So, we are a week into 2022. How are those New Year’s resolutions working out for you?
What have you promised yourself this year? For us here at ClearO2 HQ, we have made a pact to focus on our health and wellbeing. Not in terms of demanding resolutions, but instead the promise to ask ourselves questions that ensure we are top-to-toe healthy for 2022.
Our team here has compiled some questions we think we should all be asking ourselves in 2022 – consider them your new, health-first resolutions!
Question: Are you sitting down too much?
A big concern for many of us is that we are now more sedentary than ever. Sitting reduces circulation and can lead to swelling, stiffness and pain in muscles and joints. It can also impact on our mood, digestion, energy, pain and tension from slouching and sore neck.
This year, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to set an alarm on your phone for 30-60 minute intervals which prompt you to get up, jump up and down, walk around the office and/or stretch. Anything to get the circulation moving again and release your posture.
Question: Are you sleeping enough?
In the ClearO2 office, we all agreed that we need more sleep! It seems so many of us have developed a culture of filling all the hours of the day and pushing sleep to the bottom of our agenda. The added anxiety of the past couple of years hasn’t helped – but sleep really does underpin our overall health. We all know that good quality sleep helps the body remain healthy, supporting the immune system, and that without it, our brains can’t function properly. This year, therefore, let’s resolve to manage our sleep better.
How can we keep this resolution? By maintaining a healthy lifestyle, reducing caffeine and taking regular exercise, all of which improves our sleep quality.
Question: Are you getting enough time outdoors?
Staying home has been a big part of the pandemic, but time outdoors really is a tonic. There’s nothing like time spent outside to soothe your soul and make your feel better both physically and mentally. Whatever the weather. Studies have proved that even a short stroll through the countryside is beneficial to your mental and physical health, can lower blood pressure and increase endorphin levels.
Exposure to natural daylight on your skin also boosts your vitamin D intake, which is not only important for supporting your immune system and keeping bones strong, but vitally, for giving you energy. Winter has, once again, seemed interminable, with many people having reported low moods, sleep issues, muscle fatigue and lack of energy. Although there are a multitude of contributing factors towards this worrying trend, lack of vitamin D plays a crucial part.
We challenge you to resolve that you will spend 20 minutes a day outside walking. Surely we can all keep to that? After all, scientists have written that we need 120 minutes a week for outdoor activity as the benchmark for physical and mental wellbeing, so how hard can it be?
Taking supplemental oxygen is also an alternative mood and energy booster – guaranteed to help beat fatigue, boost your immune system and support your recovery from exercise.
