We all want to live a happy and healthy life, but sometimes it is very easy to fall into patterns that harm our well-being.. “We’re creatures who crave comfort and that leads to some compulsive bad habits,” she added. says psychologist Scott Bea, PsyD. “We are creatures of habit, and bad habits still have a certain power over us. If you fall back into bad habits, remember that sometimes it takes a lot of trials to get where you want to go.” Here are five habits that take years off your life, according to doctors. Read on and to ensure your health and the health of others, don’t miss these Sure signs you’ve already had COVID.
There is a lot of evidence linking prolonged sitting to a shorter life, even if you exercise regularly. “The assumption has been that if you’re fit and physically active, that will protect you, even if you spend a lot of time sitting down every day.” says Rebecca Seguin, assistant professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University. “In fact, by doing so, you’re much less protected from the negative health effects of being sedentary than you think… If you’re in an office, get up and move often. If you’re retired and have more free time, find ways to move around in and out of the house. Get up between TV shows, take breaks from computer and reading time, and be mindful of breaking up prolonged sedentary time.”
I wish the worst thing about a bad night’s sleep was feeling a little cranky the next day! Studies show that not getting enough sleep is linked to a number of serious health conditions, including diabetes and heart disease. “No aspect of our biology is left unscathed by lack of sleep,” says sleep scientist Matthew Walker, director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley.. “It sinks into every possible nook and cranny. And yet nobody is doing anything about it. Things have to change: in the workplace and our communities, our homes and families. But when did you see an NHS ? [U.K. National Health Service] poster urging people to sleep? When did a doctor prescribe, not sleeping pills, but sleep itself? It needs to be prioritized, even incentivized. Sleep loss costs the UK economy over £30bn a year in lost revenue, or 2% of GDP. It could double the NHS budget if they just instituted policies to powerfully mandate or encourage sleep.”
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Study after study shows that smoking cigarettes can take more than ten years off your life. “Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the US.” says Timothy McAfee, MD, MPH. “We need to do more to educate the American people about these findings. Women now lose about 11 years of life expectancy if they smoke. Men lose about 12 years.”
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Chronic stress can shorten life expectancy at the cellular level, doctors warn. “Stress is now on the map as one of the most consistent predictors of shorter telomeres [protective casing at the end of a strand of DNA] long,” says Elissa Epel, Ph.D.. “The type of stress determines how big its effect is. So we can see this relationship between stress and cellular aging throughout life, and it’s critical to how we’re built. Our brains are constantly looking for threats to our survival.” When we expose our bodies to years of chronic stress, we see effects that override normal aging, making our telomeres look like those of a significantly older person.When we look at groups of people with psychiatric disorders related to dysregulated emotional responses, especially depression , and compare them to controls who have never experienced these disorders, they always have shorter telomeres.”
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Did you know that loneliness is estimated to shorten useful life by 15 years? “Loneliness and weak social connections are associated with a reduction in life expectancy similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day and even greater than that associated with obesity.” says former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. “Loneliness is also associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, and anxiety. At work, loneliness decreases performance, limits creativity, and impairs other aspects of executive function, such as reasoning and decision-making.” For our health and our work, it is imperative that we address the loneliness epidemic quickly.” So call your mother, please.
