Why be "healthy?"

Everyone knows that they are supposed to be "healthy," and that it is "good for them." But what exactly does this mean? What does it mean to be healthy? And why does it matter?

Healthy can be defined as "having or indicating good health in body or mind; free from infirmity or disease." How do we achieve this? "Overall health is achieved through a combination of physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being, which, together is commonly referred to as the Health Triangle."

Basically, just eating vegetables and fruit and taking your vitamins alone does not make one healthy. That is why it is most commonly referred to as "maintaining a healthy lifestyle." This includes getting daily physical activity, all the nutrients your body needs and eating a balanced diet, a good nights' sleep, living in a (fairly) stress-free environment, having meaningful social relationships, and mental and emotional outlets to both challenge your mind and express yourself.

Here are some benefits of living a healthy lifestyle:
1. Being active and maintaining an exercise regimen keeps your body stronger which lowers your risk of injuries and chronic pain as you older.  Strength training keeps our bones strong, which helps prevent osteoporosis and arthritis, while stretching keeps your body flexible and limber, preventing sprains and muscle damage.

2.  Avoid disease and illness and in turn lower your medical bills- this gets extremely important as we get older. The better you take care of your body and yourself now, the less you'll have to do when you get older. Studies show that regular exercise and a healthy diet can help reduce free radicals as well as promote the release of toxins associated with disease and infections. It also helps prevent hypertension (high blood pressure), promote healthy cholesterol levels, reduce the risk of diabetes, and keep your heart in shape.

3. Live Longer- There is a huge body of evidence suggesting that healthy living, including staying on top of health screenings and physicians visits can keep you living healthy and living longer.

4. More energy- working out and eating a balanced diet will actually give you more energy to accomplish all the things you want to get done in a day, which in turn will keep you less stressed overall and give you time to take care of your own mental and emotional health too.

5. Better mental health- exercising and being stress-free while also maintaining good social relationships helps significantly reduce the occurrence of depression and other mental illnesses.

6. Prevent obesity- by keeping in good physical shape, you can pretty much eliminate your chance of becoming obese and everyone hopefully knows that being obese is by far the worst thing you can do to your body. It increases your chances of a heart attack, stroke, chronic illness and getting many other diseases.

7. You'll look better- your clothes will fit better, you'll be able to do more and hello, doesnt everyone like feeling attractive?

8. You'll feel great- the better you feel on a daily basis the more you'll continue to live a healthy lifestyle and the healthier you'll become, thus starting a wonderful cycle to live a long, happy, illness-free , healthy life!

These are just a few of the many many reasons to be healthy, but these should definitely be enough to convince you that being healthy, while it takes a lot of work, is by far the best thing you can do for yourself. Any you will be the person who reaps all the rewards!