We all strive to keep our bodies healthy, but with busy lives and stressful jobs, we can get into bad habits. Sometimes these can be detrimental to our health, so let us look at some of the silly mistakes we make on a daily basis.
Sleep
Sleep – how long should we have? The National Sleep Foundation advises that adults should have between 7-9 hours a night. During this time our bodies restore the immune, nervous, skeletal and muscular systems. People who get 7 hours per night have a lower risk of serious diseases as opposed to people who have 10 or more hours. Heart attacks, strokes and diabetes are higher in people who sleep too long and there are also risks of depression, back pain and high blood pressure.
Teeth
Most people would think it sensible to brush their teeth after eating food. This is a mistake. Brushing your teeth after consuming acidic drinks and foods can weaken tooth enamel. You then have a greater chance of chipped and cracked teeth and it can lead to discolouration. So avoid for at least 30 minutes or brush before eating.
Vitamins
Research has shown that if you take your supplements in the morning with your breakfast, certain breakfast foods can stop you absorbing the pill. Hot food, such as porridge, inhibits the absorption of iron in multivitamins by 75%. A liquid iron supplement liquid iron supplement could possibly prevent this problem. Polyphenols found in tea similarly prevent the absorption of zinc, calcium and magnesium.
Calcium
Calcium plays a vital part in building and keeping healthy bones and prevents osteoporosis. It also helps our blood clot as necessary and helps our nerves send messages. We need to get enough through the foods that we eat to prevent bone loss and low bone density.
Headphones
If your ears are ringing after removing your headphones you should reduce the volume, otherwise, this could lead to hearing loss.
Fibre
People think that eating more fibre will boost our digestive system. This is quite true, unless you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, in which case too much fibre makes the problem worse.
Honey
It’s a myth that replacing sugar with honey is a healthier plan. Honey contains 17g of added sugar per tablespoon which is more than half the recommended healthy daily intake.