The Best Advice You Could Ever Get About Health

Trying to figure out how to workout properly, eat smartly and keep positive? GH asked 12 health experts to offer the best sanity-saving, life-changing tips that anyone has ever provided them. Share and follow the…

1. Go slow on antibiotics – Professor Tim Spector, consultant physician and author of The Diet Myth

‘For years I’ve been getting sinusitis every time I get sick and take antibiotics. I used to be an drug junkie, taking four to five courses a year. Instead, eight years ago, I went to Professor Martin Blaser ‘s lecture, and it changed everything about me. He cautioned that daily courses of antibiotics would negatively influence the immune system and could lead to weight gain due to their effect on the intestinal bacteria. It was the best piece of advice I’ve ever gotten.

I quit using antibiotics for sinus infections – they barely shortened my effects a day or two, anyway – so I never looked again. Because I’ve experienced six colds a year, I’ve gotten one a couple of years since, I don’t get sinusitis, so I’ve kept a good weight. I have was worried with antibiotics in beef, and now I try to consume organic food and only eat meat once or twice a month.

2. Check your Vitamin D level – Dr Sarah Jarvis, Good Housekeeping GP

‘I’m a pale, freckled redhead, and I got sunburnt a couple times as a kid. I was a medical student once. I’ve been really concerned about my chance of skin cancer, so I’ve been avoiding the sun ever since. It was only in recent years that I became conscious of the safety hazards associated with the loss of vitamin D. Colleagues including neurologists (multiple sclerosis), rheumatologists (osteoporosis) and cardiologists (heart disease) warned me that there was a silent outbreak of vitamin D deficiency, and I was surprised to discover that I was in a deficient category. I ‘m taking Fultium, a source of vitamin D.

3. Good enough is good enough – Chireal Shallow, consultan psychologist

‘My mom has always told me to weigh up my fights. She ‘d wonder if all the stuff I’ve been wanting to do are worth investing full time and commitment on. At first, I was trying to prove her wrong. I played, learned and had a single mom of four, and I was sure that I could do it all. But when you’re always battling flames, you don’t do it correctly, so you feel like you’re going to crash. I hit a point where I knew that I was tired, grumpy and not fun to be around! Since then, I’ve slowed down, I’ve been doing it one at a time, I’ve been trying to concentrate, and I’ve been conscious about any aspect. Most of all, I remind myself that good enough is good enough, whatever you do.

4. Find your active self – Dr Carol Routledge, director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK

‘I played a lot of sport when I was younger, so even though I maintained a balanced lifestyle – I didn’t drink, I just drank in moderation and I ate a good diet – the pressures of my career and family life dictated that I let go of fitness. This was only after my aunt developed Alzheimer’s disease that the truth of dementia and what I knew about risk management first struck me at home. My aunt’s reaction inspired me to do everything I could to keep my brain as safe as possible.

This meant taking part in daily workout. I didn’t really focus into swimming or running, but when a friend proposed cycling, I knew that I had discovered the sport that was perfect for me. Today, every year, I’m clocking thousands of miles on my bike — it’s just a matter of figuring out what kind of sport is perfect for you.

5. Learn how to rest – Dr Nerina Ramlakhan, Silentnight’s sleep expert

‘I never knew how poorly I slept in my thirties. I was still sleepy but wired, I found it difficult to turn off and still felt like halfway through the night I was wake up. Finally I came to a crash stage. My success came when I went to a yoga workshop led by a psychiatrist who learned about sleep and relaxation. I took yoga and meditation after that. It turned for me and since then I’ve done it every day. It’s about selfcare – it ‘s important when you relate things you do each day with how you sleep.

6. Everything in moderation – Helen Bond, consultant dietician

‘This isn’t a very sexy post, but a fellow dietician gave me this advice early and I have been following it always. It is not only a matter of safety, it is also a matter of fun, and if you have the right balance 80 % of the time you can take care of the other 20%. And to get the right balance means to prepare fresh ingredients from scratch. I still follow the advice of my mother too, filling half the plate with vegetables, and the remainder of it with protein and carbs. Follow these rules and you’re going to get a good weight for your nutrients.

7. Don’t catastrophise – Sian Porter, dietician and nutrition consultant

‘I was a true perfectionist before. I might feel like it was a tragedy if things didn’t go right. But instead I shared a bureau with Dr. Jan Long, a smart woman who studied burnout. He teached me another way that she had always been with me of thinking about issues. You think you have power over everything when you’re younger, but it’s not real. I learned to concentrate on the stuff about. I could do something, and let go of the stuff I could not – and I quit thinking about the stuff I couldn’t do!