I’ve created this list of top Health Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make because it will give you an idea where to best focus your energies. Yes, you should consider which bottled water you should be drinking (if you should be drinking any bottled water), but the areas Health Mistakes below are where you are going to get the most bang for your buck. Some of them are not easy (actually most are not that easy), and the reason why most people don’t do them. But choosing to take care of you requires a bit of dedication because we live in a world that supports our ill health and not our good health.

Take a look the following Health Mistakes and see how well you are taking care of yourself.

Not Investing in Yourself

Most people will throw money at a new car, new TV, or new cell phone before they will spend the extra money on their anything to do with their health. You, by the way, are worth spending money on; once you’ve lost your health, you’ve lost everything (including your new cell phone). Investing in yourself means not only making sure you visit your naturopathic doctor, chiropractor or other health practitioners, but that you also you consider your health a priority and invest in yourself by buying supplements, reading books about health, getting massages and exercising.

Eating Sugar and Foods that Act like Sugar

This is probably the toughest one on the list and the topic of my book Sugarettes, but there is not a single thing you do every day that will cause more harm to your body than eating sugar and foods that act like sugar. When your blood sugar rises, your body pays the price.

Not Getting Enough Sleep

Sleep is so important; it should be considered a vitamin in itself. There is good research that shows that not getting enough sleep harms memory, concentration, mood and poor sleep even has been linked to heart disease. How much sleep should you get? The answer is individual to each person, but it is generally recommended to get somewhere between 7 and 9 hours of sleep.

Not Exercising

Outside of the food that you put into your mouth there is nothing than can have a bigger impact on your health than maintaining a lifetime exercise program. Exercise improves blood sugar control, can help with weight loss, improves mood, reduces anxiety… exercise is so powerful it is almost a panacea. Walking is enough, but cycling, running, swimming and other forms of exercise are great.

Not Relaxing

Here is the funny thing, we all know how to keep busy and get things done, but very few of us know how to truly relax. In order for the body and mind to rejuvenate, we all need a rest period. This can be as simple as taking a 15 minute walk after lunch. Better yet, try taking a week off every year to focus on relaxing; this is not a typical vacation where you are running around, but a time to just hang out and do nothing.

Avoiding the Sun

If you are typical, you are probably a bit sun-phobic, but you shouldn’t be. The dangers of the sun have been highly overblown. Yes, you should avoid being burned, but we need sun like we need water and food. We tend to live and even travel in boxes that block out the sun and fresh air. Get out of your boxes and see the real world.

The Best Investment You’ll Ever Make!

Focusing on your health is well worth it; especially as you age. Some of the above tips are hard, but working on your health will pay great dividends. When asked what they fear the most, older people tend to fear having to have someone take care of them in their old age. Do you really want someone dressing and feeding you? You can avoid this kind of fall into ill health by making a small investment in your health over time. Start Today.

Whether you know it or not, you are under the influence of a system of medicine that supports a pill philosophy and is deeply ingrained in all of us. Even if you are in to natural medicine, you are still take this medical philosophy with you on your trip to the naturopath, acupuncturist, chiropractor, or your trip to the vitamin section of a store.

Sound Familiar?

What is the standard medical philosophy? It goes something like this: you have an illness, you go to the doctor, and she then prescribes you something for that ailment. Sounds pretty straight forward. This medial philosophy can be summed up like this: Disease – Diagnosis – Dispense (You have a Disease, you get a Diagnosis and then a pill is Dispensed). We are so used to this notion or way of doing things that it is natural we would transfer this to our health practitioners and trips to the health food store. But I’d like to tell you that true health is not that simple and that there is another way of doing things that is not Disease – Diagnosis – Dispense.

Here is the little secret no one in the natural community will tell you: natural medicine is generally not as strong as pharmacological medicine. That may be heresy to some of you, but it is true: Most drugs are much stronger that most natural supplements.

For my way of thinking, that is actually a good thing: stronger medicines are much more likely to do you harm than medicines that act more subtlety. And there is another point: Natural medicine is much more powerful than pharmacological medicine, first because it is a more complete medicine (instead of a single chemical molecule) and, second, most natural medicines work to support your body in healing itself instead of taking over the control of your body. The key to taking natural medicine and making them more powerful than standard medicine is that you have to take them the right way. What is the right way to take natural medicine? Let’s take a look.

How about a New Way of Thinking?

Here is what you have to understand about you and your health. There is not a pill in the world (natural or otherwise) that can do anything to improve your health more than the choices you make every day. The most powerful health-promoting “pills” in the world are actually what you eat, what you think, how well you sleep, and how much you exercise.

If you are looking to just make your symptoms go away, then just take a pill; but if you are looking for true health, then you are going to have to put in some sort of effort. Eating better, getting enough sleep, and exercising are what put your body in an ideal state to heal itself. There is an incredible self-healing machine inside your body and all you need to do is feed that machine and your body will correct itself. This is much more complex than Disease – Diagnosis – Dispense and takes much more of your time, but this is the way to true health.

The Right Way to Take Natural Medicine

Natural medicines are powerful when you combine them with improving your general health. It takes personal responsibility on your part, but the results are well with it.

There are times when we all need to grab a pill to help us through a difficult time. This is like using a crutch when you have a sprained foot; of course you are going to use the crutch. But no one is going to suggest that you use that crutch for the rest of your life when all you have a sprained foot. You diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, migraines, insomnia and other health issues are the same. If you want real change and the chance to live longer, feel better, and get the most out of your life, take the time to learn and feed your body what it needs.

While you may or may not believe in this kind of thing, I can actually tell you with almost complete accuracy how you are going to die. In fact, I can throw away the tent and the crystal ball, and even the silly hat I put on my head. All I need to tell you how you are going to die is a new report out by the Centers for Disease Control.

The report reports that there are the five leading causes of death in the United States are: Heart disease, Cancers, Stroke, Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease (such as emphysema), and Diabetes. In fact, if you don’t die from some form of accident, the likelihood that you will die from one of these diseases is about 70%.

Among all of these diseases, diabetes is most likely to increase in the next few years; as this once rare disease and now is becoming epidemic.

What to do with that Information?

People say that you shouldn’t know the future because it can change things that shouldn’t be changed. But this time, armed with the knowledge of how you are going to die, you can change something that should be changed: how long you are going to live. Here is the key thing that you need to know about the most common ways that you are going to die: THEY ARE ALL PREVENTABLE!

And that is not just me saying they are preventable, but that is major associations saying that they are preventable. The American Cancer Society,
The American Heart Association (PDF), The American Diabetes Association all say that somewhere between 60 and 90 percent of these illnesses are preventable.

Think about that, not only do you know how you are probably going to die, but you also know that you can avoid a lot of pain and suffering in your life.

How to Prevent

Okay, now that you know you can prevent many of the major diseases you might get in your life, what do you need to do to make the chances that you will get those diseases much lower?

Here are the steps you need to take:

• If you smoke: stop
• If you drink alcohol, do it in moderation
• Don’t worry about coffee (unless you drink a ton) it actually contains many beneficial nutrients
• Get out and exercise
• Get out and exercise (I repeat this to make sure you understand how important it is)
• Get out and exercise (yes, it is that important)
• Don’t ever drink a soda ever again
• Follow the advice about eating in my book Sugarettes
• Get enough sleep
• Lose excess weight
• Learn how to handle or avoid stress
• Laugh more and don’t take yourself too serious

I find the best way to stay on track with all of these health suggestions is to constantly find new inspiration. Sign up to blogs (yes, even mine) or newsletters that give you information about health. Read books, talk with friends, go listen to speakers.

Everything in your life will try to convince you that it is easier to just stay on the path you are on. Get off that path and on to a better one. Eating better and exercising is work, but it is work that will pay off in huge dividends. You will have more energy, more vitality, feel better and more optimistic, and even get to stay on this planet a little longer.

Not too bad of a deal, huh?