It’s a sign of our modern times that our health as a nation is diminishing – we live more sedate lifestyles, sit in front of screens all day and depend on technology to get us through everyday life. But how healthy do you feel? And how healthy do you think you look? Health is such a hard thing to quantify if we’re not talking about obesity or visible illnesses; you can feel well but your skin and body can tell a different story. And as it’s World Health Day this Friday – 7th April – I’m taking a deeper look into some of the modern day lifestyle conditions that can affect our health.

 

Food – How healthy is your diet? It’s a common modern day problem that excess toxins from too much fatty food, alcohol and dairy can show up as spots and breakouts on your forehead. You can combat this by cleaning up your diet and swapping dairy for green juices, milk thistle and filtered water.

 

Stress – Our hearts are all about experiencing joy so any emotion associated with a lack of happiness in our bodies can show up on your skin as redness above the eyebrows. If you’re stressed out you need to make time for yourself – try meditating for a couple of minutes a day or cut back on red meat and increase your omega oils to combat this.

 

Mobile Phones – How many of you sleep with your phone under your pillow? I bet that’s a lot of hands in the air! In fact the blue light from your mobile phone can affect your sleep patterns which can cause problems in the kidneys showing up as puffiness underneath the eyes. It’s best to keep screens away from the bedroom altogether if possible to stop them disrupting this but failing that turn them onto airplane mode at night – don’t worry your alarm will still go off in the morning!

 

Pollution – Air pollution is all around us (especially if we live in big cities) and it can be really drying on the skin which ultimately causes premature ageing. It’s important to properly clean, exfoliate and tone the skin each night to release any ingrained dirt. It can also be beneficial to wear an SPF every day whether it’s winter or summer – not only does it protect you from UV rays but a good one should contain antioxidants that boosts the skins power to fight pollutants.

 

Computers – Hands up if you’re guilty of sitting at a computer all day at work then coming home and browsing the internet on your laptop? We’ve all done it but the problem with computers is that we end up hunched over them staring at a screen all day. Even just making sure you look away from your screen every 20-30 minutes can help your eyes to adjust whilst making sure your screen is 6 inches below eye level and 2 feet away from you will help to look after your eyes by minimising eye movement.