeing.

If you are having a hard time finding the right program for you here is what we think about Crossfit for beginners.

Wellbeing is finding your happiness in life

We all have things we must do on a daily basis, but please let’s bear in mind that behind, or maybe in front of it all there’s you-a human being with wishes, desires, hopes and dreams that needs to be fulfilled so, by all means, find out what ticks you and go for it – it will make you feel at your best, stick to it and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – and if they do tell them

 “I can, I will – watch me”

I can’t tell you what it is that you are looking for but I can tell you that when you find it you will know, so please do it. This might be the hardest tip to accomplish on this list, however, it is the most beneficial in its return in regards to your personal health. 

I will watch and already proud of you for making your first step towards it. 

Until we meet again

His side