By now, many of us made New Year resolutions (some broken already) to make changes to our lifestyle. The health benefits of making positive lifestyle changes such as stopping smoking, reducing alcohol intake, eating healthily and taking more exercise are well documented, reducing your risk of major illness such as heart disease, stroke and cancer and can improve your confidence, contributing to positive mental health wellbeing. It’s often the small changes in your life that can make a big difference. Don’t give up if you have setbacks, start afresh and keep your goal in mind, work with friends or colleagues and encourage each other.

Your Practice Nurse can give advice and set you on the path to a healthier lifestyle, helping you to set realistic goals and break these down into bite size chunks. Make changes gradually so that you are more likely to stick to new regimes, steadily increase the amount of fruit and vegetables in your diet and slowly increase the amount and type of exercise you take. Your Practice Nurse may be able to advise you about local walking groups, you may also get this information from your local library and newspapers.

We are living longer and in Rotherham we are told that we have high levels of heart disease, also that smoking, obesity and alcohol related harm is higher than the England average so let’s make a difference together and improve our health. Practice Nurses can also help you manage chronic conditions such as heart disease, to monitor progress and how to identify when you need to seek help and support.

Remember, it’s not too late to protect yourself against seasonal flu, ask your GP Practice for advice about the vaccine.