As the lock down is still going on all of us our spending more time in our homes watching Netflix and chilling with our family. Women are also cooking a lot more during quarantine. Women have a lot of pressure on their shoulders because these days they are managing the household work alongside doing their office work from home.
Dr. Rohini Somnath Patil says, “connecting the dots between food, exercise, and sleep can make a big difference for your health”. “If you can exercise and you can have a healthy nutrition program, often times that’s just as effective as taking medication for high blood pressure, for high cholesterol, for diabetes, for weight control, there are so many benefits to lifestyle therapies.”
Here are most important points that are must for a woman to keep herself healthy.
- Make self-care a priority: The first and the most important point is to make self-care a priority. It’s natural that women tend to give all their attention to their kids and family and to every other thing around. Prepare a diet for yourself and include necessary nutrients. Drink plenty of water. Get between seven and nine hours of sleep each day.
- High protein diet: After the age of 35, wear and tear happens at a faster pace in the body. So it is very important that your diet is rich in protein which helps in enhancing the regenerative metabolic processes in the body.” Eat meat that is antibiotic free and hormone free. It’s also important to make sure you’re getting enough fiber and vegetables in your diet. Have six servings of vegetables a day, two or three servings of fruit and make sure you’re getting enough protein in your diet. Having a healthy diet also means having a healthy sleep schedule. Sleep is really an important part to being healthy. When you sleep you make growth net hormone. Growth hormone is necessary to building healthy skeletal muscle. So you can see how everything is connected. If you’re not building healthy skeletal muscle you can’t metabolise and burn your calories.
- Calcium and Vitamin D supplements: Bone density, calcium and Vitamin D starts reducing significantly after the mid 30s. So regular check up of these parameters and taking the right supplements is very important to maintain a strong health in 40+ women. Vitamin D supplement can be taken with or without food and the full amount can be taken at one time. While your body needs Vitamin D to absorbs calcium, you do not need to take Vitamin D at the same time as a calcium supplement.
- Multivitamin Supplements: There are multiple nutrients which lack in our day to day diet and the best way to restore that is by taking a good multivitamin supplement. Women can ask their physician and take the right supplements. Eat one bowl of fresh fruits and sprinkle flax seeds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds on it.
- Diet rich in antioxidants: Antioxidants are compounds produced in your body and founds in foods. They help defend your cells from damage caused by potentially harmful molecules as free radicals.Antioxidants rich foods like turmeric, garlic, berries, green tea, cinnamon, amla, nuts and seeds help you reduce the oxidative stress in your body thus slowing down the ageing process in the body.
- Physical health and exercise: It’s very important to be physically active. It can be anything from just a 40-minutes walk everyday to doing online Zumba or pilates or yoga or swimming or aerobics or just simple suryanamaskar for 30 minutes daily. This will also ensure that you feel fresh, energetic, positive and happy throughout the day.
Doing exercise and workout can really work wonders for your health.
- Mental Health:Mental health is one of the most important aspects of health in 40+ women. Here are some things that you can do to ensure a good mental health:
1) Practice meditation for 20 minutes every morning.
2) Practice pranayama and breathing techniques every morning and evening.
3) Practice any of your favourite hobbies like singing, dancing, drawing etc for an hour everyday.
4) Take out time to do things that make you happy.
- Lastly, Don’t be too hard on yourself. Let things go. You don’t have to be on your toes all the time. Take care of yourself and make self-care a priority.
