24 Simple Tweaks To Transform Your Health For The Better

All of the following tweaks are sim­ple, but fully backed up by scientific research.

1 TURN DOWN THE HEAT­ING JUST A TAD

If you lower the tem­per­a­ture at home by just a few de­grees, you could boost your stores of brown fat.

Small amounts of brown fat are located around the shoul­ders, spine and or­gans. They are ac­ti­vated when you’re cold and produce heat to help main­tain body tem­per­a­ture. The boost in metabolism breaks down blood sugar and burns the un­healthy fat stored in your tis­sues that is linked with disease.

A study in the jour­nal Di­a­betes in 2014 found that re­duc­ing the room tem­per­a­ture from 24c to 19c (75f to 66f) overnight was all it took to see more brown fat and an in­crease in metabolism af­ter a month. The ef­fect is re­versible, so why not make this a per­ma­nent change.

2 EARLY TO BED FOR A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP

Spending a lit­tle longer asleep could help your car­dio­vas­cu­lar health, so why not re­tire half an hour ear­lier than usual.

A study in the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Car­di­ol­ogy showed that get­ting less than six hours’ sleep was as­so­ci­ated with a greater risk of heart disease and ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis, clog­ging of the ar­ter­ies that can be life-threat­en­ing. This is be­cause a lack of sleep means vi­tal re­pair pro­cesses are not oc­cur­ring overnight.

Bet­ter sleep im­proves mood and con­cen­tra­tion, low­ers lev­els of in­flam­ma­tion and boosts im­mune func­tion.

3 START A DIG­I­TAL DETOX

Take an hour away from elec­tronic screens (in­clud­ing phones, lap­tops and TVs) every day, start­ing to­day. A study last year showed peo­ple who spent more time on screen-based ac­tiv­i­ties are more likely to ex­pe­ri­ence de­pres­sion. One the­ory is that use of so­cial me­dia fu­els so­cial com­par­i­son, and may make you feel worse about your life.

4 CONTACT SOMEONE NEW

Loneliness is not only bad for your men­tal and emo­tional health, it also has a phys­i­cal im­pact, ac­cord­ing to a re­cent study by the Univer­sity of Bri­tish Columbia.

It found that people with smaller so­cial groups were more likely to have high blood pres­sure. This is thought to be be­cause lone­li­ness is a form of stress, and the body’s stress re­sponse pushes up blood pres­sure.

So try con­tact­ing some­one new each day, whether it’s an old friend you want to re­con­nect with, or a new neigh­bour. Start by adding a few ex­tra names to your Contact List.

5 GET ON YOUR BIKE

Spend 15 min­utes on a bike to hone your brain func­tion. A re­cent study by the Univer­sity of Geneva demon­strated that just 15 min­utes of in­tense cy­cling — even a sta­tion­ary bike in­doors will do — im­proves mem­ory.

The re­searchers even sug­gested that such ac­tiv­ity could help re­verse mem­ory loss that can be a pre­cur­sor to Alzheimer’s. If you don’t have a bike, any in­tense ex­er­cise that gets your heart rate up should have the same ef­fect, say the re­searchers.

6 HAVE A LOVELY SUN­DAY LIE-IN

Don’t set your alarm! ‘When you use an alarm clock, you are shock­ing the sys­tem, and the body will re­spond by in­creas­ing heart rate and blood pres­sure,’ says Rus­sell Fos­ter, a pro­fes­sor of cir­ca­dian neu­ro­science at Ox­ford Univer­sity. ‘Cor­ti­sol, the stress hor­mone, rises in the morn­ing in an­tic­i­pa­tion of wak­ing, but if you’re wo­ken too early, you can get a spike.’

So on days when you don’t need to get up, en­joy a stress-free snooze.

7 REORGANISE YOUR KITCHEN SUP­PLIES

Rear­range your food store to help you make health­ier choices.

A study by Cor­nell Univer­sity found that peo­ple who moved fruit and veg to a cen­tre shelf in the fridge ate nearly three times more of th­ese than usual — be­cause they could see them bet­ter.

Re­search in the In­ter­na­tional Jour­nal of Obe­sity found that obese peo­ple tend to keep more food in easy­-ac­cess places — so to avoid temp­ta­tion, keep un­healthy snacks out of sight and in opaque con­tain­ers.

8 RESEARCH YOUR FAM­ILY TREE

Find out about your family’s health, says Dr Mo­hammed Ab­bas Khaki, a GP in North Lon­don.

Try to get three gen­er­a­tions’ worth of in­for­ma­tion — your grand­par­ents, par­ents and their sib­lings, and your sib­lings and cousins. This can help you and your GP iden­tify pat­terns that may be rel­e­vant to your own health and risk of cer­tain ill­nesses.

9 LET THERE BE THE LIGHT — SIT BY A WIN­DOW

Office work­ers next to a win­dow slept, on av­er­age, 46 min­utes longer each night than those who didn’t, the Jour­nal of Clin­i­cal Sleep Medicine re­ported in 2014. ‘ex­po­sure to nat­u­ral light helps the body clock stay in tune with rhythms of day­light and dark­ness,’ says Jim Horne, an emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor of psy­chophys­i­ol­ogy at Lough­bor­ough Univer­sity.

10 CHECK OUT YOUR MOLES

Spend ten min­utes in­spect­ing your body for moles — and pho­to­graph them. A study in the Bri­tish Jour­nal of Der­ma­tol­ogy found that hav­ing more than 11 moles on your right arm could be a sign you have more than 100 across your body — putting you at risk of melanoma, the most se­ri­ous form of skin can­cer.

Dr An­drew Birnie, a der­ma­tol­o­gist and skin can­cer lead at east Kent Hos­pi­tals, says: ‘Plenty of clin­ics of­fer this mole map­ping, but you can do it your­self with your cam­era phone. take shots of each part of your body to act as a base­line and mon­i­tor for changes.’ Check every three months. If you no­tice new or chang­ing marks, see your GP.

11 SET A TIMER TO WRIG­GLE

A study pub­lished in the Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Pre­ven­tive Medicine con­cluded that fid­get­ing ‘may re­duce the risk of all cause mor­tal­ity as­so­ci­ated with ex­ces­sive sit­ting’.

So in­tro­duce the 20/20 rule, rec­om­mended by per­sonal trainer Eliza Flynn. For every 20 min­utes you spend sit­ting down, move for 20 sec­onds. This could be as sim­ple as fetch­ing a glass of water, stand­ing up to stretch or tap­ping and wrig­gling your feet. Set a timer to re­mind you.

12 SMILE AT A STRANGER

EVEN fak­ing a smile can make you feel gen­uinely hap­pier, science sug­gests.

An anal­y­sis of 138 stud­ies in the jour­nal Psy­cho­log­i­cal Bul­letin ear­lier this year found that smil­ing makes peo­ple feel hap­pier, scowl­ing makes them feel an­grier, and frown­ing makes them feel sad­der — so choose to smile at a stranger and spread some joy.

The the­ory is a smile — even a forced one — tricks the brain into re­leas­ing ‘happy’ hor­mones.

13 COUNT TO 25 BE­FORE A TREAT

Wait 25 sec­onds be­fore reach­ing for a sweet snack — it could help you make health­ier choices. A study by re­searchers at Rush Univer­sity in Chicago showed that when peo­ple were forced to wait 25 sec­onds for an un­healthy snack from a vend­ing ma­chine, 5 per cent picked some­thing health­ier.

Hav­ing to wait for some­thing makes it less de­sir­able,’ said Dr Brad Ap­pel­hans, a clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist who led the study.

14 MAKE A SPICED COF­FEE

‘Add a quar­ter of a tea­spoon of mixed spices (ground cloves, cin­na­mon and nutmeg) to your cof­fee,’ says psy­chol­o­gist Kim­ber­ley Wil­son. ‘This is one of my favourite ways to get a reg­u­lar dose of pow­er­ful plant polyphe­nols — chem­i­cal com­pounds said to im­prove blood flow to the brain, in­hibit in­flam­ma­tion and slow brain age­ing.’

A study in the Jour­nal of the En­docrine So­ci­ety also showed that cin­na­mon could slow the pro­gres­sion of type 2 di­a­betes.

But drink your cof­fee af­ter break­fast: a re­port by the Univer­sity of Bath showed that drink­ing cof­fee be­fore break­fast can cause your blood sugar to spike by 50 per cent.

15 USE SUNSCREEN ALL YEAR

Stud­ies have shown a link be­tween ex­po­sure to the sun’s dam­ag­ing UV rays — which still get through on over­cast days — and de­vel­op­ing skin can­cer and cataracts, where dam­age to pro­teins in the eye make the lens cloudy.

Reg­u­lar use of sun­screen all year round re­duces your risk of de­vel­op­ing melanoma by 40 per cent, re­vealed a 2018 study in the jour­nal JAMA Der­ma­tol­ogy.

16 PUT A PLANT IN YOUR BED­ROOM

Houseplants don’t just brighten your home, they can have health ben­e­fits, too. As well as ab­sorb­ing car­bon diox­ide and re­leas­ing oxy­gen, many also im­prove in­door air qual­ity. NASA sci­en­tists found some plants re­moved up to 87 per cent of ben­zene, am­mo­nia and formalde­hyde in just a day. Breath­ing th­ese in over time can worsen con­di­tions such as asthma. A study by Exeter Univer­sity also found hav­ing a plant on your desk can im­prove pro­duc­tiv­ity and job sat­is­fac­tion.

17 START WRIT­ING . . .

Writ­ing up the day’s events be­fore you go to bed is a sure­fire way to sharpen your mem­ory.

In a study in the Jour­nal of Ex­per­i­men­tal Psy­chol­ogy, 109 peo­ple kept a daily di­ary for five days. A month later, those who had writ­ten their en­tries in the evenings had much bet­ter re­call of events than those who had writ­ten their diaries in the morn­ing.

The re­searchers said mem­o­ries recorded in the evening are bet­ter con­sol­i­dated dur­ing sleep.

18 . . . AND FILL IT WITH GRAT­I­TUDE

Write in your di­ary again this evening — but this time make a point of not­ing down any high points of your day.

Not only will the feel­ings of grat­i­tude help you sleep bet­ter, ac­cord­ing to re­search from psy­chol­o­gists at Manch­ester, not­ting­ham and War­wick Uni­ver­si­ties, but hav­ing a pos­i­tive out­look will give an ad­di­tional boost to your mem­ory.

A study pub­lished last month in the jour­nal Psy­cho­log­i­cal Science showed that peo­ple with a pos­i­tive out­look were likely to have a bet­ter mem­ory.

19 GO OUT­SIDE FOR 20 MIN­UTES

Walk to a nearby park or sim­ply sit out in the gar­den. Just 20 min­utes is all you need, ac­cord­ing to a study pub­lished last year in the In­ter­na­tional Jour­nal of En­vi­ron­men­tal Health Re­search, which found that those who did this re­ported a 64 per cent im­prove­ment in life sat­is­fac­tion scores af­ter­wards.

An­other study by The Ap­palachian State Univer­sity showed longterm ex­po­sure to green spa­ces was linked with a lower risk of psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders. The the­ory is that green space low­ers stress. And if you walk in the morn­ing, you will also get a greater drop in blood pres­sure than at other times.

This is pos­si­bly be­cause morn­ing ex­er­cise low­ers lev­els of cor­ti­sol, the stress hor­mone, which peaks in the morn­ing and con­trib­utes to high blood pres­sure.

20 COOK WITH NEW IN­GRE­DI­ENTS

Use teff, an East African grain, in­stead of rice or cous­cous — or bake with teff flour – both avail­able in su­per­mar­kets. Re­cent re­search showed that teff af­fects our gut bac­te­ria (mi­cro­biome) and im­proves the ab­sorp­tion of the im­mune-boosting min­eral zinc.

Mean­while, data from the Bri­tish Gut project shows that the num­ber one fac­tor for a healthy mi­cro­biome is eat­ing dif­fer­ent plants. The more va­ri­ety, the health­ier our mi­cro­biome, says Tim Spec­tor, a pro­fes­sor of ge­netic epi­demi­ol­ogy at King’s Col­lege lon­don. We should eat 20 to 30 dif­fer­ent plants — which in­cludes fruits, veg­eta­bles, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices — a week. On av­er­age we are now eat­ing around five.

21 BOOK YOUR­SELF A HEAR­ING TEST

Even if you don’t think you need one, book a hear­ing test — it could help you stave off de­men­tia.

Hear­ing loss is thought to be re­spon­si­ble for one in ten of the 47 mil­lion cases of de­men­tia world­wide. This is pos­si­bly be­cause sound and mem­ory pro­cess­ing oc­cur in the same part of the brain, and could be an early sign of de­cline in this area.

A study in the jour­nal neu­ron showed how mem­ory cen­tres deep in the brain are also in­volved in pro­cess­ing sound. The sci­en­tists, from New­cas­tle Univer­sity, be­lieve that tack­ling hear­ing prob­lems early may help to pre­vent de­men­tia.

22 LIMBER UP WITH YOGA

It’s well known that yoga and stretch­ing can ease aches and pains, help you move bet­ter and even al­le­vi­ate anx­i­ety. Now there is ev­i­dence it’s good for your heart. A re­cent study in the Jour­nal of Phys­i­ol­ogy showed that a 12-week pro­gramme of pas­sive stretch­ing — us­ing a wall, the floor or a band to help you stretch — im­proved blood flow, low­ered blood pres­sure and de­creased the stiff­ness of ar­ter­ies. It could be as sim­ple as touch­ing your toes, or find guided ex­er­cises on YouTube. Search for ‘guided stretch’.

23 GO BAREFOOT

When in­doors, stay bare­foot. A num­ber of stud­ies show the ben­e­fits can be felt at any age.

Re­search last year in the jour­nal na­ture noted that wear­ing shoes ‘di­min­ished per­cep­tion of walk­ing sur­faces, al­ters gait and im­pairs bal­ance con­trol, which may re­sult in an in­creased risk of fall­ing’ com­pared with go­ing bare­foot.

And a 2018 study showed that ha­bit­u­ally bare­foot chil­dren are no­tice­ably bet­ter at jump­ing and bal­anc­ing com­pared with chil­dren who wear shoes all the time.

24 GIVE A GIFT

Why not sign up to give blood?

Be­ing al­tru­is­tic like this can ac­tu­ally be good for your health, as well as for the pa­tient who re­ceives your trans­fu­sion. Ac­cord­ing to stud­ies, do­nat­ing may lower the risks of heart at­tack and cer­tain can­cers.

It is thought that it has this ef­fect be­cause it low­ers iron lev­els. You can do­nate be­tween the ages of 17 and 70. Sign up on­line at blood.co.uk.