Looking for some inspiration for meeting your health and fitness goals?
This post was originally going to focus on our top 10 health and fitness tips but why stop there? We’ve rounded up a whole load of health and fitness tips to help you to get healthier and in better shape!
Whether you’re looking for health and fitness tips for beginners or something to shake up your existing health and fitness routine, here are 44 tips for getting you fitter and healthier – both physically and mentally!
Fitness Tips
If it’s health and fitness tips for beginners that you’re after, improving your general fitness is probably going to be a big priority to begin with.
Even if you don’t class yourself as a newcomer to health and fitness, you might well benefit from making a change or two to your fitness routine to stay on track with your goals.
Here are some health and fitness tips for getting yourself in better shape!
- All Movement Counts
Even if you don’t get to fit a workout in some days, there are still lots of ways to get moving and work on your fitness, strength and flexibility.
Anything that helps to move your body counts, including stretching. This is something you can do even while you’re at work, watching television or waiting for the kettle to boil so there’s no excuse for not getting a bit of movement in every day!
Yoga and Pilates are just two activities that can give you a pretty good workout, even though you might not think of them as one.
If you can get a workout in, that’s great but it’s not a huge deal if it doesn’t happen some days. Make it a goal to do something every day that gets you moving and you might be surprised at how better you feel for it, even if it’s not a traditional workout.
If you’re not very active at the moment and are looking to start getting a lot better with this, aim for at least 10 minutes of movement every day to begin with. And if you’re already a bit active and want to ramp things up a tad more, try for 10 minutes more each day than you currently do.
2. Book It In
Don’t trust yourself to commit to regular exercise? Make it a regular appointment in your diary and you’re a lot more likely to see it through. Treat it as something non negotiable that absolutely has to be done and it should become a key part of your average day in next to no time. Once it’s there in black and white, it’ll feel as though you’re letting yourself down if you don’t see it through. And that kind of guilt isn’t great for your wellbeing!
3. Switch Things Up
Even if you love to exercise, things can soon feel like a chore if you stick to the same routine all the time.
Trying a few different types of exercise can help you to look forward to your fitness regime and you may even find some ones you really love! And if you genuinely love working out, it’s far less of a chore and much more of a prospect to look forward to!
If you’re currently doing a lot of cardio or aerobic work, you could try switching things up with a bit of High Intensity Interval Training (which is another tip in itself later on!) or even a spot of yoga. Switching things up regularly gives you the chance to work different parts of your body and target different fitness goals, as well as keeping things fresh.
Another side effect of switching things up involves improving your efficiency for burning calories. If you spend a lot of time doing the same things fitness wise, it can mean that your body has to work doubly hard to burn the same amount of calories. Freshening things up regularly doesn’t give your body the chance to fall into this trap and can help you to burn fat more effectively.
4. Fuel Up After Working Out
If you’re not in the habit of grabbing some protein after your workout is done, you could be missing a trick for your recovery.
Working out encourages your muscles to break down so if you’re not helping them out afterwards, it’s harder for them to recover post exercise.
If you don’t fancy actually eating protein after your workout, try drinking it instead. Protein shakes and protein rich smoothies are both easy to prepare beforehand and so simple to consume. Just sip them fairly soon after you finish exercising and you’re well on your way to better post exercise recovery.
5. Don’t Spend Too Much Time Sitting
The dangers of sitting too much have been highlighted a lot in recent years and even more worryingly, studies have shown that even doing some exercise during the day doesn’t do much at all to negate the health effects.
Experts now think that too much sitting can be a factor in a range of health problems, largely because it raises insulin levels and decreases metabolism.
Try standing as much as you can rather than sitting if you have the option between the two. Standing desks are something to think about if you need to be at a desk a lot as they work your muscles much more and take away most of the problems associated with sitting too much.
6. Stretch on a Regular Basis
Stretching might not seem like much but it can help your body in a number of ways. This includes relieving muscle tension, reducing the potential for getting muscle cramps and increasing blood flow around the body.
Get into the habit of stretching first thing in the morning and just before you go to bed and you should start feeling a lot better for it!
7. Try a Spot of Yoga
If you’re a big fan of cardio type exercise, the idea of doing yoga might feel a bit alien to you.
There are lots of benefits attached to yoga though and it’s a great way to stretch your body and get it moving in a different way.
It also helps to reduce cortisol levels, which can otherwise lead to sizeable spikes in your body’s insulin levels so it’s great for evening this out.
8. Set SMART Goals
Vague goals can be hard to put into action and you’ll usually find it a lot more useful to set yourself more specific goals that you can measure and keep track of. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Action-Orientated, Realistic and Timely goals.
Instead of telling yourself that you’ll get more active, break it down into how you’ll do this and when. “I’ll get more active” can quickly turn into “I’ll go for a brisk half hour walk three times a week to improve my fitness and clear my mind” using this approach. See how the latter goal is so much clearer and more likely to be met?
Fitness and Weight Loss Tips
Depending on your long term health and fitness goals, you may be looking to tone up and lose a bit of weight as well as improving your fitness.
Here are some health and fitness tips that will also help from a weight loss perspective!
9. Set Realistic Weight Loss Goals
In an ideal world you’d see the pounds magically drop off as you get fitter and healthier but unfortunately it’s not likely to be the case in reality! Setting yourself a big target can feel daunting and if you’re anything like most people, you’ll probably lose motivation and enthusiasm pretty quickly as the end goal is so far away.
A better approach is to break that end goal into smaller mini targets that are more realistic. For example, your end goal may be to drop twenty pounds altogether but you can break this figure down a lot more. Think how much easier it feels to say you’ll aim to lose a couple of pounds as your next bit of progress rather than targeting the whole amount as one big goal.
You’ll be able to see progress as you tick each mini goal off and know that it’s all part of the bigger picture as far as your weight loss goes.
10. Visualize Your Goals
Visualization is a powerful tool that can help you to work towards your weight loss goals. If you can picture yourself looking slimmer and fitter, you can keep it in your mind as you make progress.
11. Exercise When You First Wake Up
Exercising may be the last thing you feel like doing when you first wake up but it can be a great move from both a fitness and a weight loss perspective. It can also boost your mood for the day ahead.
Exercising releases endorphins and ups your serotonin levels, both of which are strongly linked to your mood. Just what you need first thing in the morning even if it doesn’t quite feel like it to begin with!
Early morning exercise can also help with your weight loss efforts as it increases your metabolism.
If you don’t feel like you can easily fit in exercise, you can do a lot by getting up a little bit earlier than normal. Even just an extra 30 minutes gives you a great chance to get active. This doesn’t necessarily need to be a full on workout – a run or even just a walk are ideal too.
12. Build Muscle to Lose More Weight
Strength training (or weight training as you may know it better) can be an underrated way to boost your weight loss efforts.
Lots of people fall for the myth that it builds big muscles but it actually help to build more lean muscle and this can be your secret weapon for burning fat.
Strength training encourages your muscles to break down and then rebuild themselves over the next couple of days. This leads to the ‘afterburn’ effect and leads your body to burn more fat even when you’re resting. This basically speeds up your metabolism and makes it a bit easier to burn fat. How about that for a weight loss boost?
13. Engage in Mindful Eating
Mindfulness is all the rage right now but did you know it can also apply to how you eat? A lot of us eat as a way to deal with our emotions rather than because we’re genuinely hungry.
For example, do you make unhealthy food choices when you’re upset, stressed or bored? You may not actually realize this is the case, especially if it’s something you have done for a long time, and it can help to keep a food diary that charts any relationship between what you’re eating and how you’re feeling at the time.
Mindful eating is all about changing your relationship with food so that it isn’t linked to your emotions. Most people who practice a more mindful approach to eating find that they lose weight into the bargain once they focus on using food as a way to nourish the body.
14. Try Intensive Workouts to Burn Fat
When you’re looking to burn fat, High Intensity Interval Training is a good bet.
Known as HIIT, these fast paced sessions are great for waving goodbye to more calories and because they’re designed to be done in short bursts, you don’t need to spend hours on them to get the benefits. This can be a bit daunting to begin with but it’s a great option for fat busting and building your general fitness too.
A popular way of doing HIIT is to follow the Tabata approach. This involves doing 8 sets of intense cardio work for 20 seconds each, with a 10 second rest in between each set.
Depending on how intense you want your sessions to be, you can do as little as 10 minutes of HIIT and still get a really good workout in. If you’ve got a bit more time to spare, try a 30 minute HIIT workout as a way to switch things up.
Another great thing about HIIT is the ability to up your Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) levels compared to straightforward cardio sessions. This relates to your body’s efforts to repair itself after exercise. And the added benefit of this? It’s easier to burn fat as part of the ‘afterburn’ effect.
15. Combine Strength and Cardio Work
Circuit training is an ideal way to do both strength and cardio training in one session. Metabolic resistance training is essentially a faster paced version of circuit training with less rest time in between reps, which makes it a really effective way to burn fat. Just be sure to master the right technique so you don’t do yourself any injury. If you’ve never circuit trained at this tempo it can be easy to do more harm than good but getting it right can up your fitness routine dramatically.
16. Don’t Spot Train
Got a problem area that you really want to tone up? It’s a popular myth that you can tone up your stomach with just sit ups but it’s actually quite difficult to burn fat on just one part of the body. This is because fat tends to be burnt across the body as a whole and doesn’t isolate itself to particular areas.
You will probably lose weight in the problem area but this won’t be the only place it comes off so you’ll probably be very frustrated if you’re hoping to sculpt one particular part of your body through spot training.
There is one scenario that spot training can work will in though, and this is when you’ve successfully burnt off body fat and can start sculpting the muscle underneath. This is when you can look to specifically tone the stomach muscles, for example.
17. Try to Get Enough Sleep
You may not associate sleep with weight loss but they’re more closely connected than you might think.
When you don’t get enough sleep, you’re a lot more likely to snack and make unhealthy food choices. Studies have indicated that you can find yourself eating a lot more calories if you’re sleep deprived, compared to getting a good night’s sleep.
Unsurprisingly, this makes it harder to keep a healthy weight, even if you have great intentions to eat healthy.
One study found that sleep deprived people ate over 500 more calories! Getting a good night’s sleep is one of the best things you can do to help your weight loss efforts.
Some steps you can take to up your chances of a good sleep include:
- Making sure that your bedroom is at the right temperature and free from noise and light related distractions.
- Not using technology just before you go to bed to avoid falling victim to the ‘blue light’ effect that is known to hinder sleep. This includes not watching television or checking your phone in the couple of hours before bed!
- Having a relaxing bath before bed to help your body to get to the optimum temperature for sleep.
- Try to go to bed at a similar time each night and wake up around the same time each morning to encourage your body into a more regular body clock schedule.
Healthy Eating Tips
What you eat is so important for your health and we couldn’t write a health and fitness guide without giving you some all important healthy eating tips to work alongside your fitness (and maybe weight loss) efforts!
Here are some tips to make sure that your eating habits don’t inadvertently sabotage your health and fitness goals.
18. Have a Filling Breakfast
Start the day right with a healthy, filling breakfast that sets you up well for the rest of the day. Protein is great for helping you to feel fuller for longer and fiber also helps in this respect. An egg based breakfast such as an omelette or poached eggs can be great for this, for example.
If you’d rather drink your breakfast rather than eat it, a filling breakfast smoothie can keep you feeling satisfied through the morning so you don’t start snacking before lunch. Making these yourself means you can have total control over the ingredients so they’re as healthy as possible and gives you the chance to select ones that are perfect for a filling but convenient breakfast smoothie.
19. Eat Clean and Unprocessed
Clean eating has come in for a bit of flak in recent times but at its simplest, it can be a really effective way to eat and be healthy, and there’s no need to make it overly complicated.
You can’t go too far wrong with natural, unprocessed foods and these are a good bet for making up the bulk of your diet. For fruit and vegetables, aim for a wide range of different colors. Try shooting for the rainbow!
20. Have Healthy Snacks to Hand
No matter how filling your breakfast is, it’s no guarantee that you won’t have the dreaded 3 pm slump later in the day.
If cravings do strike, make sure you have healthy snacks to hand that won’t derail your healthy eating plans. Fruit and raw vegetables are always a good one but other options include nuts and seeds. Just remember that nuts in particular can be quite fatty and although these are largely the good kind, it’s still fat.
If you’re going to be on the go, why not have a go at making your own homemade healthy energy bars or energy balls to take out and about with you? With the right ingredients, these can be both tasty and filling.
21. Don’t Deprive Yourself
Eating healthy doesn’t have to mean that you never eat anything nice. As long as you’re eating well most of the time, the odd treat won’t hurt too much.
In fact, depriving yourself of treats completely can make you a lot more likely to fall off the wagon with your healthy eating plans so it’s not always the best approach.
It’s okay not to feel super guilty every time you give yourself a bit of a treat! As long as you’re doing it in moderation, it can definitely still form part of a healthy lifestyle.
22. Watch Out for Hidden Sugars
Not all sugars are necessarily obvious and you may find yourself consuming more than you think, especially if you’re drinking a lot of fruit juices or smoothies that you haven’t prepared yourself.
They might seem like a really healthy choice (especially compared to soda!) but not if they’re packed full of sugar and mean you’re loading up on unnecessary calories. Water is always one of your best bets for drinks and herbal teas can break things up if you want a break from it.
Don’t forget about hidden sugars in your food too. Sugar can be sneakily added to lots of different items and you may not realize it’s there a lot of the time. Be sure to check food labels carefully so you know what you’re really eating and where possible, do your own cooking so you can definitely avoid too much sugar.
23. Drink Plenty of Water
We’ve already talked about water being one of the purest drinks you can go for but there are lots of other benefits of drinking water too.
Your body needs water to survive. Water is needed by every cell in your body and is constantly being lost through things like excretion and even breathing. If you’re losing more water than you take in, you risk getting dehydrated, especially if you exercise a fair bit and/or live in a fairly warm climate.
Other benefits of drinking water include flushing out toxins and waste products from your body, giving you healthier looking skin, helping to regulate your body temperature, create enough saliva, maintaining a healthy digestive system and protecting against kidney stones.
Studies have shown that even mild dehydration can affect your concentration levels and make you feel more tired so it’s important to drink regularly and not wait until you’re thirsty as this is a sign that you’re already a bit dehydrated.
Aim for 6-8 glasses of water in the average day but if you can’t manage that much, you can up your water intake through herbal teas and even homemade smoothies.
Drinking a glass of water when you first wake up in the morning helps to hydrate you (especially if you haven’t drank during the night) and flush out toxins.
24. Get Your 5+ a Day
There’s good reason why we’re always being told to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables per day.
The more color you can pack into your day, the more likely you are to be getting a good helping of nutrients and antioxidants and this is a big boost for your health.
Fruits and veggies can help to protect against heart disease and may even cut your cancer risk.
If you can go above five portions, go for it! This is a minimum recommended guideline and a baseline to at least aim for. Make it your aim to add at least one different portion of fruit and vegetables each day. With so many options to choose from, why not have some fun trying out fruits and vegetables you’ve never had before?
25. Eat Your Greens
Remember being told to eat all of your greens when you were younger? There is definitely good reason for this!
Aiming to eat a colorful array of fruit and vegetables is a great move but leafy green vegetables are a particularly good choice.
These vegetables are packed full of nutrients. For example, kale contains vitamins A, C and K and even some calcium. Leafy greens are all rich in antioxidants and are thought to have cancer fighting properties and the ability to lower cholesterol (as just two of the benefits!).
Some examples of leafy green vegetables you can include in your diet include kale, spinach, broccoli, Swiss chard, lettuce, collard greens, turnip greens, mustard greens and cabbage.
If you’re not a big fan of greens and you know you’d struggle to eat them, try making a green smoothie that includes a few different ones as an easy way to tick them off. A lot of people shy away from the idea of green smoothies on taste grounds but it’s easy to make them taste yummy. Apart from the giveaway green color, you won’t even remember what’s inside!
26. Eat Before You Go Out
If you leave the house on an empty stomach, you’ll probably find yourself making some unhealthy food choices – especially if you’re going somewhere with food. Go to the grocery store without eating first and you can easily see your healthy eating plans head straight out of the window.
Eat something healthy and filling before you go out and you’re a lot more likely to resist temptation to grab the nearest thing to hand.
27. Swap Desserts for Healthy Alternatives
Eating healthy doesn’t mean you can enjoy a delicious dessert again, especially if you make them from super healthy ingredients instead.
Get a bit creative and pretty much any dessert can be turned into something yummy and healthy. For example, chocolate mousse can be made with avocado and cocoa and it tastes surprisingly like the ‘real’ thing. Give it a try and you might find you prefer it!
28. Plan Your Meals Ahead of Time
Meal planning saves time but that’s not the only advantage. It also gives you a lot more control over what you’re eating and avoids any situations where you’re tempted to fall off the healthy eating bandwagon because you’re tired or stressed, for example.
Meal planning also means you’re not at the mercy of processed foods, which are often high in fat, salt and sugar. This can be the case when you eat out too as even food that looks healthy on paper can be a lot different in reality.
Batch cooking healthy meals and freezing them means you’ll always have a good meal choice to hand if you need it.
It’s not usually much more effort than cooking one portion but it can be a real lifesaver for keeping you on track for your health goals.
29. Flavor With Herbs and Spices, Not Salt
If you want to add flavor and taste to your meals, don’t reach for the salt. There are so many herbs and spices that not only act as great seasoners but also offer some brilliant health benefits too. They can also help to reduce blood pressure whereas salt is linked to high blood pressure.
Cinnamon, turmeric, parsley, basil, ginger, oregano, thyme and cardamom are just a few of the herbs and spices that can make great additions to your diet. Sprinkle a touch of them on meals and start reaping the health benefits!
30. Try a Plant Based Diet
Think plant based diets are just for vegans and vegetarians? Think again!
This way of eating is getting more and more popular and for good reason as there are lots of benefits to going plant based. These include lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, better mood and better digestive health, to name but a few!
If you go about a plant based diet in the right way, you can get most of the nutrients you need to be healthy, as long as you replace meat and dairy with alternative sources of the nutrients they provide.
31. Get Plenty of Magnesium in Your Diet
Magnesium is known as an anti stress hormone so it’s a good mineral as far as wellbeing goes. It also has a lot of benefits for general health but it’s one of the nutrients that many of us are lacking in through our diet.
Signs that you’re not getting enough magnesium can include muscle cramps, facial tic, insomnia, anxiety and chronic pain.
Plant based foods are good sources of magnesium, including beans, nuts, whole grains and leafy green vegetables.
If you regularly drink carbonated drinks such as sodas, these can hinder your body’s ability to absorb magnesium. This means even if you’re getting enough magnesium, your body can’t use it properly and you’re effectively sending it straight back out again. Caffeinated drinks can have a similar effect.
32. Eat Plenty of Good Fats
We all know the deal with saturated and trans fats but some fats are actually good for you and should be included in a healthy diet. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are the ones to go for and these have been linked to heart health, lower cholesterol levels, better mood and a more balanced metabolism.
Good sources include avocado,almonds, walnuts, cashews, pecans, flax seeds, hemp seeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds and olives.
33. Stock Up on Your B Vitamins
B vitamins are really important for a lot of things in the body, notably energy and concentration levels. For example, vitamin B1 (thiamin) is involved in breaking down and releasing energy from the food you eat and helping to keep the nervous system healthy while vitamin B6 helps the body to produce hemoglobin, a substance found in red blood cells that’s needed for carrying oxygen around the body.
Good sources of B vitamins include leafy green vegetables, avocado, nuts, seeds, root vegetables, bananas, berries, legumes, beans, whole grains and coconut.
Emotional Fitness Tips
To be truly healthy, don’t forget to focus on your mental wellbeing too! This can be just as important as your physical health.
Here are some top tips for taking care of your mental fitness.
34. Reward Your Progress
Every little success you have on your health and fitness journey is another step towards your end goal and it all deserves some recognition and reward. Don’t be scared to acknowledge this and use it to spur you on with your goals. Just make sure that your choice of reward isn’t something unhealthy!
35. It’s Not About Being Perfect
Getting fitter and healthier is all about working towards becoming a better version of yourself so don’t feel that you need to be perfect. This kind of mindset can actually work against you as it makes you more likely to give up on your healthy lifestyle if you feel that you’re not measuring up well enough.
Truth is, you’re only human! We all have bad days and off days and there may be times when you don’t meet your goals or go off track.
It’s okay if this happens every now and again; just as long as it’s more of an exception than the norm! You definitely don’t need to achieve perfection to be fit and healthy – just aim to improve yourself from where you are now.
36. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others
On a similar note, everyone is different so it’s a waste of energy to compare yourself to other people. There may be people that you really admire and would love to be like but how realistic is it to compare yourself to them?
Focus on your goals and where you want to be to improve your health and fitness, and don’t factor other people into this. You are unique and it’s important to embrace that.
37. Be Thankful for What You Have
We all have things we’d like to change about ourselves and focusing on these ‘shortcomings’ can cause a lot of unnecessary stress and unhappiness.
A better approach is to be grateful and thankful for the good things you do have in your life such as good relationships and health. This type of gratitude has been shown to reduce stress levels, which in turn is heavily linked to better physical and emotional health. It may seem like a relatively small thing but it’s actually one of the best things you can do for your health and wellbeing!
38. Positive Mental Attitude
Your mental attitude can be make or break when it comes to fitness in particular and it’s important to keep reminding yourself of how far you’ve come on the journey since it started.
Things won’t always go to plan but it’s how you bounce back from setbacks and disappointments that really matter.
If you’re constantly telling yourself that you can’t do things, chances are good that you’ll talk yourself out of it and it’ll become a self fulfilling prophecy. The reverse is also true – if you make a habit of telling yourself that you can do something, it’s a lot more likely to happen.
So get working on your positive mental attitude and you’re sure to notice a big difference in how you feel and how likely you are to meet your goals!
39. Take Time for Yourself
When life gets busy, it’s so easy to forget to take time for yourself and this can lead to emotional burnout. Neglecting self care can quickly and easily lead to burnout and this can impact on your health, fitness and weight loss goals, not to mention affecting your whole wellbeing.
Taking even 5 minutes for yourself every day can avoid this scenario and work wonders for your emotional fitness. Here’s the thing though: self care needs to be a regular thing and not just something you do once or every so often.
Self care can be as simple as taking a bit of time to relax with a good book or enjoy a relaxing soak in the bath, or take a few minutes to be mindful, meditate or do yoga.
40. Meditate Regularly
Most of us have incredibly busy minds that rarely quiet down on their accord and this is where meditation can become an invaluable tool for improving your emotional wellbeing.
Meditation can be tricky to get your head around to begin with and it can feel almost impossible to avoid having any thoughts at all. It’s perfectly normal for some thoughts to pop into your head while you’re trying to meditate; the trick is to acknowledge them but don’t give them any importance in your mind so that they drift out again and you can refocus.
If you meditate when you first get up in the morning, it can help to clear your head so that you can focus on preparing for the day ahead. Having a bit of quiet time is also a perfect opportunity to lower your body’s cortisol levels. Cortisol is the stress hormone that is heavily linked to a range of health conditions so it’s definitely one that you want to put in the quiet as much as you can!
Try a bit of meditation and see how much better it feels to calm down your mind!
41. Practice Deep Breathing
A lot of us don’t breathe properly (and don’t even realize that this is the case). Taking shallow breaths (known as hyperventilation) can have a physical effect on your body but this can be counteracted by correcting your breathing.
Take some time every day to sit down, make yourself comfortable and just focus on your breathing. Ideally, you want to be breathing from your diaphragm so that your breathing is deep.
Here is an exercise you can do pretty much anywhere, whether you’re sitting or standing, so it’s no big deal if you don’t get chance to sit down and breathe deeply.
You want your breath to flow down towards your abdomen and for this not to feel overly forced. Breathe in through your nose and try to make it last for up to 5 seconds before you let it out again through your mouth. If you can’t get to 5 seconds to begin with, don’t worry as it can be difficult if you’re so used to shallow breathing. When you breathe out, try to let it flow out gently rather than one big exhalation. Do this for a few minutes if you can and you should start to feel a lot calmer.
42. Build a Strong Support Network
We all need a bit of support now and again and this is where it pays to have a good network of people that will help you through the tough times (and celebrate in the good times, of course!). It can help too if you’re accountable to one another and can help to push each other on towards your goals in life.
This doesn’t need to be a big number of people – the focus is on quality connections and relationships that will be rock solid when you need it. If you only have a few genuine supporters in your network, it can be a lot more valuable than having a much bigger number of fairweather ‘friends’. Make it a priority to build a good, strong support network of like minded people as part of your emotional fitness.
43. Do Something Nice for Other People
When we’re generous to other people, it has benefits for us as well as them. Doing something nice for someone else can be incredibly rewarding and great for your wellbeing.
A nice gesture doesn’t need to be extravagant or over-the-top; it can be as simple as doing them a favor, sending a nice bunch of flowers or card to let them know you’re thinking of them, taking someone out to lunch or giving a bit of your time to help out at a local charity.
Doing these kind of things on a regular basis is an underrated way to boost your wellbeing and you might just make someone’s day or even change their life into the bargain!
44. Spend Time With Loved Ones
Spending quality time with friends and loved ones releases a hormone called oxytocin, which acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain and makes us feel happier. This is the same hormone that is released when we hug or kiss people so you probably won’t be surprised to hear that it’s known as “the love hormone”!
You can also get the same feelings when you spend time with a pet so this is another way to benefit.
Be sure to book time to see friends and family regularly and see it as a key part of your emotional fitness!
So there you have it – 44 ways to boost your health and fitness for a better you, both physically and mentally!
Hopefully you’re already doing some of these things regularly but you can add to this by trying a few new actions every week and reaping the benefits.