World Health Day: Tips to stay healthy

Leading a stress-free and healthy life is what everyone wants. But a stressful life is what everyone gets.

Stress is inevitable- from a homeless man on the street to Bill Gates, no one can escape stress and being unable to overcome stress can have some serious consequences such as strokes, headaches, panic attacks and in some extreme cases, death.

According to Dr GowriKulkarni, head of Medical Operations at DocsApp, little changes will make a big difference in staying healthy, both physically and mentally.

Here's where we can start:

- Eat timely meals: Eating on time and eating the right kind of food is vital. Don't stay hungry for a long time and then indulge in binge eating. When it comes to your meals, you must've heard the infamous saying, "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like pauper", follow that and you will remain hale and hearty.

Hack: Eat small meals throughout the day to ensure you stay energized and remain at the top of your game.

- Stay Active: When the shadows of stress are upon you, adding one more task is the last thing you want to do, but not if that task is working out. Working out in this context ranges from a 20-minute walk in the park to pumping iron in the gym. Any form of physical exercise can go a long way in relieving stress and helping you stay healthy by reducing fatigue and releasing endorphins in the body which act as natural stress relievers.

Hack: When you feel that stress is kicking in, go out for a quick walk and while you are walking, play your favorite genre of music and keep your mind off your stressful task.

- Get enough sleep: Sleeping might be difficult with stress knocking on the doors of your brain but skipping sleep will only make the knocking louder. While working, focus only on the task at hand and include enough tasks throughout the day to ensure that your mind and body is totally drained out of energy when you hit the sack. Nothing induces sleep like a tired body.

Hack: Get at least six hours of sleep every night and if required, take a 20-minute afternoon power nap.

- Figure out the source of your stress: Stress like every other thing starts somewhere and then branches out into other parts of your life. Once you have the source of your stress figured out, you can eliminate it from the roots. This ensures that the stress coming from that particular source is gone away for a while and if it does come back, you know where it's coming from and you can eliminate it again without letting it affect you.

Hack: Be alert about what task takes off how much stress off your chest and accordingly make a 'priority stress triggers' list. Eliminate the high priority stress triggers first.

- Know your boundaries: Pushing your limit is always nice but not if it drops a mountain of stress on you. Pushing yourself to get things done will take away your leisure and rest time which will subject your body to stress. Set your boundaries depending on how much you can take on a daily basis and never ever ignore leisure time with yourself, your family or your friends.

Hack: Set SMART goals. SMART goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time Bound.

-ANI