New Year Wellness Checkup - Ideas to Put On Your Checklist
It’s a new year! It’s a great time to do a new year health and wellness checkup. Perhaps you have set some goals for the year, or you just want to make this year better than the previous one.
Whatever the reason may be, a new year health and wellness checkup can help you find places to improve your health and make changes for the future.
Think of this checkup as a health and wellness to-do list.
You don’t have to do everything on this to-do list, but this list will give you ideas for improvement. You may also find some things you would typically forget about or overlook.
The new year is a great time to do a health and wellness checkup because you can set goals, and it’s also a natural time to start planning for the future. You should use it as a time to look forward and plan health and wellness goals that will help you for years to come.
Physical Health Checkup
Physical health is much more than how much exercise you do a week. It is defined as the state of being free from illness or injury, and it is vital for overall well-being.
Your physical health is determined by a healthy diet, healthy weight, personal hygiene, sleep, and dental health.
You can do many things to improve your physical health, including eating a healthy diet, staying active throughout the day, exercising routinely, bathing regularly, and getting plenty of sleep and water daily.
It’s also essential to attend doctor appointments and checkups throughout the year and seek medical advice whenever you feel unwell or out of sorts.
Tips For Improving Your Physical Health
Active Lifestyle
Your body was meant to move. I know it’s easy to find yourself slumped over the computer or vegged out on the couch for hours, so it’s important to focus on getting up and moving around.
Set a timer every hour to go off to remind yourself to get up and move. Park at the back of the parking lot to get extra steps, take the stairs instead of the elevator.
It’s important to move your body and be active, even when not working out.
Healthy Diet
Eating a diet with various healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and lean protein is vital for maintaining good physical health.
Each body is different, so it’s important not to follow fads but to meet with a dietician or nutritionist or talk with your doctor about what is best for you.
Besides the foods you eat (or don’t eat), taking vitamins and drinking plenty of water are key for a healthy diet.
Hygiene and Disease Prevention
Keep your body clean and free of disease by brushing your teeth, practicing tongue scraping, and oil mouth cleansing.
Dry brush your body when you wake up to stimulate lymph drainage and promote circulation. Get massages routinely.
Do routine inspections of your body and talk with your doctor if anything seems out of the ordinary.
Physical Fitness
Strengthening, maintaining, and building muscle by physical fitness and exercise is a great way to improve your physical health.
Working out, anaerobic and aerobic exercise routinely every week will help your overall physical health.
Find what works best for you and stick to routine several times a week.
Emotional Health Checkup
If the past two years have taught us anything, it’s how important it is to prioritize emotional health and physical health.
Your emotional health is about feeling and expressing emotions.
Take time out of your day to sit and hold space for yourself. Close your eyes, quiet your mind, and take a deep breath. Invite your feelings in. Can you name your emotional experiences and feelings?
Are you feeling sad, frustrated, angry, annoyed, hopeless, desperate, disconnected, overwhelmed, excited, hopeful, content, happy, grateful, or connected?
Whatever feelings and emotions you are experiencing, can you sit with those feelings?
If not, how can you learn to better identify and feel ok with your emotional health?
The critical thing to realize about emotional health is to let yourself feel the emotions you are feeling and to be able to express them. Be sad when you’re feeling sad. Be annoyed if you are annoyed.
This isn’t about trying to control your emotions or about repressing them. You can embrace your current feelings by realizing that emotions frequently change depending on what is going on in your life and current events (someone say pandemic??).
Tips For Improving Your Emotional Health
Develop A More Positive Mindset
Shifting your emotional health overnight is not realistic, but turning your mindset is a more achievable goal. By redirecting your negative mindset into a positive mindset, you will find that you have fewer negative emotions.
Having a brighter outlook will help you hold onto positive emotions longer and help you weather the storm of negative things happening in your life and around you.
Reduce Stress
Everybody feels stressed from time to time (or maybe it’s all the time). Stress triggers your fight or flight hormones and gives you a rush of energy when it’s needed most. But chronic stress has adverse effects on your physical and emotional well-being.
Learning healthy ways to cope with stress will go a long way in improving your emotional health.
Be Mindful
In today’s day and age, it’s very easy to get distracted. Focusing on mindfulness and being mindful will help improve your emotional health.
Mindfulness is being completely aware of what’s happening in the present moment, of everything going on inside you as well as all around you.
Becoming a more mindful person takes some time and practice, so give yourself grace and patience.
Strengthen Your Social Connections
Even though we spend so much time scrolling social media, it is common to feel alone and disconnected.
Positive social connections and relationships can help your emotional well-being. Social connections can influence your well-being and emotional health, whether with romantic partners, family, friends, neighbors, or others.
Wellness Checkup
While creating your health and wellness checklist for the year, begin by taking stock of your physical and emotional needs. Think of things that will help keep your body and mind functioning well.
When considering physical and emotional self-care, identify youn needs and any areas that could use some improvement.
Note any steps you are currently taking to meet those needs. Then think of ways that could help you reach your goals. Emphasize these to focus on in your wellness checklist.
Wellness Checklist
Learning more about your specific needs makes it possible to find productive ways to take care of yourself and create a practical checklist.
Once you have identified your personal needs, you can create a wellness checklist of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals.
Keep an open mind and heart and allow flexibility as self-care needs change over time.
Free Wellness Checklist!
Keep track of your physical and emotional wellness with this wellness checklist.
