World Health Day is here again, serving as a chance to both promote the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) vital work and to reflect on our own efforts towards health and wellness. Each year the theme of World Health Day differs, encompassing all aspects of health from beating diabetes to ensuring food safety. This year the theme is universal health coverage for all, reflecting the WHO’s primary goal of ensuring that everyone can obtain the care that they need, when and where they need it. 

In particular, as part of this year’s key campaign messages, the organisation has highlighted the role of primary healthcare in achieving this goal by ‘caring for people and helping them to improve their health or maintain their well-being, rather than just treating a single disease or condition.’ As well as highlighting the need for a robust primary care system, this prompts us to think about our own health and lifestyle choices and ensure we are taking the right steps to look after ourselves. Here are some ways we can take proactive steps to health this World Health Day. 

Protect your heart

At present, heart and circulatory disease claims the lives of more than one in four people in the UK alone, totalling over 150,000 a year, so it is vital that we all do what we can to protect our hearts. In the hustle and bustle of modern life, making healthy choices can understandably fall to the bottom of the priority list. Thankfully, making even small positive lifestyle changes can have a huge impact and help us avoid heart-related problems.  

Sleep is one of the most underestimated aspects of a healthy lifestyle and forms an essential part of keeping the heart healthy. Getting less than seven hours of sleep a night can increase the likelihood of developing issues such as high blood pressure and diabetes, which are significant risk factors for heart attacks, heart disease and strokes. By prioritising sleep and ensuring we get plenty of rest, we give our bodies the chance to repair and carry out vital biological processes that contribute to protecting our long-term heart health. Establishing and sticking to a regular sleep schedule, taking time away from electronics to wind down before bedtime and keeping your bedroom cool and dark can all help us break the cycle of bad sleep and get the rest we need. 

Managing our cholesterol is also vital when it comes to ensuring long-term heart health, as it is one of the biggest risk factors for heart attacks and strokes; luckily it is also an area of which there are many solutions that can help control it. As well as lifestyle changes such as regular exercise and stopping smoking, taking a specifically tailored supplement such as those in OptiBiotix’s CholBiome^® range can be an easy way to manage cholesterol. It helps reduce and maintain cholesterol levels, reduce blood pressure and boost heart wellness and has been proven to reduce total cholesterol by up to 36.7% and decrease blood pressure by 5.1%.  

Mindful nutrition 

With countless fad diets and meal plans thrown at us by the media every day, it’s no wonder that many of us are confused about what, when and how we should eat. At its core, a healthy diet is simply one that ensures we get the nutrients and energy we need to function, rather than about restricting ourselves purely to ‘healthy’ foods or eliminating certain food groups. It’s important to remember that overly restrictive eating habits, even if they’re based on healthy choices, can be just as detrimental to our overall wellbeing as overeating. Balance is the key, and making mindful, conscious choices around food can help us to achieve a great, healthy, nutritious diet that incorporates foods of all kinds.

When weight loss is our goal, it can be tempting to go for a quick fix. While this approach might result in some instantly shed pounds, it’s unlikely to achieve our long-term goals given that most deprivation diets leave us feeling hungry, dissatisfied and eventually returning to whatever our previous eating habits were. By striving for a mindful approach to nutrition, we give ourselves the very best chance at achieving our goals. If we’re conscious about what we eat, we’re more likely to make nutritious choices most of the time, with room still in our lives for occasional treats, resulting in a long-term lifestyle change.

Supporting a balanced diet with an ingredient like SlimBiome^® can aid our weight loss efforts. Created by OptiBiotix, SlimBiome promotes feelings of fullness, helps maintain a healthy metabolism and regulates blood sugar levels to prevent overeating. It has been shown to reduce calorie intake by up to 20% by stimulating the growth of health positive bacteria in the digestive tract that help to regulate appetite, supporting us in making conscious choices around food. SlimBiome is also one of the key ingredients within the GoFigure weight loss range of meal replacement shakes, flapjacks and muesli, which ensures it stands out from the crowd as a scientifically supported method for weight loss.