10 Habits That Can Ruin Your Health

There are things we all do that secretly ruin our health. Our bodies are a work in progress, and if we want to live healthier and happier lives, we need to do more than just adopt a few good habits.  Besides practicing physical activities regularly and removing junk foods from our menus, we need to pay attention to some of our bad habits and minor mistakes that can ruin our health.  Here is a list of 10 bad habits to break -

1. Poor posture: Even a perfect body can look slouchy when posture is bad. A poor back posture can accentuate the spinal curvature causing spine deformities. An altered spine structure affects the body’s stability and balance, reduces the back’s flexibility and increases the risk of muscle imbalances.

2. Poor position of the hand while working on the computer: While we’re well aware that spending too much time in front of the computer is not healthy for our eyes, we tend to neglect the other harmful effects. Pain and numbness of hands and fingers is a common symptom among people working on the computer for long hours. This increases the risk of developing carpal tunnel syndrome. This syndrome manifests through numbness, tingling and pain in the hand, a sensation of discomfort that travels up the arm toward the shoulder and an electric shock-like feeling in the fingers. Although these manifestations aren’t threatening, they can affect one’s precision when performing delicate motions, such as writing, buttoning the shirt or holding the phone.

3. Excessive snacking on junk: Losing touch with your body's natural hunger and satisfaction signals can lead to chronic overeating and unhealthy extra weight that can lead to diabetes, heart disease, and other serious conditions. If you snack on too much junk food, you are also flooding your body with unhealthy ingredients.  By paying attention to your hunger signals and switching to healthy snacks, you can boost nutrition, control cravings, lose weight and avoid energy slumps.

4. Stress: An unhappy lifestyle releases stress hormones that increase your blood pressure and blood sugar, lower immunity, slow digestion and make you overweight. Modern life can lead to chronic stress and to far-reaching impacts on health such as sleep problems, change in sex drive and irritability and anger.  If you have stress symptoms, taking steps to manage your stress can have numerous health benefits. Explore stress management strategies, such as regular physical activity, relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, yoga. Keep a sense of humor, socialize with family and friends and set aside time for hobbies, such as reading a book or listening to music.

5. Drinking too much alcohol: Alcohol consumption causes physical and emotional changes that can do great harm to your body. The long-term effects of alcohol abuse are many, putting your health in serious jeopardy and endangering your life. It's no secret that alcohol consumption can cause major health problems, including cirrhosis of the liver and injuries sustained in automobile accidents. Besides this excessive alcohol consumption is also linked to heart disease, depression, gout, cancer and nerve damage.
 6. Smoking: Smoking causes 30 percent of heart disease deaths, 30 percent of cancer deaths, and a massive 80 to 90 percent of all lung cancers while increasing the risk of developing mouth, throat, and, bladder cancer. Once you quit, the health benefits are almost immediate, because your lungs and cardiovascular system begin repairing themselves within minutes of your last cigarette. Within a month, your lungs will work better and you should be coughing less, feel more energetic, and have less shortness of breath. Quitting smoking significantly reduces threat of cancer or heart disease, improves your sense of taste and smell, and gives you better endurance.

7. Overusing pain killers and sedatives: When painkillers and sedatives are not taken properly, long-term habitual use can cause more problems than it solves. Using drugs like ibuprofen or aspirin for arthritis or muscle pain can over time increase the risk for ulcers, gastrointestinal bleeding, high blood pressure and heart attacks. Calming drugs and sleeping pills can leave you feeling confused and prone to stumbling and falling if you take them in higher-than-prescribed doses. Since such medication makes you feel good, you may want to keep on taking them, turning them into a habit or addiction before you know it. Hence, only take medications prescribed by your treating physician and do not self-medicate.

8. Skipping breakfast: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day as it gives you the boost to take on your day. The side effects of not eating breakfast negatively impact weight, hormonal health, memory, cognition and mood. When you skip meals, your metabolism begins to slow which can lead to weight gain and sluggishness.

9. Poor quality of sleep: Constantly skipping rest hours leads to fatigue and lack of focus, short temper and a higher risk of depression. Poor quality of sleep can interfere with the immune function, disrupting the body’s ability to fight pathogens, can lead to high blood pressure and cause excessive production of cortisol, which increases stress and favors weight gain.

10. Not drinking enough water: If we constantly keep our bodies in a state of dehydration by not drinking enough water it can have a major impact on our overall health. Not only it causes fatigue, dry skin, irritation, affects our ability to focus and our productivity, but the lack of water can also alter the functioning of kidneys and lead to an impaired immune function due to the accumulation of toxins.

Disclaimer: This content including advice provides generic information only. It is in no way a substitute for qualified medical opinion. Always consult a specialist or your own doctor for more information. NDTV does not claim responsibility for this information.