Lifestyle: Its Power and Components
Maximize recovery and therapy outcomes with lifestyle modification.
Although often-overlooked, lifestyle is foundational for recovery and rehabilitation. When recovering, we have a twofold goal: First, to allow our bodies to heal from an injury, and second, to help our bodies avoid being similarly injured in future. Without implementing a healthy lifestyle both are often impossible; our bodies do not recover in a way that maximizes our potential, and we suffer future injuries that result from the same unhealthy lifestyle that triggered our initial need to recover, resulting in a frustrating vicious cycle where continuous medical events make recovery impossible. Importantly, lifestyle factors do not replace therapy and targeted exercises, which are vital components of rehabilitation, but maximize recovery when implemented along with traditional therapy.
In this blog, I’ll discuss six overlapping and interdependent pillars of health: Nutrition, sleep, exercise, social-connections, avoiding-toxins, and managing stress. Together, these pillars can help us achieve a healthy ‘snowball effect,’ where our environments and habits build on each other to enable health in all areas.
Nutrition
Nutrients provide the many components of our bodies with the fuel necessary for them to successfully operate their functions, without which our bodies simply cannot function. Good nutrition and hydration has been shown to: decrease systemic inflammation, optimize the immune system, normalize blood pressure, promote muscle growth, enhance neural plasticity, prevent bed sores, aide in recovery from surgery, slow the decline of degenerative diseases, and slow, and sometimes even reverse, diseases such as heart disease, and diabetes. A plant-based diet that includes a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds and avoids processed sugars and saturated fat has consistently been shown to improve health and longevity and decrease disability.
Sleep
Sleep impacts metabolic health, heart health, immune system function, emotional well-being, cognitive functioning, blood pressure, and systemic inflammation. During a night of good sleep, our bodies will go into cycles of REM and non-REM sleep, both of which are important for health. Seven-to-eight hours of restful sleep every night would allow for several cycles of both Rem and non-REM sleep to occur. A variety of injuries and diseases may inhibit people’s ability to experience good sleep by interfering both with the ability to fall asleep and to stay asleep. Good sleep hygiene and specific nutrients may help improve sleep quantity and quality.
Physical exercise
Most of us recognize the incredible feeling after a long walk or difficult run and intuitively understand that exercise is important for our health. Research on the importance of exercise clearly demonstrates the validity of this natural intuition: Exercise has been shown to improve physical health, improving muscle and bone strength, coordination, flexibility, blood glucose control, and blood pressure, improve psychological health, improving depression, anxiety, and cognitive function, and decrease both the likelihood and severity of disease, improving pain management, decreasing heart-attack, cancer and stroke risk, and improved rheumatological symptoms.
When creating an exercise program, it is best to work with a therapist and or a trainer to ensure a safe and appropriate program and to implement small amounts of aerobic and strength training exercises throughout the day.
Social connections
While social connections and a meaningful life are distinct concepts, the combination of maintaining social bonds and having a sense of purpose is important for both longevity and overcoming hardships. As we age, and especially after experiencing illness or injury, social circles often shrink, because there is simply less time to spend with others given the demands of rehabilitation and illness, because it feels others cannot adequately understand or empathize with the struggles of illness and rehabilitation, or because we afraid of being a burden on others.
Regardless of the reason, these decreased connections can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness. When compounded with additional social losses, such as losing the ability to work or attend family events, these changes may cause a decrease in the meaning of life, which is not only painful itself, but is also not conducive to healing. To help counter these losses, time with close family, friends, and pets should be scheduled and new meaningful activities should be developed. Consider adopting a cat or dog, as animals can make wonderful companions and help make things more enjoyable during difficult times.
With all the chaos surrounding the development of injury and illness, these activities may seem inessential, but finding ways to maintain social connections and meaningful participation in life is essential for recovery.
Avoiding toxins
We are all exposed to many toxic chemicals everyday. These chemicals build up and can cause or contribute to a variety of health problems, such as cancer, parkinson’s disease, diabetes, and asthma. Since there is limited oversight to protect us from these chemicals, it is important that we do what we can to reduce our exposure.
Drink filtered water, try to reduce the need for medication and supplements, avoid toxic household cleaning products and personal care products. (Check the Skin Deep database here to find safer products.) Eat organic, reduce processed food, use an air filter in the home, avoid using plastics for food and water, especially when they are hot, avoid exposure to tobacco smoke, alcohol, and mold, reduce use of dry cleaning, choose frozen or fresh food over canned food, choose bpa-free when buying canned foods, use oil-reed diffusers instead of air fresheners, and vacuum instead of sweeping or dusting.
Stress management:
Stress management is another often neglected component of wellness, even though stress is so common in all of our lives. Stress elevates cortisol levels, which itself exacerbates many health issues, and chronic stress also often leads to additional unhealthy behaviors, such as poor sleep, poor diet, alcohol and tobacco use, and social isolation. To understand how to manage stress, it is important to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy stress. Healthy stress is a short-term stress that arises from meaningful sources that you feel passionate about, such as the stress that arises from completing a project or planning a wedding. Unhealthy stress, on the other hand, is a constant, ongoing stress that arises from a negative event or unhealthy relationship, such as dealing with a disability or significant financial hardship.
Since it is often impossible to completely and immediately eliminate all unhealthy stress in our lives, it is important that we practice habits that help us both deal with the stress and slowly eliminate as much unhealthy stress as we can. Prayer, mindfulness, meditation, spending time in nature, allowing yourself time to relax and think without interruption, spending time with others and animals, and physical exercise all help us deal with stress and think of creative solutions to our problems.
After reviewing these six pillars of health, I hope it is evident that a healthy lifestyle is integral for complete and sustained healing.
