Everybody’s guilty of making promises to themselves that they don’t keep. A promise to improve your health is probably one of them. Usually, it’s a new year’s resolution that’s been forgotten by the time February swings around. Sometimes, summer is approaching and you want to start wearing shorts again. The point is that it’s easy to say you’re going to start living healthily, but it’s a little harder to commit to a brand new lifestyle. Anybody can eat one healthy meal or turn up to one gym session. Can you ditch your unhealthy habits permanently? If you’re struggling to do so then here are a few lifestyle pointers that might help you finally stick to a new health regime.
Stick to a realistic and varied diet.
This is an aspect of healthy living that causes many people grief. That’s because many of us have a warped idea of what constitutes a “healthy diet”. Some health fanatics and gurus promote diets designed to help you lose weight quickly, but such diets are usually impossible to maintain in the long-run. Additionally, such diets are usually very unhealthy because they involve cutting your meals down to the extent that you’re not giving your body the sustenance that it needs. Whilst it’s important to not eat too much if you want to keep your body healthy, you need to make sure that you’re eating enough of the right things.
Rather than saying no to all carbs and calories, you just need to learn how to moderate your food intake to give your body what it needs. Replace empty calories with good ones. For example, you could get your carbs from pasta, your iron from green vegetables, you fiber from fruit such as bananas, and so on. The food we consume keeps our bodies and minds well-regulated. A balanced diet is more realistic than a “fad diet” that involves starving yourself because you’ll be able to keep your body well-fed. You won’t find yourself hungering for the old foods you miss. Plus, you can treat yourself to the occasional pizza or burger. Yet again, ditching unhealthy habits simply requires moderation.
Work through addictions.
It might be time to ditch unhealthy habits if they’ve gone beyond your control. The occasional glass of wine is fine, but you could be doing damage to your body if you’re drinking too much of it. Quitting cigarettes or other substances will help your body both today and in the future. As discussed in the point regarding healthy eating, moderation is essential in life. Some substances are fine in small or occasional doses, but you need to let those habits go if they’ve become unhealthy and frequent addictions. This is more than a physical thing, of course. Your mindset plays a big part in dealing with addiction, but we’ll discuss mental health in greater detail at the end of this article.
Start sleeping properly.
Perhaps you eat well and exercise regularly, but so many of us are guilty of this bad habit: not sleeping properly. Unfortunately, it’s a byproduct of the modern world. We’re all so busy with all productive lives that we often don’t prioritize sleep. We tell ourselves that we shouldn’t be wasting time in bed when we’ve got so many things to do. There are only so many hours in the day once you’ve finished work. Maybe you want to stay up to binge-watch your favorite Netflix show. Maybe you want to get up early to get some household chores done before work. However, you might find that you’re more productive throughout the day if you finally get some sleep. When you’re sleep-deprived, you’re slow and sluggish. Everything takes longer. If you need an incentive to sleep well then think about the fact that you’ll be able to get more done throughout the day if you get 8 hours sleep rather than barely functioning on 6.
Of course, this is about your health as much as it is about being productive throughout the day. If the prospect of getting more done during the average day doesn’t motivate you to start sleeping well then maybe you need to understand the negative health consequences of sleeping poorly. Yes, you already know that you feel depleted in terms of your energy levels and you start to see grey circles forming under your eyes, but these are just small indicators of the larger problem. When you sleep poorly, you’re not allowing your body the rest it needs. You’re weakening yourself, essentially. Your immune system can suffer and make you more susceptible to colds or illnesses. Even your mental health can suffer, but we’ll talk about that topic more in the final point.
Stop ignoring your mind.
Even people in top physical health for their age are prone to neglecting their wellbeing when it comes to their minds. That’s because we’re not taught about mental health in quite the same way as physical health. Society is slowly improving in this regard, but it’s still a confusing topic for most of us. We’re trying to understand our complex minds. When you injure your body, the damage is noticeable. When you’re depressed or anxious, it’s easy to bury the problem so that the symptoms are hidden. That’s why it’s so important for you to pay attention to your mind. Check in with yourself on a daily basis to see how you’re doing. You could try meditation to help to center yourself and quieten your frantic mind so that you can focus on yourself in the present. If you are having trouble opening up to yourself then you could even try opening up to family, friends, or even a professional therapist. Confronting your mental health struggles is the best way to start the healing process. Burying your mental health problems is an unhealthy habit, so put a stop to that this year. Start listening to yourself. You need to value your mental health in the same way as you value physical health because the body and the mind rely on one another.
