The year 2020 was a year unlike any other. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the importance of immunity in fighting the virus, maintaining holistic health, and the role of nutrition in boosting immunity has caught the attention of the world at large. We can hope and expect 2021 to be a year that will bring good health and peace to all of us. However, as individuals, each one of us have enormous power to take complete charge of our health and well-being.
Our health is just a by-product of our habits. While moving into the new year, let us ensure to build eight simple and very effective habits which are more sustainable and can help us become healthier and happier human beings.
Karan Kakkad
1. Start your day with a detox drink
One common mistake that a majority of people make is to start their day with normal milk-based tea or coffee, which is highly acidic. Instead of tea or coffee, we should start with any herbal tea, which can be freshly made at home with all natural ingredients like jeera, tulsi, pudina, ginger, ajwain, cinnamon and others.
2. Empty stomach fruits
After your detox drink, the best way to kick-start your day is to have fruits. Focus on seasonal fruits. Many people have the habit of having fruits either with or after breakfast, which is not recommended. Fruits are best consumed on an empty stomach to gain maximum benefit.
3. Eat more colourful plant foods
Eating more plant foods definitely makes us healthier but the key is to have a habit of eating a variety of colourful fruits and vegetables. Different colours have different health benefits and different disease reversing compounds. So maybe have a bowl of salad before meals, or a salad in the evening, in whatever way you wish to, but start having fruits and veggies of different colours.
4. Minimise artificial junk and packaged foods
In the last decade we have seen a sharp rise in lifestyle diseases like diabetes, obesity, fatty liver, high cholesterol, hypertension and many others. And one factor that has driven this the most is our shift from real and natural foods to more artificial and packaged foods. So, one of the conscious habits that we need to inculcate is drastically minimise or avoid our intake of those foods that will do us just harm and no good.
5. Intermittent fasting
Our body has an innate ability to heal itself. At times all we need to do is give an opportunity to our gut and digestive system to rest and do the healing. One of the easy ways is to practise a minimum 12 hours of intermittent fasting. So, let us try to finish our dinner by 8pm and post-dinner we eat nothing for 12 hours.
6. Walk An hour a day
It all begins with a cell. And one of the most important ways to keep a cell healthy is proper microcirculation. By being physically active or by just walking regularly we can ensure good blood circulation at the cellular level. We need a habit of walking every day for at least an hour.
7. Yoga or breathing exercises daily
Each and every cell in our body needs just two things — proper oxygen and right nutrition. And one of the ways of providing right oxygen to each of our trillion cells is proper breathing exercises and yoga. Not only will this make our lungs and respiratory system stronger, it will improve blood circulation at the cellular level and, thereby, create a robust and healthy system as a whole.
8. Living in the present moment
One important factor which I aspire to change in majority of patients when I meet them is their habit of not living in the present moment. Unfortunately, today the majority of people are living in stress, which can be avoided and managed well. There are so many techniques like meditation, breathing and mindfulness that can help us in living in the present moment and avoiding stress.
Karan Kakkad is a nutrigenomics and disease reversal expert. His passion in medical nutrition led to the birth of Reverse Factor, which is backed by extensive research in nutrigenomics — the scientific study of the interaction of nutrition and genes.Visit www.reversefactor.in for more information. He tweets @karan_kakkad.
