Six things you can do now to enjoy better health

PRIME – March 2014 By Victor Acquista, MD Director Pathways Integral Health & Wellness, LLC Good health is largely the result of the choices you make. You cannot change your genetic makeup and it's a convenient excuse to blame your genes when you have health problems. Focus on what you can do to help improve your health. Listed below are six suggestions to help put you on the path to better health Stop drinking soda – I cannot think of a single health benefit to drinking soda. This type of beverage often contains unneeded calories, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and other chemicals. How does consumption of these substances improve health? I invite you to ask yourself this question. I have nothing against soft drink manufacturers, but we know the empty calories (termed empty because they are not accompanied by other potentially beneficial nutrients) contribute to obesity and diabetes. We still do not know all the health effects of artificial sweeteners. Oral health often suffers as a result of soda consumption. I recommend you drink water. If the taste is too bland, add a little lemon juice. Try unsweetened green tea, one of the 12 superfoods I mentioned in a previous column. With minimal effort you can stop consuming something potentially harmful and switch to something neutral or potentially good for your health. The choice is yours to make. Start exercising – Studies show health benefits to exercising at a level equivalent to walking two miles per day. An average walking pace is 1 mile in 20 minutes. You can incorporate much of this into a daily routine by doing things such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator, parking far from the entrance to buildings, etc. Invest in a pedometer, which can often be purchased for less than $5. It's a good investment. Try to work up to 10,000 steps a day. Daily exercise doesn't have to be walking. You can ride a bike, do calisthenics, or any of a number of activities. You don't have to spend a lot of money for a health club membership, but if you can afford to do so, or can purchase some home exercise equipment, what are you waiting for? Particularly if you are sedentary, regular exercise is good for your health. If you are unable to walk, there are well-designed chair exercises you can do. You can probably find these and other instructional videos with exercise routines available for free loaned out by your local public library. Again, the choice is yours. With little or no investment you can choose to start exercising and thereby improve your health. If you have significant heart or lung problems or musculoskeletal problems, ask your health professional for specific recom-mendations about what kind of exercises are safe for you. Meditate – There is nothing fancy or religious about meditation. It is simply a good way to turn off the thinking part of your brain for a while and remove yourself from stressful thoughts and emotions. It requires no fancy equipment and is available to anyone at any time at no cost. There are many potential positive health effects to meditation, including physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits. In fact, meditation will be the subject of a future column. Why not avail yourself of some form of meditation? You will be happy you did and this is just one of the aforementioned benefits – an increase in happiness. If sitting to meditate is not your thing, try walking meditation, which represents a two-for; you derive the health benefits from walking and the health benefits of meditating at the same time. Once again, the choice is yours. Repair a broken relationship – Broken relationships drain our energy. Granted, not all broken relationships should be fixed; some should be ended. That's like throwing out a broken stereo, broken piece of furniture, etc. – some things simply should not be repaired. But if a broken relationship is important to you, your health will likely improve when you fix it. Take the initiative to call an old friend you have lost contact with, to reach out to friends, family, children, neighbors with whom you are at odds. Extend an olive branch to a coworker with whom your relationship has soured. You can recapture the energy you spend being angry with, avoiding, fearing, or constantly reliving some hurt by repairing what is broken. It is up to you to make the effort to improve your health by doing so. Start a new hobby – or restart an old hobby – When you are working on hobbies that you enjoy, you exercise creativity and derive satisfaction from these efforts. You can temporarily suspend the worries and cares that occupy your mind and focus on doing something you enjoy. A hobby doesn't have to require a lot of time or money. It can be as simple as reading a book, doing a crossword puzzle, knitting, drawing, working on some craft. Think about how you feel when you do these kinds of things. Do you feel better? Why not start today? Volunteer – That's right; you read that correctly – volunteer. Pick a cause or activity that you support and go help out. When you involve yourself in something bigger than yourself by contributing your time and efforts, it feels good. Helping out others helps us to stop thinking about our own problems and allows us to work on solutions that help whatever cause we are supporting. Yes, this often requires some investment in time, which is often in short supply, but the investment has a nice payback – better health. There is also the satisfaction that comes from contributing your time and talents. If you truly are not able to help out by volunteering for something due to physical, monetary, or time constraints, you can try to smile more often – that's a pretty easy way to help make the world a better place. There you have it – six simple, readily available things you can do that cost little or nothing, any one of which can help to boost your health and well-being. Don't procrastinate, that's just a way of putting things off and maintaining the status quo. Understand that much of health and illness results from choices we make. Choose wisely! – Victor Victor Acquista, MD is author of "Pathways To Health: An Integral Guidebook." For more information on Dr. Acquista's book, visit his website at http://pathstohealth.info/.