¶ … promote your health each day?

Preventative medicine is the key to personal health promotion. However, health promotion on a personal level is not about making grand, lifestyle changes overnight. Rather, health promotion is taking a series of simple, positive steps to ensure an individual's good health on a daily basis. A healthy daily life does not minimize the need for long-term care such as regular check-ups, but it can minimize the wear and tear of daily life and thus forestall the development of chronic conditions and the inevitable consequences of aging.

For example, waking up at the same time everyday, and not hitting the snooze alarm can contribute to a rejuvenating and restful night's sleep at the end of the day. Having a properly balanced breakfast of slow-burning carbohydrates such as cereal, mixed with a dairy protein also ensures good health and a source of energy throughout the morning. Regular brushing and flossing minimizes tooth decay and infection and prevents cavities. Morning exercise such as walking to work, or incorporating regular walking throughout one's day by utilizing the stairs more than elevators is both energizing and stress reducing.

Stress reduction and control is very important to good health. While one's occupation and studies give one a profound source of satisfaction, the pressures of modern life can be wearing -- thus taking time to have a quick, healthy lunch with friends or enjoying going to the gym after work, or simply playing with a child, relative, or friend after one's day is a joyful and important source of mental health promotion.

Of course, not every day proceeds so smoothly. But when a crisis comes about, it is important to be able to manage it through positive thinking and positive actions, rather than resorting to unhealthy techniques of stress management, such as lashing out at one's colleagues or loved ones. At the end of every day, ideally, one should say, I have had a productive day, and a healthy day that enriched the lives of my colleagues and loved ones, as well as myself. Having a sense of moving forward and meeting a life goal is important too, and through continuing education and meeting different physical, vocational, and personal goals, a sense of forward movement contributes to health, as well as a healthy attitude of enjoying the present.