Five Essential Tips for General Health and Wellness

Health and nutrition can be a confusingly complex subject. Even professionals have differing views and opinions. However, despite all the conflicting claims, there are certain facts that are indisputable and backed by research.

Here are five established ways to help you on the road to long-term health and wellness:

Avoid calories provided by sugar.

To start off, sugary drinks are the most fattening things that can ever enter your body. That because liquid sugar calories aren't processed by your brain the way it does solid food calories. Hence, when you drink soda, you actually end up taking in more total calories. Sugary drinks are heavily associated with various medical conditions, like type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease and more. Keep in mind that in this regard, fruit juice are almost just as bad as soda. They have nearly the same amounts of sugar, and the antioxidants in fruit juice are not enough to offset the sugar's harmful effects. Read more in the homepage about wellness.

Say no to junk food.

It's undeniable that processed junk foods are responsible for most health Issues nowadays. These foods have been designed to be "hyper-rewarding," tricking our brains into eating more and more of them until some people even get addicted. Additionally, processed foods are full of unhealthy ingredients like refined grains and refined sugar, and have low amounts of vital nutrients and fiber here.

Sleep enough.

The importance of adequate quality sleep cannot be stressed enough. It's actually as important as eating the right foods and getting good exercise, if not more. Poor sleep can make you insulin-resistant, which increases your appetite while compromising your physical and mental performance. Furthermore, it is one of the most significant individual risk factors for obesity.

Sleep with good lighting.

Bright lights disrupt your body's production of the sleep hormone, melatonin, which is essentially what gives you the urge to sleep. If sleep is usually hard to come by, make it a habit to put on amber-tinted eyeglasses as the night rolls in. This should condition your body to the coming of a good, restful sleep.

Watch your food intake.

The only way to know if you're eating right or not is to understand the foods you eat and use a nutrition tracker. This is also very useful if you need to lose weight and need to count calories. Certainly, you should also check on your fiber and micronutrient intake. The idea is to be aware of what's going in and out of your body. Research proves that monitoring your food intake makes you more likely to succeed in your health and wellness goals.