Healthy habits are all those that directly impact your health and well-being. For example, maintaining a healthy diet, getting enough sleep, and exercising regularly. Such habits should be encouraged from childhood. If it didn’t happen to you, it’s important to try to break certain bad habits as an adult to avoid serious health issues down the road such as stress, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. Maintaining habits that will keep you healthy as you get older is considered challenging. The rush of modern life promotes sedentarism, smoking/drinking heavily, or eating fast food.
Integrating healthier habits gradually and not all at once is the key to a healthier lifestyle. If you need a little push to change things at home, consider some strategies for easing into a healthier way of living.
Health Tenents
Several scientific research points out that it can take from 18 to 254 days to retire old habits and create some new ones. The only thing scientists agree on is that it becomes easier to abandon negative routines when you replace them with new and healthier habits.
Here are some practices everyone should follow and try to incorporate into their lives to some degree.
Plant-based Diet
Certain vitamin-rich foods can help improve different physical aspects of the body. For example, fruits like apples and papaya and seeds like chia act on your stomach to improve your digestion. If you want a healthier heart, oranges and dark green, leafy vegetables are rich in potassium, which helps control blood pressure.
Although having four eyes is a lot more fashionable these days, with a variety of affordable and stylish glasses frames to choose from, your eyesight will always benefit most from the old school method of eatting more vegetables and beans like chickpeas, black-eyed peas, and lentils – all rich in zinc and capable of working miracles for your vision. To make it short: start planting your meals to cut sugar, fats, and carbs, lose weight and at the same time save money on eyewear.
Do a Little Exercise
When the doctor recommends physical exercises, many people think of an exhausting routine at the gym and give up before they even start. But a daily routine of at least 30 minutes will do the trick. And if you are terrified of the gym, just get out of your chair and get moving.
Leave the elevator on the ground floor and walk up and down the stairs. Leave the car in the garage and walk to work, school, or the supermarket. Don’t forget to do some stretching exercises beforehand, so your muscles don’t feel the impact.
Stay Hydrated
This is the simplest of healthy habits, but most people leave water aside to drink liters of coffee or soft drinks. In addition to having no sugar (which helps to avoid health problems such as obesity and diabetes), water is like a natural fuel, essential to ensure that our body works properly.
Staying hydrated helps maintain normal body temperature and eliminates toxic waste through urine or sweat, among other benefits. If you don’t like plain water, just add a few slices of orange or lemon to your glass.
Maintain a Healthy Weight
When was the last time you weighed yourself? If you are feeling more tired and have less energy, you may be overweight for your age and body type.
The easiest way to maintain a healthy weight is to move more and eat less. Cut down on fast food and sugary drinks and walk more, especially if you have a job that requires you to spend a lot of time sitting.
Minimize the Use of Stimulants
A healthier lifestyle requires you to change habits that aren’t. Consuming too much caffeine and energy drinks can help your productivity by driving away sleep, but the tiredness will come sooner or later and take a toll.
Regular consumption of alcohol and nicotine can lead to several short and long-term health problems. Reduce your use of these stimulants until you completely cut them out of your daily routine.
A Little Goes a Long Way
It is not necessary to start a heavy exercise routine overnight to change your lifestyle. By simply incorporating healthy habits over time, you will already be promoting effective changes in becoming healthier.
Moderate life changes are essential, and sometimes just a small amount of effort each day can make a significant difference. According to a 2021 study, for example, walking just 10 minutes daily lowers your risk of early death.
The bottom line is that many bad habits only exist because you never stop thinking about them.
To get into the habit of eating healthier foods, you need to start by eliminating donuts, cakes, and fatty foods from your home. If you don’t have the patience to do physical activities, try turning it into a social event by inviting a friend for a walk or bike ride. The sky is the limit.
Start Sooner Than Later
Recent research has shown that more than 6 in 10 Americans have developed some unhealthy habit during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic – including drinking heavily or becoming sedentary thanks to working from home.
Transforming these bad habits into a healthier lifestyle is now up to you. The first step may seem tough, but it’s necessary and involves a few simple changes to your daily routine.
If you find it hard to incorporate these simple, healthier habits into your life, try turning them into something that gives you satisfaction (rewarding yourself for accomplished goals) or even a competition, challenging yourself to drink less coffee or to walk more every day.
