Lifestyle

As long as you put in your own effort to do what makes your mind and body feel good, that's all that matters.

Each tab will break down the science behind the findings on exercise, diet and sleep and comment on some health behaviours that we can choose to do that might make you feel better.

Exercise
Sleep
Nutrition

It is recommended that adults get approximately 150 minutes of moderate exercise OR 75 minutes or vigorous exercise per week.

This is as little as 20 minutes per day of moderate exercise (any exercise that causes a slight increase in heart rate and breathing such as brisk walking or swimming) .

Research has found that the quantity of exercise (regardless of length) may be better at predicting improvements in mental health than just overall duration of exercise during the week.

This means that lots of smaller exercise sessions throughout the week could be more effective than fewer longer sessions. We recommend exercising a little bit as often as you can.

Benefits of exercise have been observed for both aerobic/cardio (eg. running, swimming, and cycling) and anaerobic/strength exercises (eg. Weight lifting and yoga).

You can choose whichever exercise is best for you and it can still positively affect your wellbeing.

The time of day you exercise could impact your sleep. If you find exercising at night is often followed by trouble going to sleep you might want to try changing up your exercise time to earlier in the day.

Sleep is fundamental to mental health, cognitive performance (including academic performance), and physical health.

However, it can be hard to know exactly how much sleep you need because often sleep duration, or how long you sleep for, is not the only way to measure “good sleep”.

The quality of sleep is also very important to ensure you are collecting the benefits of getting enough sleep.

Sleep quality relates to longer periods of deeper sleep and less disturbances or waking up through the night.

Improving sleep quality

Research has found healthy sleep behaviours that can improve sleep quality including:

Prioritising a sleep schedule

And trying to sleep at the same time every night can improve sleep. Our bodies run on rhythms, almost like clockwork, and thrive on patterns of behaviour.

Sleeping and waking at about the same time every day (including weekends) helps your body prepare for sleep and can help you get to sleep faster.

Avoiding bright lights before bedtime

This includes the light from our computers and phones. Bright lights trigger the transmitters in our brain to think it is morning and can increase alertness.

Before bed, limit the amount of light you are exposed to by turning down the brightness on screens and switching your lights off.

Avoid caffeine, smoking, and alcohol

We know caffeine is not great for sleep, but research has also found that alcohol and smoking impact sleep by changing the body's ability to prepare for and achieve deep sleep.

Keep an eye on the temperature

Your body needs to reach an ideal temperature, not too hot and not too cold. In order to prepare for and achieve high quality sleep we should be aiming for about 18⁰C in the room when sleeping.

Eating regularly and maintaining a balanced diet is critical for maintaining good health and optimising our focus and productivity.

Balanced diets consist of approximately one third whole grains or carbohydrates, one third fibrous vegetables, and one third made up of proteins and fats such as meat and dairy (and their plant based alternatives) and healthy sugars such as fruits.

It is okay to sometimes have ‘junk’ or ‘fast’ food, but it is something that we should be avoiding as a staple in our diets.

Why we might have trouble maintaining a healthy diet

Some of the biggest barriers to maintaining a healthy diet include:

Barrier	Recommendation
Access to affordable and fresh ingredients	Fresh food, particularly fruit and vegetables, can be really expensive. Avoid Coles and Woolworths, look for independently owned produce stores in your area and if you are in a pinch, Aldi often has cheaper fresh food. If you are always buying fresh food and watching it wilt in the fridge, try getting frozen vegetables or fruit. They are cheaper, ready for you when you need it, and are just as healthy. Try going for cheaper proteins. Eggs, tofu, and frozen fish (such as Basa) are some of the cheapest forms of protein you can buy per kilogram. You can also find a lot of protein in beans such as chickpeas and lentils.

Barrier

Recommendation

Access to affordable and fresh ingredients

Fresh food, particularly fruit and vegetables, can be really expensive. Avoid Coles and Woolworths, look for independently owned produce stores in your area and if you are in a pinch, Aldi often has cheaper fresh food.

If you are always buying fresh food and watching it wilt in the fridge, try getting frozen vegetables or fruit. They are cheaper, ready for you when you need it, and are just as healthy.

Try going for cheaper proteins. Eggs, tofu, and frozen fish (such as Basa) are some of the cheapest forms of protein you can buy per kilogram. You can also find a lot of protein in beans such as chickpeas and lentils.

Time and ability to cook

For those who don’t have much time, or lack some skills in the kitchen, bulk cooking is a great option. All you need to do is put aside a few hours once a week and cook large batches of food for the week.

This option might be stressful whilst cooking but will save you a lot of time and money later in the week when you might be thinking about what to eat.

Check out the MSA cookbook and the Monash Nutrition Cookbook for some easy starter recipes (includes many vegan and vegetarian options).

Having the resources to store food long term

Food can become quite expensive, and where bulk buying is an option to lower costs, not all of us have the space to store this food, particularly if it requires refrigeration or freezing.

Find a food buddy. This might be a friend or a roommate that can help split up the cost and time required to prepare food, as well as the volume and cost of bulk buys if you don’t have space to store it all.

Audit what you have and challenge yourself to use everything you already have first. You might come up with some weird meals but you will be saving money, reducing food waste, and making space.

Plan your shopping and your meals. When shopping, stick to ingredients that you know you will use immediately.

Knowing what is actually healthy

With the huge amount of options in grocery stores it can be hard to know what is actually good for you.

Often the best bet is to stick to foods with less ingredients, and try to buy whole foods like vegetables, pasta, rice, and beans. Buying basics will also help you save money.

Monash Thrive