Lifestyle choices for natural hair health play key roles in any natural’s journey.
Our hair reflects the overall health of our bodies, so lifestyle factors for healthy natural hair mirror good habits for overall well-being.
Make no mistake, our behaviors and what we intake dictate in a large way how we feel and how well we function.
As such, each of us possesses the power to change and facilitate a better lifestyle for the health of our natural hair and bodies.
Keep reading Part 1 of this series below to discover the 3 top lifestyle factors for healthy natural hair you should keep in check to boost your chances for hair journey success naturally.
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Stop Smoking for a Healthier Life and Better Natural Hair
What toxins are contained in cigarette smoke?
Tobacco smoke contains thousands of chemicals, according to the American Cancer Society.
Some of the top toxins include the following:
- Nicotine (main addictive substance)
- Ammonia (yes, as found in your cleaning solutions)
- Arsenic (used in pesticides and wood preservatives, among others)
- Benzene (also found in automobile exhaust)
- Carbon Monoxide (known asphyxiant)
- Formaldehyde (used in embalming fluid)
- Hydrogen cyanide (another asphyxiant)
How does smoking diminish health and hair vitality?
Smoking tops the list of preventable death causes in the U.S., as per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Many of the chemicals in tobacco smoke are known carcinogens, meaning they cause cancer.
Smoking can contribute to cancer in just about any part of the body.
Additionally, as with most diseases, the body directs essential resources to fight cancer when it occurs.
This action depletes energy and nutrients needed to maintain optimal health in other bodily processes, including hair growth and sustenance.
Tobacco use increase your likelihood for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and damages your teeth and gums.
Furthermore, a New York Times article claims that smoking may hasten the greying process and hair loss.
Strategies to stop smoking now.
The decision to quit smoking constitutes a huge lifestyle change for healthy natural hair and overall body health.
In addition, numerous smoking cessation aids exist on the market today to help smokers quit.
Current tobacco users can choose from patches, gums, prescription drugs, etc. to help with withdrawal symptoms.
Likewise, support groups like Nicotine Anonymous can also provide smokers with strategies and encouragement to quit.
Many employers also now offer smoking cessation programs free of charge as part of their wellness programs.
Interested smokers should consult a physician on what strategies may present the best chance for success and work with their employers to see what company-sponsored programs have to offer.
Improve your nutrition for a lifestyle that promotes healthy natural hair and body
The hidden ingredients in fast and junk food.
Food production is a business just like any other.
Ultimately, food manufacturers make decisions to positively impact their bottom line.
This often means making and selling more food.
In a perfect world, humans would eat just enough to sustain their bodies, hopefully consuming all the vitamins and nutrients essential for health.
However, those who produce food can stack the deck by adding fats, salt, and/or sugar, which increases cravings (i.e. we eat more) and adds calories with little to no nutritional gain.
You can see this most rampantly in the fast and junk foods that you find just about everywhere within our society.
Subsequently, increased food production also fosters the need for added ingredients to keep products from degrading.
Some food preservatives pose a detriment to health by impacting your body in negative ways.
But we will talk more about this in the next section.
Modern convenience foods represent a poor lifestyle choice for natural hair and body health.
The CDC outlines the following as the negative effects of inadequate nutrition:
- Becoming overweight or obese – Remember those extra calories from added fats and sugar? Those calories lead to weight gain when not burned to fuel our bodies.
- Increased potential for heart disease and stroke – Excessive salt can cause a rise in blood pressure, leading to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease.
- Higher likelihood to develop Type 2 Diabetes – Carrying excess pounds on the body is a leading risk factor for Type 2 Diabetes. As stated above, extra calories in the diet make it difficult to maintain normal body weight.
- Enhanced risk for cancer – Being overweight or obese can lead to the development of certain cancerous conditions.
- Decreased brain function – Inadequate nutrition can leave you with nutrient and mineral deficits. Primarily, low iron and iodine levels can cause mental delays and negatively impact brain development, respectively, in unborn babies and young children.
Now, let us go back to the preservatives contained in our food.
According to Are Preservatives in Food Bad for My Health? at Health.com, preservatives like sulfites, sodium benzoate, nitrite, and BHA/BHT may be linked to negative conditions in the human body.
These illnesses can range from your run of the mill allergies all the way to cancer.
With respect to your natural hair, poor nutrition deprives your body of the vital nourishment required to maintain and grow new healthy hair.
Diets lacking in adequate amounts of Vitamin A, B Vitamins, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, iron, zinc, Omega-3 and -6 fatty acids, and protein can keep hair from achieving its optimal condition.
These vitamins, nutrients, and minerals collectively function to fight free radical damage, fortify hair follicles, support cell growth, supply building blocks for hair structures, repair tissues, prevent hair loss, and enhance blood oxygenation.
Learn how to get healthy hair again through good nutrition.
Adhering to a wholesome diet is easier said than done.
Yet, it should start with a little research on what constitutes good nutrition.
Healthy Eating from HelpGuide may assist in dispelling some of the confusion out there surrounding a balanced diet.
The world of Paleo
I personally applaud the Paleo way of eating.
It focuses on getting you to eat food the way our early ancestors did.
Paleo encourages high protein eating, so it provides plenty of the building blocks for natural hair healthiness.
Carbohydrate intake and the consumption of processed and packaged food is restricted with Paleo.
If Paleo appeals to you, feel free to take a look at Practical Paleo, 2nd Edition (Updated and Expanded): A Customized Approach to Health and a Whole-Food Lifestyle by Diane Sanfilippo, BS, NC or Danielle Walker’s Against All Grains: Meals Made Simple – Gluten-Free, Dairy Free, and Paleo Recipes to Make Anytime.
I have both of these books in my recipe library and love preparing food from them.
I have not found that I have had to sacrifice taste while following Paleo and greatly enjoy the variety of foods out there to prepare and try.
Moreover, when I followed diligently this way of eating, I was able to shed 35 pounds, experienced a rise in my energy level, and saw noticeable differences in my hair’s appearance and ability to retain length.
Learning to meal plan
Next, you cannot overlook the power of meal planning on your quest for better nutrition.
Deciding on meals ahead of time reduces the chances of turning to less nutritious foods when time gets short or you find yourself tired in the waning hours of the day.
Additionally, formulating a plan gives you an opportunity to actually structure your meals for proper nutrition while limiting salt, sugar, and fat intake.
Watch portion sizes
You also need to watch portion sizes when making nutritional lifestyle choices for natural hair health and overall well-being.
Overeating, especially fatty and sugary foods, is easier than you think.
Just remember . . . Higher calorie foods mean small serving sizes.
Just Enough for You: About Food Portions from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases provides a great guide to help control portion sizes.
Meal subscription box benefits
Meal subscription boxes deliver another great strategy to consider when undergoing a healthy lifestyle modification around nutrition.
The boxes assist by taking on some the heavy lifting associated with preparing meals at home.
Generally, recipes and already measured ingredients arrive right at your door.
Plus, you frequently can design your boxes to suit specific needs, such as weight loss, low carb, vegetarian, etc.
Some popular meal subscription boxes to consider include the following:
Eat organic
Similarly, you should think about eating organically when you can during an upgrade to nutrition.
Organic foods contain less pesticides and preservatives.
Moreover, animals raised under organic practices do not receive hormones and antibiotics.
If you will recall, we discussed earlier the negative impacts additives like these can have on a journey to better health.
Try a fitness app
Another change you may want to investigate on your journey to greater overall body and natural hair health is the use of an online fitness application.
Using a fitness app can assist you with tracking eating habits.
Believe me . . . the right app can make all the difference in changing nutritional lifestyle factors.
Depending on the application you use, you may also be able to get your progress each day toward your recommended daily allowances of macronutrients and micronutrients.
I commonly use MyFitnessPal.
This particular app possesses an easy to use platform and an expansive food library complete with nutrition facts.
The cost is also right (free!), and you have the ability to add your own recipes to the library.
Additionally, the app can track calories burned from exercise . . . You can check out more information on working out in the next section.
Invest in a good multi-vitamin
Finally, you may find during your efforts to encourage better nutrition that you fall a little short on getting all those essential vitamins and nutrients.
If this happens, a good multi-vitamin can work to close the gap.
Consider investigating a whole food multi-vitamin, as the nutrients in these are made for actual food rather than being synthetically made.
Moreover, liquid multi-vitamins can provide better absorption of nutrients, making them more readily bioavailable for your body to use.
Regular exercise as part of an overall wellness lifestyle can help you achieve healthier hair naturally
Our bodies are made for movement.
Routine workouts release happiness endorphins in the body.
Exercise can assist with stress management, which helps to regulate mood and keep frustration and aggravation in check.
In addition, keeping fit taps into the body’s energy stores, boosting vitality.
It has a positive effect on the brain, improving your reasoning skills, knowledge acquisition, and judgment.
When thinking specifically about natural hair, moderate workouts may work to increase the body’s ability to produce antioxidants to protect cells, as per Healthline.
Consequently, antioxidants can help prevent damage to hair follicles and strands and may prevent greying and hair loss.
In addition, regular exercise helps to improve blood flow, and thus oxygenation, throughout the body including the scalp where healthy hair growth begins.
Conversely, a lack of exercise leaves you in jeopardy of developing a host of ailments.
Weight gain and all its associated chronic conditions are at the top of the list, especially when coupled with the poor nutrition lifestyle choices we covered in the last section.
Poor cardiovascular health also results from an exceptionally sedentary lifestyle.
Working out trains your body to oxygenate and circulate your blood more efficiently.
As such, your tissues have access to more of the nourishment they need.
Waste removal from cells also happens in a more effective manner.
Furthermore, not getting enough physical activity can cause muscles and bones to weaken.
Regular exercise actually builds muscles and increases bone density.
Sleep quality also may suffer in those individuals not actively pursuing a healthy workout regimen.
Physical activity can calm the mind, causing you to fall into a deeper sleep faster.
John Hopkins Medicine reports that working out raises the amount of deep sleep you get, which helps in the body’s rejuvenative process.
You can look forward to us covering sleep more in-depth in the next installment of this Lifestyle Factors for Healthy Natural Hair and Body series.
Setting up and sticking to an exercise routine does not need to pose an obstacle to your lifestyle change for natural hair health and body wellness.
Adults should get at minimum 150 minutes of weekly of moderate aerobics, with major muscles undergoing strength training at least twice a week, as per the Mayo Clinic’s How much should the average adult exercise every day?.
So, learn to schedule time throughout the week on your calendar to ensure you can get enough physical activity.
If you been out of the workout game for a while, start slow and build on your previous week’s activity.
For example, maybe you start with just 2 workouts in your initial week.
The next week add another workout session (for 3 total) or stick with the 2 workouts but increase the amount of time you exercise during each.
Hobbies
Another alternative would be to learn a new hobby to get you moving.
Dancing, gardening, tennis, nature walks, and fun runs/walks all provide the means to improve fitness.
Pick a hobby that excites and interests you.
This way you will be more apt to stick with it over the long haul.
Workout in a group
Moreover, you can pair up with a partner or join a group to facilitate workout wins.
Statistics support a greater chance of workout regimen success when exercise is done in groups rather than as a solo activity.
NBC News even reports, “One study found that 95 percent of those who started a weight-loss program with friends completed the program.”
Track your progress
Next, you will want to track your healthy lifestyle modification progress around exercise.
When you accomplish a goal or achieve something you did not think you could do, document it.
This little bit of acknowledgment celebrates the success and provides motivation to keep going.
Writing manually or tracking electronically through an app also increases accountability.
This forces you to address backsliding and helps you to get quickly back on the path to attaining your goals.
Plan for workouts at home
Last but not least, invest in workouts you can do at home on inclement weather days or when you must skip the gym.
I have a plethora of fitness tapes at home, including yoga, Pilates, low-impact aerobics, and butt and thigh toning.
Yet, my favorite by far is Metabolic Prime.
This system focuses on simple movements to raise your metabolism to burn fat while sculpting major muscle groups.
The DVDs provide modifications to the exercises, and you can stop and start as you need to during the workout.
Thus, the system is adaptable to almost any fitness level.
Furthermore, the main workouts only take 15 minutes, 3 days a week.
Although, aerobic exercise sessions of 20 minutes long a few times throughout the week are recommended for best results.
Additional Behaviors for Healthy Natural Hair Posts You May Enjoy
Lifestyle Factors for Healthy Natural Hair and Body – Part 2
Lifestyle Factors for Healthy Natural Hair and Body – Part 3
Stop Your Abuse by Breaking These 5 Natural Hair Bad Habits
Natural Hair Fails: 8 Behaviors to Sidestep During Your Journey to Prepare for Success
Final Thoughts
Smoking, poor nutrition, and lack of exercise can quickly derail natural hair health and overall well-being of the body.
Committing to healthy lifestyle changes in these areas vastly increases the odds of achieving your desired goals.
Yet, this list represents only the top 3 on the list of lifestyle habits for natural hair and body health.
So, stay on the lookout for Part 2 of this series coming soon!
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Lifestyle Factors for Healthy Natural Hair and Body – Part 1
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