5 tips for a healthier life

During Health & Lifestyle Month from March 27 to April 21, health and lifestyle will take center stage. How can you boost your health and that of your colleagues? Ahead of the program, we asked well-known cardiologist Janneke Wittekoek and health expert Joep Rovers for their first tips!

Daylight

Get outside a little more often! One of the most important happiness hormones is serotonin. This hormone needs daylight as a building material. Serotonin, in turn, is a building block of the sleep hormone melatonin. So two birds with one stone! By getting outside more, you produce more serotonin, which directly contributes to the quality of your sleep by making it easier to fall asleep and sleep through the night.

Move

Move, move, move. The miracle pill called exercise. Moving every day boosts your body and your health. Exercise has enormous benefits. Important things that exercise helps with include stimulating your immune system and inhibiting inflammatory reactions. In addition, it increases the elasticity of blood vessels and inhibits arteriosclerosis.

Respiration

About 70% of people breathe dysfunctionally, or not optimally. With a lot of sitting and a hunched posture combined with mouth breathing, far from all lung capacity is used. Most of the lungs are located at the bottom. Thus, these cells are not always addressed. By breathing more through your nose, you take the oxygen capacity out of where the most oxygen is. So try breathing through your nose a little more often: this immediately provides more energy!

Sleep

If you do not sleep well, the body’s incinerator does not work properly. Especially in this time of so many stimuli, it is important to let the whole nervous system calm down. Sleep is essential for your body to recover. A minimum of 7 hours of sleep is recommended, but a good evening ritual with less screen time in the last hour also works tremendously well for the quality of your sleep.

Food

Eat with the seasons. The microbiome (the collection of bacteria, viruses and yeasts that populate our bodies) in our bodies automatically adapts to UV radiation. Your body detects for itself when it is summer and winter and stores important substances in summer that you are going to need in winter. Adjust your diet to the seasons and, in doing so, give your body room to do what it does best: self-regulate.

Want to know even more about health? During Health & Lifestyle Month from March 27 to April 21, we’ll tell you all about it. You will additionally receive the latest scientific insights. That way, you’ll find out exactly what you can do yourself to give your health a big boost.