5 ways employees can prevent ill-health
It’s widely known that positive lifestyle choices such as eating well, not smoking, exercising regularly, sleeping well and not drinking too much help to keep us healthy.
But what’s less known is that those five controllable behaviours are connected to five diseases – cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and lung disease – which account for 74% of deaths worldwide.
The upside is that small, simple lifestyle changes can make a big difference to our overall health and wellbeing, as well as lower our risk of developing these serious illnesses.
Here’s five areas your employees can focus on to improve their health and wellbeing.
1. Physical activity
Physical activity can increase our lifespan, as well as reduce our risk of serious and chronic illnesses.
It effectively reduces fatigue, improves alertness and concentration, and enhances our overall cognitive function – and helps to reduce stress.
The NHS recommends adults aged 19 to 64 do 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week.
2. Healthy sleep
Sleep is critical to our health and wellbeing. It affects almost every type of tissue and system in our bodies, including brain, heart, lungs, metabolism, immune system and mood.
Poor sleep increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and lead to early death.
There’s increasing evidence that the relationship between poor sleep and mental health issues goes both ways.
With stress and worries causing a bad night’s sleep, which leads to difficulty to focus and added anxiety.
3. Limit alcohol
Alcohol is a depressant and disrupts the chemistry of the brain – the neurotransmitters that influence our mood.
Over time, this can worsen symptoms of anxiety and depression.
It can also disrupt our sleep and weaken its quality when we do sleep, which can negatively impact our physical and mental health.
On top of this, it can put strain on other areas of our lives, such as work and relationships, which can also lead to mental health challenges.
4. Eat well
As well as lower our risk of developing life-threatening illnesses, healthy eating can improve our immunity and mental health.
What we eat every day can positively impact our gut-health, which is responsible for 70% of our immune system and helps to boost our mood and energy levels.
Eating fibre is essential to keeping our gut happy, but so is having 30+ plants a week, including fruits, veg, nuts, seeds, herbs, beans and pulses.
And adding fermented foods that contain live microbes, such as yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi and kefit, helps digestion.
5. Mindfulness
Mindfulness is learning how to be fully present and engaged in the moment, aware of our thoughts and feelings without distraction or judgment.
Through meditation and greater self-awareness, these practices can help us become more aware of our thoughts, feelings and body sensations, so that instead of being overwhelmed by them we are more able to manage them.
Recommended as a preventative mental health tool by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), mindfulness was also found to have the same effect as anti-depressants in reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Supporting employees through personalisation is key
Delivering a health and wellbeing programme that is truly accessible to all employees is about adopting a more personalised approach to wellbeing support, particularly for those at a higher risk of illness.
For common lifestyle risk-factors such as smoking or obesity, behaviour change expertise can be harnessed to support employees to make positive changes, based on their own personal needs.
Once a clear picture of someone’s health has been built, for example through an annual health review, data can be used to predict the most important action an individual can take to improve their health.
A personalised recommendation can then be made – alongside access to the right tools and pathways – to make behaviour change far more achievable.
Incentivising these actions increases the chance of success even further.
In partnership with Vitality
At Vitality, we take a unique approach to insurance. As well as providing high-quality comprehensive cover, we provide a complete wellness package that can help boost employee engagement and productivity.
