- 30 Days of Healthy Living, Lifestyle Medicine, Living Lifestyle Medicine, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Physical Activity, Research Evidence, Stress Reduction
9th January – Get outside in nature
🌱Spending time in nature has been shown to be an effective way to improve feelings of wellbeing. There is evidence that spending time in nature increases serotonin levels – which is commonly referred to as the “happy hormone”. 👩💻An article from 2019 suggested that if we spend more than 2hours a week out in nature, wellbeing scores are significantly improved. Interestingly, it doesn’t matter whether people get their 2hours a week all in one go, or in multiple smaller doses of being outside, the benefits are still just as good. Logically, it is possible that the benefits might be even better if you can combine your healthy habits; time outside…
8th January – Reduce alcohol (know your limits!)
Advice to reduce alcohol might seem like an odd thing to post on a Friday night, but shortly after I walked through the door after a very long day at work, my lovely well-meaning husband handed me a gin “because it’s Friday night!” But when I’ve stopped to think about it, “because it’s Friday” is not really a good reason to have a drink! It’s so easy to think that having a drink is a good way to reward ourselves with a glass of wine or a gin after a hard day. It’s something we see all the time on social media and memes all the time – “it’s wine…
7th January – Phone a friend
Phone a friend… Or a relative, or a loved one. In a pre-covid world I would have said go and connect with somebody in person, but currently that will have to wait for a while. A Harvard study that followed people for 75years showed that the most important predictor of both happiness and longevity is having social connections. This may be because we are evolved to be social tribe animals, and being alone triggers a threat response in our physiological system, setting off a cascade of stress and inflammatory response, which, over time, leads to ill health, both physical and mental. So what? Social connections do matter, and we can…
