Innholdsfortegnelse for Better Health in Easy Steps i Your Guide to Success

The expert guide to a healthier life Good health is more important than ever and luckily, you have the help you need to improve your health right here. Lifestyle diseases – including an unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, stress, smoking, alcohol, poor sleep and obesity – are responsible for 60 per cent of all deaths today. This essential guide will equip you with the tools to prevent a wide range of lifestyle diseases – from stress and high blood pressure to diabetes and high cholesterol – that have become a worrying part of our modern lives. You'll receive the tools you need to take action where it’s needed. And you'll get plenty of advice from our experts that you can put into action right now to boost your health.…

? How much of your brain is water? A 40 per centB 60 per centC 80 per cent The brain is one of the most advanced organisms on the planet. Despite this, as much as 80 per cent of your brain is made up of something as simple as water. That’s why when you’re dehydrated, your performance, energy levels and mood all suffer. C is correct. ? What type of water has the most bacteria in it? A Tap waterB Bottled waterC There’s no difference Spring water and mineral water sound more luxurious than tap water. But in fact, several studies have shown that bottled water often contains more bacteria. The reasons for this include the fact that tap water is subject to stricter quality requirements and that bottled water…

Sleep before 14.00 A power nap can interfere with your ability to fall asleep in the evening if it’s taken late in the day, so have a nap before 14.00. Lie down on the sofa If you are nice and comfy in bed, you’re more likely to oversleep, so take to the sofa for a quick nap. Block out sunlight Use a sleep mask or blackout curtains to block out the light.…

1 Racing thoughts Just say “never mind” Why it affects your sleep Did I remember to lock the front door? What should I get mum for her birthday? Can we afford a holiday this year? Aaargh, I’m going to be so tired tomorrow! If there’s one thing that can really wreck your sleep, it’s all the noise that goes on inside your head at bedtime. It can be incredibly difficult to switch off, and the problem gets even worse when you start to worry about being worried. In fact, a lot of the thoughts that keep us awake are to do with the fear of not being able to fall asleep and the consequences of that. This only adds to the frustration, causing stress hormones to be released in the…

Don’t forget to go for a run tonight! Eat six portions of coarse greens today! If wagging your finger at yourself isn’t having the desired effect, maybe you should try ‘nudging’ yourself into your running shoes and veg basket instead. In other words, learn to gently steer yourself into choosing the right thing to do without really thinking about it. In simple terms, nudging is about trying to push our choices and behaviour in a certain direction, through small, subtle nudges that catch our attention, rather than coercion and finger-wagging. Our everyday lives are full of choices, most of which we make almost automatically as a matter of routine. It’s these subconscious habits that nudging tries to push in a better direction. One of the most famous nudges comes from…

If you clench your hand and examine it, you’ll realise approximately what size you’re dealing with when talking about the heart. Your fist-sized organ pumps five litres of blood every minute while resting to pick up waste and carry nutrients to every part of your circulatory system. You could say that blood is your body’s combined pizza delivery and waste management team. It’s through the blood that nutrients and oxygen are transported to the cells, while the blood transports waste products in the form of CO2 away from cells and up to the lungs, where it is sent back out into the world as exhaled breath. Blood that has delivered oxygen is first pumped into the pulmonary circuit, where the red blood cells refuel on O2 before the heart sends…

What is cholesterol ? Cholesterol is a fatty substance that is present in all cells of the body. It helps maintain normal cell membranes and also plays a role in the production of certain hormones and in regulating your metabolism. You get some cholesterol from your diet, but the vast majority is produced by your liver. From there, it enters the bloodstream where, bound to proteins, it can travel to anywhere in the body. Is all cholesterol the same ? You may have heard the term ‘total cholesterol’, which refers to the total amount of cholesterol we have in our blood. This figure includes HDL and LDL cholesterol as well as what is known as remnant cholesterol. Doctors are interested in how much of each types we have, because while…

Before things get too sweet, take a look to the right, where we have four probing questions for you. How many did you answer yes to? The author of this article has to blushingly admit that they said yes to three. If the result was the same for you, you are very much in the target group for this feature – at least, if you’re interested in changing your relationship with these tempting sweet treats. And many of you are. In our 2018 reader survey, 64 per cent – that’s more than six out of ten of you – said you would like to eat less sugar. Back to the Stone Age OK, so the will is there, but how do we move forward and make it happen? We asked…

PROBIOTICS like kefir and sauerkraut ANTIOXIDANTS like berries and cabbage HEALTHY FATS like fish and avocado Imagine there was a miracle pill that could eliminate all the ailments of the world at once. It’s a tablet that many are waiting for and could one day become a reality. In the meantime, there’s a strategy that can eliminate many of life’s ills. The good news is that it’s mainly about eating lots of delicious fresh food, and who doesn’t like that? Before you accept the notion, you need an explanation. Many conditions such as repetitive stress injury, arthritis, atherosclerosis, eczema and overload injuries to the knees, shoulders and ankles have one thing in common: sterile inflammation. Behind the slightly cryptic term hides a nasty form of inflammation: inflammation without infection. The…

600 (1⅓ lbs) grams of fruit and vegetables every day. Fruit and veg protect against disease, and the effect increases the more you eat until you hit 600 grams. However, there’s no harm in eating even more, so long as it’s extra vegetables you’re adding to your plate. 80 cm 31.5 inches Make sure your waist isn’t wider than this. Statistically speaking, when your waistline doesn’t exceed 80 cm, you have a low risk of developing lifestyle diseases. Even if your bum is a little wider than you think it should be, it’s the fat around your waist that drives the release of hormones and upsets your blood sugar levels. 163 cm 5 feet 4 inches is the average height of US women. Your height (or lack of it) is mainly due to your genes. However, illness…

Check your Facebook friends. How many of them have had cancer? If they are on the younger side, there may just be a sprinkling. But eventually, around half of your UK friends, colleagues and family members will get cancer, with around one in two of them dying of the disease. Cancer is, after all, responsible for 24% of all deaths. It’s not all bad news. The high incidence of cancer is due to the fact that we’re living longer overall, and cancer affects older people more than younger people. In fact, more than a third of all cancer cases in the UK are diagnosed in people over the age of 75. With increasing life expectancy comes an increasing number of people suffering from cancer. That said, it’s not just the…

Fatigue and thirst are just two of the signs that you may be suffering from type 2 diabetes. Once known as ‘adult-onset diabetes’, type 2 diabetes (aka diabetes mellitus) tended to be a condition associated with old men, but nowadays it's far more common and can affect people of any age, including younger women. Diabetes UK estimates that 850,000 UK adults have type 2 diabetes without even realising it, while 2.4 million risk developing the disease unless they take action now. Diabetes is a metabolic disorder that causes high glucose levels in the blood. The reason so many of us can walk around with such a serious condition without realising it is because the symptoms can be vague and often sneak up on you. Therefore, it can easily take years…

Muesli, ,muesli, muesli! Every single day, the breakfast menu in my childhood home was rolled oats with milk – much to my displeasure. Because while I chewed on the boring cereal, I knew that many of my classmates were slurping up sweet Frosties or biting into crunchy toast with lots of melted butter. “Oats are good for you,” my mum said without a hint of sympathy, while I secretly stuck out my tongue and swore that when I grew up… I’ve been able to decide what I want for breakfast for many years now, and guess what! Most days, there’s muesli (or Weetabix, another great source of fibre) in front of me – because she was right, my mum… Fibre prevents disease One of the great things about rolled oats…

This is how we’ve selected the foods How do you select the 40 healthiest foods when a supermarket’s vegetable section alone could fill the list? Here’s how we did it. First, to ensure the greatest possible variety, we included all food groups – from vegetables and meat to cereals and dairy products – before choosing the best in each category. We also made sure our entire selection comprises items that should be available in a well-stocked supermarket, so you can find them easily. FRUIT Blue-violet berries These little health bombs are crammed with anthocyanins, powerful antioxidants that – in addition to pampering your gut flora – protect your body from damage. ▢ Blackberries Like other blue-violet berries, blackberries provide lots of antioxidants, and the fibre content is top-notch, helping digestion.…

• HEALTH • INTELLIGENCE • ABILITY TO LEARN • HAPPINESS • CREATIVITY Do you want to be a worse version of yourself? You’re probably thinking, “I’d rather not,” and the good news is that you don’t have to be. You just need to go to bed. “Many people don’t prioritise their sleep enough because they have a thousand things to do and would rather sit on the sofa for a few extra hours in the evening instead of going to bed, but that’s a really bad idea. Your brain needs sleep, and if you don’t get enough, it damages both your brain and a number of important processes in your body,” says Birgitte Rahbek Kornum, associate professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Neuroscience, who has been working in…