6 Healthy Living Tips from around the world

Wellness Wednesday brings to you some tips gleaned from travel that can help foster a healthy lifestyle. In addition to those listed in the above link from the Care2 site, here are some other tips to apply to your daily life:

• Shop like the Europeans and make daily purchases of fresh produce. Rather than have large fridges that store bulk purchases of fruit and vegetables, Europeans typically have had small fridges and shop on a regular basis for only the items they will consume within a day or two. By doing so, helps to ensure that you are truly eating your fruits and veggies while they’re still fresh. They taste better this way and only need minimal, if any, seasonings added.

Weal Food post: Shop like a European

• Walk everywhere. Some societies are not built around the car and thus walking becomes the common mode of transportation. Walking is a free activity and a great to way keep fit. I remember seeing children navigate the precarious hills in the communities surrounding Lalibela and was told by our Ethiopian guide that they do this everyday to get to school! Clearly a stair master machine would serve no purpose in this society. See Peregrinations and Meditations
• Enjoy the great outdoors. Having an outdoors lifestyle is easy when living in a tropical climate and/or surrounded by natural beauty; but you don’t need to travel to foreign lands to appreciate nature. Check out local parks in your own area. Sometimes a few moments communing with trees and flowers can have a restorative effect on mind and spirit. And if you live in a big industrialized city, it can also have a positive effect on your lungs.
• Take a leaf from the minimalist approach in Japanese society and buy only what you need. Less clutter = more clarity, less is more and all that.
• Dance! In some societies, dance is a part of life and you don’t need to be professionally trained to publicly shake your groove thing. Dance is also a fun and communal way to keep fit.
  Weal World Dance