How to Prevent Lifestyle Diseases Through Daily Habits

The Current State of Lifestyle Diseases

Cancer, heart disease, and cerebrovascular disease sit at the top of the causes of death in Japan, and every one of them is deeply tied to lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, and smoking. Diabetes and hypertension are each thought to apply to somewhere on the order of ten million people in this country, and in most of those cases the condition progresses with no symptoms the person can feel.

It is not unusual for someone flagged as "needs attention" at a health checkup to do nothing at all until the following year, simply because there is no pain and nothing feels wrong. What makes lifestyle diseases frightening is that by the time symptoms do appear, damage has already accumulated in the blood vessels and organs. The longer hypertension is left alone, the harder and thicker the vessel walls become, which makes serious conditions such as stroke and heart attack more likely to follow.

Dietary Improvements

Keep salt under 6g a day

The average salt intake in Japan is around 10g a day, roughly twice the WHO recommendation of under 5g. Small adjustments can cut 2-3g: limiting miso soup to one bowl a day, or reaching for lemon or vinegar instead of pouring on soy sauce.

A common misconception is that lightly seasoned food stops tasting good, but in practice your palate adapts after about two weeks, and the seasoning you used before starts to taste too salty. If you make use of the umami in dashi stock, along with spices and garnishes (ginger, green onion, shiso), you can hold on to the same sense of satisfaction even with less salt.

Make a point of eating fiber

Switching white rice for brown rice or multigrain rice, for example, roughly triples your fiber intake on its own. Fiber holds down sharp rises in blood sugar, which makes it effective for preventing diabetes. Eating vegetables or mushrooms at the start of a meal, an approach known as "veggie first," is another simple way to flatten the post-meal blood sugar peak.

Cut back on processed foods

Processed foods such as ham, sausages, cup noodles, and sweet breads have salt, sugar, and fat concentrated into them. There is no need to cut them out completely, but simply reducing something you eat twice a week or more down to once already brings a visible drop in both calories and salt. Getting into the habit of checking the sodium line on the nutrition label while you shop is effective too.

How to Work in Exercise

150 minutes of moderate exercise a week

Reaching the WHO-recommended 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week (roughly the intensity of brisk walking) takes only about 22 minutes a day. Methods that fold into daily life, such as walking one station of your commute or taking a 15-minute walk during your lunch break, are the easiest to keep up.

The benefits of exercise do not require doing it all in one block. Splitting it into two or three 10-minute sessions a day can be expected to deliver just as much for your health, as long as the total time is the same. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or doing squats while watching TV: this kind of exercise folded into the paths you already walk is the form least likely to be abandoned.

Avoid sitting too long

Sitting for long stretches leaves the large muscles of the lower body idle, and your capacity to process blood sugar and lipids drops. Standing up once an hour and walking for just a few minutes is enough to break that stagnation. For people whose work is mainly at a desk, setting a phone timer for 50 minutes or joining online meetings standing up are effective adjustments.

Sleep and Lifestyle Diseases

When a pattern of sleeping under 6 hours a night continues, insulin becomes less effective at lowering blood sugar, and blood pressure also grows harder to bring down. Among the factors that raise the risk of diabetes and hypertension, insufficient sleep is thought to sit alongside diet and exercise. To secure good-quality sleep, it is recommended that you hold off on your phone for the hour before bed and keep the bedroom between 18 and 22 degrees.

In the field of sleep science, the quality of the first 90 minutes of sleep (the initial stretch of non-REM sleep) is thought to govern the quality of the whole night. To protect those 90 minutes, finish your bath 60 to 90 minutes before bed and get under the covers at the point where your core body temperature is falling naturally, and you will drift off more easily.

Common Pitfalls

"Changing everything at once" does not last

When people try to fix diet, exercise, and sleep all at the same time, most of them give up within two weeks. Deciding to change just one thing for the first month (limiting miso soup to one bowl a day, for example) and moving on to the next item only once that has settled into a habit gives a far higher success rate.

The limits of "saving exercise up for the weekend"

Sitting all week and going to the gym only on weekends is not meaningless as long as the total volume of exercise is there, but the more you concentrate it into one day a week, the less room you have to recover when the schedule falls apart, and the injury risk goes up as well. Moving a little every day holds together better as a habit. Cycling to work, walking to do the shopping: the key to keeping it going is not "making time for exercise" but "turning the trips you already make into exercise."

Key Takeaways

• Many of the diseases at the top of the causes of death are tied to lifestyle
• Small adjustments that keep salt under 6g a day are effective
• 22 minutes of moderate exercise a day meets the WHO recommended standard
• Insufficient sleep is a risk factor for diabetes and hypertension
• Changing one habit at a time makes giving up less likely

Books on sleep science can also be a helpful reference.

Making use of sleep-related goods is worth considering as well.