Are you the kind of person who plans for the future, or lives in the here and now? How about when it comes to your health? Actually, considering future health is something that everyone should be thinking about. While none of us can live forever, we can certainly prolong our lives and ensure we spend our later years as happy, comfortable and content as possible by making the right decisions today. Here are a few smart steps to take.
Start Young
When you’re young and carefree, it’s easy to feel like old age will never creep up. You might be able to eat what you want, drink heavily, smoke and do all the wrong things with your health and ‘get away with it’ right now, but these habits are slowly impacting your long term health. Don’t wait until things start going wrong until you decide to make a change. If you focus on looking after yourself from when you’re young, you’ll maintain a healthy body much more easily. Think about your life and habits right now, and consider what you can change that your future self will thank you for. Eat well, exercise enough, prioritise sleep and generally look after your body and mind. Prevention is so much better than cure.
Attend All Health Screenings
Health screenings have the ability to find all kinds of health issues at the earliest stage- this is when they’re at their most treatable. Screenings pick up illnesses and disease before they’ve had the chance to present symptoms, meaning even if you feel fit and well it’s important to attend. Health screenings are based on your age, gender and lifestyle- for example, screenings in women can detect cervical cancer and breast cancer. You may choose to go to regular sexual health screenings depending on your situation- even dentist visits and opticians visits can be considered as screenings. GPs sometimes offer checkups every few years where you can have a full blood count done, your blood sugar and get your blood pressure checked. Since some of these things are the symptoms of silent killer diseases, it’s always worth making the effort to find out. Thankfully, good medication like Neoritm for high blood pressure and insulin therapy for diabetics means you can continue to live a healthy life if you’re diagnosed. And you can also take advice and make any relevant lifestyle changes too to prevent them from getting worse.
Don’t Overlook Mental Health
Mental and physical health is strongly linked. Being unwell in the mind can present symptoms in the body- anxiety and stress for example can increase the risk of heart attacks, heart disease and strokes. Taking care of your physical body is fantastic but don't overlook your mind, take steps to keep it healthy. Find ways to relax- journal, therapy, meditation and massage are all good options. If you’re struggling keeping your mental health under control then be sure to reach out and get medical help, your GP can help and medication can be really effective for getting your brain’s chemicals rebalanced and allow you to feel so much better.