#Healthy habits to start today Offline

Find places near your office or home to go to – you may have a park or gardens nearby. Being out in nature will get you moving, reduce stress and increase feelings of happiness. Getting time out in the sun (even just 10 minutes of sun exposure each day) can raise your vitamin D levels and elevate your mood and energy levels. You may even switch off notifications for social media to reduce distractions or set up automatic replies for when you are taking some time-out for some real-time. Start by setting some short switch-off times during your day. A balance between screen-time and real-time can reduce stress, improve posture (hunching over a phone or laptop can put a strain on your neck and back), improve sleep (if you switch off well before jumping into bed) and allow you to be connected to your thoughts, surrounding environment and people in the present moment.

#Healthy habits to start today Offline

Going offline can do wonders for our brain function and mental health.

A cup of non-caffeinated herbal tea, reading a book and switching off your devices 30-60 minutes before bed will assist in winding down from the day and put you in a relaxed state.

Have a pre-bed routine to wind down from the day.

There are apps on your phone that can assist with this. To improve your sleep habits, you can implement the following: Adults need a minimum of seven hours of sleep per night, with up to nine hours of sleep appropriate for people repaying sleep debt or recovering from intense exercise. Inadequate sleep can lead to cravings for foods high in calories and carbohydrates due to needing a quick energy boost. Sufficient sleep is vital in preventing diseases and weight management. Sleep is vital for energy restoration, enabling the body to repair cells, maintain and form new neural pathways in the brain to improve memory, and help you learn new things.

Healthy sleep patterns are essential for maintaining a healthy body and mind.

Aim for five serves of vegetables each day.

Prepare some healthy meals to take for work lunches and healthy snacks.

Add a new fruit or vegetable to your shopping basket each week to try.

Increasing the healthy foods in your daily diet will provide you with everything your body needs to be in its healthiest state! Introducing new foods and meals over time is a great way to allow your taste palate to adjust to new flavours and create new habits and favourite healthy foods! Some tips to get you started include: To help you drink more water, flavour it with fruit and vegetable slices if plain water isn’t appealing, and carry a bottle with you wherever you go!

Assists blood flow and oxygen to the brain.

We need it in sufficient quantities to benefit our health and optimise our mental and physical functioning. We all know water is good for us, yet we often struggle to drink enough. Learning a new skill, be it mentally challenging (learning a language or taking a short course in a subject of interest), physically challenging or requiring coordination, for example, a sport, aerobics class or dance lessons, keeps your brain in shape and is a healthy habit to adopt for the short and long term benefits. There is evidence that exercise improves memory and can slow brain deterioration in late adulthood.

Keeping your brain active can keep it healthy, make your memory sharper, delay ageing effects on the brain, and even reduce the risk of or delay the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Bodyweight exercises like squats, lunges, step-ups, push-ups and pull-ups are great even if you don’t have access to any equipment many parks have outdoor gyms set up due to the popularity of outdoor training, so you could utilise a space like this. Try to incorporate some strength training in your week. Being stronger makes daily tasks easier.Keeping muscles strong helps your health in numerous ways. Walking at every opportunity, be it parking the car a bit further away from the office or supermarket, taking the stairs instead of the lift or escalator and taking breaks at work to move and walk, for example holding a walking meeting. Moving can mean hitting the gym, going for a run or playing a sport however, it can be more than that.