5 Habit Changes You Can Make to Be Healthier

By Cassie Phillips

Our health is paramount to our existence, yet it can easily be damaged through laziness and neglect. Depending on our upbringing and environment, we become conditioned to either embrace a healthy lifestyle, or to frame nutritional living as “hard work.”

However, staying in shape and feeding your body with nutritious, satisfying and healthy fuel isn’t as hard as it’s made out to be. The idea that healthy living is difficult to maintain or begin is an incorrect stereotype that needs to be broken down. Using the five habit changes in this article, you’ll be able to see just how enjoyable and easy it can be to live a healthy life.

Shop Mindfully

Food shopping is a regular occurrence in our lives. However, depending on our moods and how much time we give ourselves, we can rush this task and buy lots of unhealthy foods that are damaging to our health and overall well-being. Your diet is essential to your health and must be taken seriously. To avoid snacking on low-quality foods, you can give yourself the upper hand by taking more control over your food shopping.

Take time to read labels and look into what ingredients are in the goods you purchase. For example, watch out for artificial preservatives and chemical substances that aren’t healthy. If you don’t easily recognize an ingredient or it looks like something from a science textbook, there’s a pretty good chance it’s not good for you. Replace foods that aren’t nutritious with options that contain natural fats and sugars such as avocados and whole eggs. If you have a sweet tooth and love your chocolate, purchase dark instead of milk chocolate.

By paying closer attention to what goes into your food, you will quickly learn which foods are actually healthy and which are not. It is also important to make sure you give yourself time to enjoy your grocery shopping so that you can pay closer attention to what you’re buying.

To ensure success with this habit, go to the store prepared with a list of what you need to buy. If you go with clear objectives, you will spend less time searching around and can spend more time reading ingredients and choosing quality foods.

Paying attention to how you shop is a productive habit that will help limit unhealthy eating and improve your health.

 

Take Advantage of Technology

In this day and age, keeping on top of your health is far easier than it was even a decade ago. Technology has played a key role in this shift through the development of wearable devices and apps on smart phones that can track your fitness, diet. progress and even stress levels.

When we install apps or use wearable devices, our behavior begins to change as we’re frequently sent notifications of our activity and given real-time updates about our health. We can start using these alerts as motivation to repeat success or improve previous results.

There are apps for almost every health-related activity. For example, yoga lovers could use “Daily Yoga,” and runners may want to try “Couch to 5k”. Do a search related to your interests, and you will surely find a related app to help you in forming healthier habits.

However, before you download a bunch of apps on your phone, it is recommended that you use some form of protection or secure connection to protect yourself from hackers. The more you involve technology in your life and the more connected you become, the more vigilant you need to be about protecting your identity and personal information. Not having to worry about these risks means you can spend more time with the productive parts of these technologies, which will make it easier to lead a healthy lifestyle.

Include More Positive Information in Your Life

The books you read, the TV you watch and the information you browse on the internet all affect how you think. We’re all environmentally conditioned, therefore, if we wish to become healthier, we need to make a habit out of sourcing helpful content that will push us to live a healthy lifestyle. If you find yourself watching TV shows that make you stressed or lethargic, remove them from your life, as they will not be assisting you and your health.

The same goes for books and anything you browse on the net. Make sure that you surround yourself with positive information that will assist you on your health targets, as it will help you to stay determined and motivated. We spend lots of time-consuming information. By changing the type of things you read and watch, it will be easier to stay focused on achieving your health-related goals. 

Keep a Journal

Knowing your current diet will help you become aware of unhealthy habits and identify where you need to make changes. Keeping a journal of what you eat is a great way to do this and is an excellent habit to form.

For example, you could sit down after dinner, or any other moment of the day, and write down what you ate that day and how those foods made you feel. At first this might be a bit strange, but over time you will notice patterns. Some foods make you feel great while others do not. Or, you may find that there are certain times or situations where you are more likely to go for something unhealthy. This information will help you be more conscious of your choices and will go a long way towards your efforts to live a healthy lifestyle.

Walk More Often

Walking is a simple, elegant and enjoyable activity that does wonders for your health.  Try to incorporate more walking into your daily life. For example, take the stairs instead of the elevator or walk to local places such as the supermarket or bank rather than driving. It may take a little longer, but plan for this time and enjoy it.

The benefits of walking also extend to your mental health. It can seriously reduce negative thinking and your stress levels. Although making this change might mean it will take longer to get to some places, if you plan for this, you’ll find that these moments will turn into treasured escapes from your daily routine that also help promote healthy living.

Overall, becoming healthier really comes down to understanding and addressing our current habits. Many times we do things that might be unhealthy without even knowing it, so it’s important to look for what we can change. Keeping a food diary, shopping with awareness and walking more often are all habit changes we can make that will show you that maintaining a healthy lifestyle is in fact not hard work but instead easy, fun and rewarding.

Author bio: Cassie Phillips is a health and tech enthusiast who enjoys blogging about her experiences. She also runs a local fitness class specializing in woodland walks and cycling around her neighborhood. Cassie takes pride in helping others be more mindful of their habits and in showing them how simple changes can do wonders to improve your overall health.

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