4 simple lifestyle tweaks you can make for a fitter, healthier you

Singaporeans tend to lead busy and fast-paced lifestyles packed with work and chores. Between spending our remaining “free” time with our loved ones, enjoying our hobbies and resting, this leaves limited time for us to focus on our health and wellness.

This means many of us end up neglecting our health even though we know it’s one of the most important aspect of our lives. While there are no shortcuts or quick-fixes when it comes to your fitness and health, there are simple ways you can fine-tune your lifestyle to improve your wellbeing.

To kickstart this journey, here are four simple lifestyle tweaks you can introduce to your everyday life.

Sleeping takes up close to a third of your life. This makes it a sensible place to start making tweaks as you work towards a healthier lifestyle.

While getting into bed and waking up at consistent timings is important, you also need to ensure you get enough sleep. This is typically between six to eight hours each night, no matter how tempting it could be to sleep in on the weekends, or even sleep less on work days.

Establishing a regular sleep pattern allows your circadian rhythm to operate at its optimum level of alertness and sleepiness each day. Your circadian rhythm is basically what is informally labelled your body’s “internal clock”. By sleeping at a consistent time each night, you enjoy better quality sleep.

At the same time, having sufficient rest each night also helps improve your concentration, energy levels and memory. It has also been found to reduce risk of developing chronic heart diseases or depression.^[1]

While you’re at work each day, eating right can be expensive and/or inconvenient. This may encourage you to take the easy way out and choose unhealthy options at a nearby food court or restaurant.

By preparing an additional portion each time you cook, you can bring home-cooked meals to the office. This also encourages you to prepare healthier meals that can help you improve your health and lifestyle over time.

In addition, cooking an extra portion each time can also save you time, effort and money in the long-run.

Many people underestimate the amount of exercise they are able to clock while doing household chores.

Sweeping and mopping your house means having to walk all over your house, at least twice. Moving your furniture, such as your sofa set or bed to get to the hard-to-reach places require some heavy lifting. Cleaning the toilet includes exerting muscle power into removing stains, grime and dirt on your bathroom floor and tiles.

At the end of the day, a cleaner home also means more hygienic living conditions for you and your family.

If you can work in 15 minutes of walking each day on your way to the office, you’re guaranteed that level of workout every day. This can help alleviate fatigue, reduce your risk of developing chronic diseases, including diabetes and heart diseases, as well as improve your mood and maintain a healthy weight.

Even if you have a convenient route to work, you can still choose to use the stairs rather than the lift on your way down from your home (or several floors if you live on a high floor), walk to a further bus-stop or even purposely take a slightly longer route. For those who drive, you can opt park in a different office building (and choose the cheapest option!) to work in your daily walk.

What’s best is that you can simply reuse this routine on your way home after work to double the your amount of daily physical activity.

AIA Vitality is a wellness programme that encourages and rewards you for making healthier lifestyle choices. This includes accumulating AIA Vitality Points by going for health screenings and fitness assessments, joining a gym, purchasing HealthyFood™ options and many more.

These are just four simple tweaks you can consider making to your every day schedule that can help you lead a more active and healthier lifestyle. The key to this is being consistent in making full use of the little opportunities available. You could even get more creative by working in other ways to be get active and make heathier choices in your everyday life.

^[1] Importance of Sleep – HealthHub; 9 Surprising Reasons to Get More Sleep – WebMD