7 Tips To Maintain A Healthy Lifestyle Overseas

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle in itself is a challenge - but maintaining a healthy lifestyle overseas puts a few more hurdles in this challenge. However, it doesn’t mean that it’ll be a struggle.

Believe it or not, staying healthy is really more a state of mind than it is a physical challenge. While the expat lifestyle does create more bumps in your path to a healthy life, there are a lot of ways to work around this and maintain a healthy expat lifestyle no matter where you are in the world.

1. Arm Yourself With Information

Once you’ve committed to live a healthy life, you need to take some time to educate yourself about what this really means. Healthy doesn’t just mean “diet”. Be informed about the correct type of food, the right amount of exercise and an advisable standard of living. Don’t go with hear-say or stereotypes when it comes to your health. Pick up a few books that can give you legitimate information, or go on trusted websites that give genuine advice on staying healthy. You can also consult a nutritionist to advise you on proper food and lifestyle choices to set you on the right path to a healthy lifestyle that you can work around with even with a busy schedule.

2. Exercise in Moderation

Most people go all the way whenever they decide to work out. Pushing yourself too hard when you’re just beginning is not good. You have to ease your way into your work out, take it little by little. Pushing your body too much upon the first stages of your work out will not only drain you physically, but would also discourage you from exercising again because of the pain you feel after your work out.

Exercise doesn’t have to be a full on gym workout either. When we say “exercise” it can be as simple as a short jog before or after work, or even a run up and down a flight of stairs. Remember, the important thing in any exercise is to raise your heart rate. If you plan to walk a short distance, try walking faster to get your heart going. In any plans of movement, try as much as you can to rev up your heart to make it an exercise.

3. Go Back To Food Basics

One of the main challenges in staying healthy while living overseas is finding healthy food. Some countries make eating healthy really quite a struggle just for the lack of food options available. As an expat, we rarely have time to prepare food on our own so most of the time, we rely on what’s ready to eat and make do.

What you can do in this situation is to go back to basics. Surely, no matter where you are in the world, there are markets where you can buy the simplest ingredients, all you need to do is to simplify your menu. Another thing you need to remember is to never underestimate the power of water. Make sure you drink 8-10 glasses a day. Water aids digestion, increases your memory and concentration and also keeps your skin well nourished. Water is the most understated health drink in the world; make sure you don’t ignore its powers.

4. Maintain A Good Sleeping Habit

The expat lifestyle gives very little room for sleep. We are always on the go and our body clocks are reset almost every time we travel. This is possibly the biggest challenge in staying healthy for an expat in this list. However, there are still a few things you can try to achieve this.

If your schedule allows you the advisable 8 hours of sleep a night, then do your best to maintain that. Try to keep yourself active so you won’t have some trouble sleeping. Do not sleep with the TV running and don’t start reading your favourite book before sleeping. Contrary to popular belief, these will not get you to sleep early. It will only keep your mind busy with thoughts to keep you up through the night. The best way is to plan a bedtime routine to get your body clock set to sleep at a certain time. Listen to classical music and have dim lighting to relax your mind and rest your body.

If you do not have a lot of time in your schedule, then do your best to have at least 6 hours of sleep. Follow a regular bedtime routine to ease your body into take some time to rest, and it can be as simple as your night time routine, like dressing for bed, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, etc. Avoid doing activities that keep your mind busy before going to sleep.  If you follow these tips, setting and re-setting your body clock anywhere in the world should be no problem.

5. Keep A Healthy Home Environment

An expat’s home away from home should be a sanctuary. A place where you can be comfortable, so that means if you plan to stay healthy, your home should also be a healthy environment. Do your best to spend time away from electronics. Cut off your time in front of the TV and the computer. Spend time with your friends and family. If you live with your children, engage in activities other than gathering around the television before, during or after dinner time. Play with them using real toys instead of tablet apps or computer games. You’d be surprised with how big a change you can make in your life just by putting your phone down for at least an hour every day.

Do a bit of home improvement by maximizing the ventilation that you are getting in your place. Whenever you’re at home, don’t rely solely on air conditioning, open your windows and breathe real air and enjoy natural sunlight. It will also help to keep some plants to improve the air quality in your home. Select low maintenance indoor plants that you can take care of even when you’re busy.

6. Get Comfortable With Substitutes

Living overseas means some of the things you’re used to may not be as readily available as it is in your home country; that means you need to learn to make do with what you can have.

Do some research on food substitutes available in your current country of residence and plan your meals around this. You have to learn to be comfortable with substitutes not only for your food, but with your exercise as well. Since gym membership and time to actually go to the gym is quite a challenge for expats, you can make do with something as simple as doing your household chores. Keep your body active by keeping your home nice and tidy, doing some groceries, changing light bulbs etc. Anything that will keep you away from falling into the couch potato habit is good.

7. Healthy Body, Healthy Mind

As we mentioned earlier, being healthy is not exclusively a physical endeavour. It has a lot to do with your mental health as well. Your body is affected greatly by your mind, so you also have to make an effort to keep your mind healthy. This can be as simple as staying away from things that bring you stress. If you think that stress in unavoidable for you, then make an effort to manage your stress. Make sure you take a break at least 20 minutes a day and divert your mind completely from things that stresses you out.

Smoking and drinking are not good stress relievers. Sure, they might be a good distraction from your problems for the moment, but they will lead you to more stress and unhealthy life in the long run. Maximize your free time, do what makes you happy and surround yourself with good people. A healthy lifestyle can be achieved by anyone, anywhere in the world. You just need the right information, and learn that it’s not really as difficult as you think it is.