Hygiene of life, dietetics and daily practices:

The lifestyle is based on a set of measures to preserve physical and mental health and, in general, in order to answer the question: How can we live happily? It reveals conscious and thoughtful lifestyle choices.

A healthy lifestyle helps to maintain or restore optimal health. For athletics, lifestyle also allows to maintain maximum motor efficiency and functional skills. The rules of life hygiene should not be constraints. Freely chosen and clearly assumed, these rules have a positive impact on overall well-being, quality of life, and self-esteem.

The hygiene of life can be better perceived and understood from the following 4 major approaches:

• Dietetic:

Concerning the food a good hygiene of life passes by the adoption of the Cretan diet also called Mediterranean diet. The concept of a diet is in fact misleading because a diet is often imagined as a provisional method; in fact it is better to talk about lifestyle.

Foods to consume in your daily life:

The foods that form the basis of the Cretan diet are: fish (it is better to consume small fish in the middle of the food chain such as sardines and mackerel that are less exposed to heavy metals), eggs for their protein preferably to the hull and very little heat, white meats (veal, rabbit, poultry), raw and cooked green vegetables, cooked fruits, raw or dried (apricots, grapes or figs for their satiating qualities and their fibers which facilitate the transit), dried fruits or nuts, pulses (associated with cereals, they constitute a protein intake equivalent to the one of meat), and finally dairy products or based on goat's milk (less fat and more digestible than cow's milk )

Foods to limit:

Most of the foods to be wary of are fat, sweet or processed and come from the food industry. It is therefore necessary to consume with great moderation fatty meats, sauces, unheated oils, jams, chocolate, homemade pastries, butter and all cheeses.

Foods to permanently avoid:

It will be beneficial for the long-term health to completely remove from its diet deli meats, fries, sweets, white sugar, industrial pastries, bacon and mayonnaise.

• Hydration:

In terms of hydration the only liquid really essential is water. Depriving of water leads irreparably to dramatic consequences (dehydration and short-term deaths). Infusions, vegetable broths, vegetable juices, vegetable milks, fruit juices can also be eaten if they have been squeezed at home because bottled fruit juices are all depleted and denatured; they are all to be avoided.

We will limit tea, coffee, milk chocolate, wines and beers even slightly alcoholic.

We can do without all sodas, syrups, strong alcohols and fruit drinks produced industrially even if they carry the acronym bio.

• Way of living:

Choice of priorities:

A healthy lifestyle requires first and foremost learning to identify priorities in everyday actions whether at work or at home. You also need to know how to set up bedtime and meals at regular times, frequent modes of active travel such as walking and cycling, daily or bi-daily practices of relaxation and meditation. To live in good health one must avoid living sedentary lives and skipping meals or snacking at any time. Smoking even passive must absolutely be fought. To stop smoking it is necessary to avoid the company of people also affected by this dependence and not hesitate to undertake a psycho-therapy based on clinical interviews or based on cognitive-behavioral practices

Stress management by relaxation:

Simple breathing exercise can help reduce stress when necessary. The protocol of this exercise of cardiac coherence is the following: in a quiet place, comfortably seated, with a hand if possible on the stomach, it is necessary to inhale slowly during 5 seconds by inflating the belly then to exhale on the same slow rhythm during 5 seconds. This type of ample and controlled breathing must be reproduced for at least 5 minutes.

One can also practice mindfulness meditation. It consists in asking oneself, turning one's eyes inward and observing what is happening in oneself (breathing, body sensations, flow of thoughts) and around oneself (noises, smells ...) without judging or trying to control or wait for anything, just welcome what comes, as it is, and let it pass. Mindfulness is the quality of consciousness that emerges when one intentionally turns one's mind to the present moment. One can gradually adopt this quality of mindfulness even while being in movement, especially if the physical activity practiced is repetitive and does not require a lot of motor regulation, during a jogging on flat ground for example.

• Personal hygiene:

Basic body hygiene requires a daily shower and after sports training, a change of clothes after exercise, special attention to the care of the feet and teeth.

To these generally known practices must be added daily stretching on the joints of the ankles, hips and shoulders to maintain a minimum flexibility. These exercises should be seen as essential awakenings to maintain mobility and overall balance throughout one's life.

  

One can go further still by practicing every day deep massages with hard roller all over the body in order to act on the connective tissue, to limit the cutaneous adhesions and to find a normal myofascial elasticity. This will increase mobility and overall motor fluency.

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