In the modern world, people often use the word “de-skilled” to describe their situation. The concept comes up a lot because of how society forces us to specialize. We have to drill down and become exceptionally talented in a small area to provide value to the people around us.
Unfortunately, this process works against our health. Being healthy is about more than shovelling vegetables down your throat. Like anything else, it requires a degree of skill to do right. But our tendency towards specialization prevents this from happening. We spend all our time worrying about our jobs to the point where we have no time leftover for the other things in life that make it better.
In this post, therefore, we’re going to take a look at some essential skills you need if you want to live healthily. Take a look below.
The Ability To Switch Off
Call it relaxing, meditating or just “chilling out,” having the ability to switch off is an important health skill in the modern world. That’s because all of us can get into the habit of always being “on the go.” So much so, in fact, that it causes our blood pressure to rise and our stress hormones to increase to unsustainable levels. You probably know somebody in your life living with burnout or work-related mental health issues. It’s not just because of the work itself, but because there’s no real downtime afterwards.
How you switch off is very much a personal decision. Some people find meditation helpful. Others yoga or moving meditations. For some, just a soak in a hot bath will do the trick.
The Ability To Cook
Knowing how to make sour cream or prepare a lasagna is critical to living a happy and healthy life. That’s because knowing how to cook with fresh ingredients is one of the best-known protections against disease.
It turns out that cooking is a skill in decline. Fewer and fewer people know how to do it well. And that’s a shame. Now, many people are relying on instant meals that aren’t as good for them as freshly-prepared alternatives. Thus learning how to cook – even seemingly unhealthy recipes – can dramatically turn your health around. It allows you to experiment with more flavors and enjoy less processed, more natural food alternatives.
The Ability To Enjoy Exercise
We all know that exercise is critical for long-term health. But relatively few of us actually enjoy it. It’s just something that we feel we have to do because if we don’t, we will get sick. However, as any psychologist will tell you, that’s not a sustainable way of approaching it. People who have real success with exercise are those who genuinely enjoy the activity.
Think about marathon runners. If you don’t exercise, it seems like an insane thing to do: painful, boring and tiring. But if you get the bug, then it just becomes something that you naturally enjoy. You want to do it as much as you can. Enjoying it is a skill and requires a change in mindset.