How Lifestyle Changes Can Help Prevent Illness

Whatever your age or state of health, you can improve the odds of living a healthier life through preventive medicine. Andrea C. Beavers, PA-C at Star Treatment Healthcare Services and Med Spa in Dallas, Texas, helps you see how simple lifestyle changes set the stage for a better future. 

Let the curtain rise on a healthier tomorrow

You’re never too young or old to strive for better health. Mrs. Beavers shows patients aged 12 and above how to integrate certain lifestyle choices into their daily routine to ward off illness through preventive medicine. She’ll:

• Review you and your family’s medical history
• Discuss current health issues
• Perform a complete physical
• Recommend lab work and health screenings to foresee potential problems

After reviewing your results, she’ll offer you lifestyle tips to improve your overall well-being.

How preventive medicine changes lives

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), you can lower your risk of disease through various lifestyle changes, including:

Regular physical activity

If you’re not physically active, get going now if you can. Mrs. Beavers recommends starting slowly, building to moderate activity, such as brisk walking or bicycle riding, at least 150 minutes per week. The CDC also advises two days of strengthening activities, such as weight lifting, to keep joints and bones working smoothly. Engage in regular activity to:

1. Keep your mind sharp
2. Reduce anxiety and depression
3. Sleep more soundly

Combined with good eating habits, physical activity also helps offset type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and even some cancers.

Healthy eating habits

This is a big one. The saying, “you are what you eat,” contains more than a kernel of truth. Mrs. Beavers suggests you follow healthy eating guidelines, consuming:

• Colorful fruits and vegetables
• Whole grains
• Lean proteins
• Low-fat dairy

Keep your weight and health in check by limiting saturated fats, sodium, white flour, and sugar to prevent disabling issues from high blood pressure to obesity. Mrs. Beavers discusses lifestyle adjustments, such as making healthier food choices during late-night munching or learning to just say, “no,” to unwanted high-calorie, high-fat foods, plus how to avoid overeating triggers.

Sleep

One of the simplest things we do is often the most difficult. Shakespeare was right. Sleep indeed holds the stuff that dreams, and good health, are made of. Its gentle balm assists with tissue repair, muscle growth, metabolism, and lots more. If you have trouble getting enough, Mrs. Beavers suggests simple changes to help you sleep your way toward better health, such as:

1. Making your room a cool, dark oasis
2. Avoiding large meals, caffeine, and sugar a few hours before sleeping
3. Keep sleeping and waking times consistent

Exercising during the day also helps tire you out at night, making easing into sleep easier.

An ounce of prevention

Mrs. Beavers suggests other lifestyle changes, such as lowering your consumption of alcohol to lessen the likelihood of liver disease, high blood pressure, and other unwanted outcomes. She also believes mindfulness and meditation help with stress, which helps keep both physical and mental ailments at bay. Meditating just twenty minutes twice a day lowers anxiety while increasing alertness, and far more. It even improves sleep by slowing and redirecting those racing thoughts speeding through our brains.

When you’re ready to take preventive measures to reduce disease, contact Andrea C. Beavers, PA-C and our caring team at Star Treatment Healthcare Services and Med Spa to schedule an appointment.