20 Great Ways to Well-Being
1. Ride your bike. Cycling is a healthy, low-impact form of exercise, and research shows that cycling from two to four hours per week helps you lose weight and reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases, bowel cancer, diabetes and stress.
Research involving 21,000 people in Finland found that people who cycled for more that 30 minutes a day had a lower risk of developing diabetes.
2. Walk to work. Exercise doesn't have to be vigorous, and regular walking can lower the risk of heart disease and osteoarthritis, improve mood, increase good cholesterol, reduce blood pressure and extend lifespan.
Ten days of walking led to a 36 percent drop in symptoms in depressed men and women. Walking also increases the production of a hormone that reduces worry and anxiety.
After 36 weeks of 10,000 steps a day, overweight men and women lost seven pounds of fat and reduced their waists by half an inch, say researchers at Ball State University. Ulster University research shows that walking twice a week for 45 minutes reduces blood pressure and prevents weight gain.
3. Eat more fish. According to more than 10,000 pieces of research, there's not much that fish and its oils won't either protect you from or treat, from backache to heart disease and cancer.
A study at Harvard shows that women who eat plenty of sardines, tuna and salmon during pregnancy may have brighter toddlers, while work at the Medical University of Vienna found that omega-3 fatty acids from fish may be an effective treatment for symptoms of autism. A study by Suleyman Demirel University in Kazakhstan links fish-eating to later menopause.
4. Be happier. Being happy boosts the immune system, lowers the risk of infections, including flu, reduces blood pressure and extends lifespan.
Research at University College London shows happiness has powerful effects on blood pressure, heart disease and inflammation. Heart rates of the most happy were 68.4 beats per minute, compared to 74 for the least happy.
University of Pittsburgh researchers found that the more optimistic a woman was, the less artery disease she had. Over three years, the arteries of the optimistic women thickened by only one percent, compared to almost seven percent in the least optimistic. Men and women classed as positive and happy types were three times less likely to become infected when exposed to a laboratory flu virus.
5. Get a hobby. Hobbies lower stress levels, ease depression, improve mood and immune system, and may lower the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease.
According to research at Maastricht University, men who do not have hobbies are much more likely to be sick and to be absent from work more often than men who have hobbies. A study at Pamukkale University in Turkey found that doctors who did not have a hobby had the highest rates of depression, while a Mayo Clinic survey of cancer specialists showed they rated having a hobby as a key "wellness strategy."
6. Make your marriage work. Having a good marriage can extend your life, reduce the risk of catching a cold, and lower blood pressure and heart disease.
Researchers at Birmingham University have found a direct link between higher levels of antibodies to flu and being in a happy marriage. They looked at men and women given the flu vaccine and measured the antibody response over the next 12 months. The results are showing that those who had high marital satisfaction had the higher antibody responses to the flu strain after just four weeks.
A University of Tampere, Finland, study shows that single men are 70 percent more likely to have a premature end than married men.
7. Eat dark chocolate. Once considered unhealthy, dark chocolate with high levels of cocoa beans full of antioxidants is now considered healthy in moderation, with research showing it can lower the risk of heart disease and stroke, reduce blood pressure, insulin resistance and bad cholesterol.
Pennsylvania State University research shows it may lower cardiovascular disease, while Harvard University researchers calculate that flavonoids in dark chocolate lower the risk of dying from heart disease by 20 percent.
8. Avoid weekend sleep-ins. Research at the University of Adelaide shows that staying in bed for two extra hours on Sunday increases sleepiness and infection risk on both Monday and Tuesday. It's all because the body clock gets confused.
9. Get rich. Money may not be able to buy good health, but it may lead to happiness and less depression.
Research based on lottery winners shows that their mental well-being and happiness was much higher than those who had small wins, who were in turn happier than losers. The Warwick University study based on men and women who had medium-sized lottery wins shows there was no initial burst of happiness at the moment of winning, and that it took up to two years to kick in, possibly because it was spending the money rather than winning that was important.
10. Get more sun. While skin cancer is a real problem ... there's growing evidence of the beneficial effects of exposure to the sun for a wide range of conditions, including breast, lung and colon cancer, depression, pain, fertility, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, TB and rheumatoid arthritis.
Research at the University of Tasmania shows that higher sun exposure at the ages of six to 15 -- an average of two to three hours per day in summer -- more than halved the risk of getting multiple sclerosis. "Sunlight can have beneficial effects, and may protect against autoimmune diseases including type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis," say researchers from Sussex University.
