Lifestyle is a way how an individual likes to spend his/her life. Lifestyle is certainly used by people, groups, and nations and is formed in specific geographical, economic, political, cultural, and religious contexts. Lifestyle is referred to as the features of populations of a region at a special time and at a certain place. It includes day to day activities and functions of individuals such as job, fun, and diet.
It is collectively accepted by some brief researches that lifestyle plays an important role in an individual’s state of health. According to a study issued by World Health Organization (WHO), 60% of an individual’s physical and psychological health is correlated to the quality of the person’s lifestyle. Problems like obesity in teenagers, joint and skeletal problems in the early 40s, cardio-vascular diseases, hypertension, and so on, can be caused by an unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle. The relationship between lifestyle and health should be highly considered.
Today, wide changes have occurred in the life of all people. Malnutrition, unhealthy diet, smoking, alcohol consumption, drug abuse, stress and so on, are the presentations of unhealthy life style that they are used as the dominant form of lifestyle. Besides, the lives of citizens face new challenges. For instance, emerging new technologies within IT such as the internet and virtual communication networks, lead our world to a major challenge that threatens the physical and mental health of individuals. The challenge is the overuse and misuse of the technology.
Factors that influence the lifestyles:
According to the existing studies, it can be said that: lifestyle has an important influence on the physical and mental health of a human being. There are different forms of such influences such as:
- Diet and Body Mass Index (BMI):
Diet is the greatest factor in lifestyle and has a direct and positive relation with health. A poor or bad diet may result in obesity, insomnia, and depression. An unhealthy lifestyle can be measured by BMI. Modern lifestyle may lead towards malnourished body due to excessive intake of junk and unhealthy food.
- Exercise:
For treating general health problems, exercise should be included in everyone’s life style. A daily exercise routine will definitely help in a healthy and fit lifestyle. Continuous exercise surely eliminates health risks. Some studies stress the relation of an active lifestyle with happiness.
- Sleep:
One of the bases of a healthy life is sleep. Sleep is a factor that cannot be apart from life but a good or bad sleeping routine may surely affect your physical and mental health either in a positive or in a negative way. Sleeping disorders have numerous social, psychological, economical, and healthy consequences. Lifestyle may affect sleep and sleep has a clear influence on mental and physical health.
- Substance abuse:
Addiction is considered an unhealthy lifestyle. Smoking and using other substances may result in various problems; cardiovascular disease, asthma, cancer, brain injury.
- Application of modern technologies:
Now it’s not only about the addiction to drugs that destroys an individual’s health but the addiction to screen is totally and majorly involved in this mission. The available technology that facilitates the life of human beings is now being misused or in other words, people are now addicted to that fiction world. Overuse of technology may interrupt someone’s mental health For example, using of computer and other devices up to midnight, may affect the pattern of sleep and may disturb sleep. Addiction to use mobile phones is related to depression symptoms.
- Study:
the study is the exercise of soul and brain. Placing study as a factor in lifestyle may lead to more physical and mental health. For example, the prevalence of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease is lower in educated people. The study could slow the process of dementia. But at the same time studying for a very long time on a daily basis may make your lifestyle sedentary which is not good for your mental health and also bad for your physical appearance (while studying for a long time a person is supposed to sit and this may cause obesity).
So, for a healthy and better lifestyle, you should always maintain balance in every aspect of your daily routine.
