Why Habits Are Key to Our Health
Your chances of maintaining a healthy lifestyle can be increased or decreased by the habits you cultivate. Habits are essential to our health and well-being.
If you want to promote longevity and increase the quality of your life, it’s important that you practice healthy habits like exercising regularly and eating good quality food.
On the other hand, you can risk developing diabetes, obesity, or other chronic diseases when you cultivate bad habits like low activity levels, over-eating junk food, and sugary soft drinks.
You can lower the risk of diseases such as cancer and diabetes, keep your blood sugars in range, and achieve a healthy weight with healthier habits.
5 Reasons Why you Must Develop Good Habits
1. Habits Are Who You Are.
Habits create your identity. The little thing you do every day become part of who you are as a person. A student studies every day.
Choose your habits and choose the identity you want to be recognised for. Choose the lifestyle you want to live.
For example, an Author writes every day. A fit person works out every day. At the same time an Alcoholic drinks alcohol every day. A smoker smokes cigarettes or tobacco every day. A drug addict takes drugs everyday.
2. You Can Change Your Habits.
This is one of the beautiful things about habits. If you know you have some bad habits, you can always change them. Some habits will be challenging to let go of depending on the benefit you gain from it.
However, with a plan in place you can change any habit. You can replace it with something better. Changing your habits means creating a new identity and that takes consistency.
3. You Can Easily Reach Your Goals With Good Habits.
Bad habits will hold you back from achieving things that are important to you.
As I have already mentioned habits create your identity and if you want to have a different result in life you need to do things differently. Not only do things differently meaning changing your habits but you must do them consistently to create a life change.
You can’t go to the gym once and think you’ll walk out fit. You can’t eat a salad once and wake up skinny. You can’t enrol in a course and get you Diploma without studying.
To get the result you must do the work. Creating good habits will set the path to achieve whatever you want to achieve. Habits are the micro steps towards the big picture of your dreams.
4. Habits Set a Foundation For Life.
Good habits are not only to achieve a specific outcome like getting the Diploma or running a marathon. Choose habits that will create a solid foundation for a healthy and happy life.
Think about what kind of life you want to live. Do you want to be calm person? What habits will reduce your stress? Do you want to be a happy person? What habits can you add in your day that bring you happiness?
Habits are like micro movements they don’t have to take a lot of time. You can have “down time” after work by listening to music in the background that makes you feel relaxed and calm.
If you do this every day you have something in place that will reduce your stress and bring you a level of happiness without any real effort and at no financial cost.
Prepping meals ahead of time means you can dedicate time to choosing healthier meals and save time cooking by cooking ahead of time. This ensures you can maintain a healthy weight and eat healthy at the same time. Small efforts for life long rewards.
5. Habits Can Replace Motivation.
Habits are what we do without having to think about it and that means they become second nature. It’s an unconscious push they give us to do what we must do.
Instead of waiting to feel motivated you can create habits so that no matter how you feel you will get up and do what needs to be done. If you have to wait for a feeling before you’re ready to do something you could be waiting for a long time. This is why people procrastinate.
However, if you have habits that are well thought out and are designed towards a specific outcome then all you need to do is take action. So in other words you can wait around for a feeling or you can take action towards what you want.
This is a big down fall for people who want to lose weight or stop smoking. They are waiting for motivation before they take action.
Read: 10 Quick Tips To Boost Motivation
10 Habits of Super Healthy People
Now I will take you through 10 Habits of Super Healthy People so that you can see what new habits you want to create so you can have a healthy life too.
A healthy life can mean shedding weight with ease, letting go of addictions like smoking or alcohol or getting fitter.
Not all of the habits below will appeal to you but the point is to find the habits that you want to add into your life to make it the best life possible.
1: Healthy Habit Eating Breakfast
Quit the habit of skipping breakfast. Take some time in the morning to start your day right. Choose a healthy well balanced breakfast.
Fuel your body with the right foods to give you the energy you need to start your day. It’s not about eating for the sake of eating. Eat slowly and mindfully. Win the morning – win the day right?
Checkout the Health Meals Planner here.
2: Drink Plenty of Water
Staying hydrated is at the top of the list of things that are good for you. You risk type 2 diabetes and obesity if you get used to sugary drinks. However, you can add flavor with slices of cucumber, watermelon, lime, lemon, or orange if you’re not a fan of plain water.
The best way to start drinking water is to have a glass the moment you wake up in the morning. Your body has been working hard all night. You will naturally be a little dehydrated because you haven’t drank anything for many hours.
Starting the day with a glass of water will give you a clear mind, rehydrate your organs and start your day right.
Keep a bottle of water with you at all times. As a new habit choose times where you can pair an activity with water. Eg. Every time you check your emails you have a glass of water. Every time you talk on the phone you drink water after or before the call.
These are easy ways to pair something you need to do with something you should do.
Looking for Help To Lose Weight?
The Hypnotic Gastric Lapband Weight Loss Program
The Hypnotic Gastric Lapband Weight Loss Program is designed to help you change your eating habits and food choices. You will reduce the amount of food you eat and you will feel full.
This program includes 4 hypnosis sessions:
- The Hypnotic Gastric Lapband Session
- Weight Loss Motivation Session
- Your New Relationship With Food Session
- Relaxation and De-stress Session
And healthy meal planning templates, fitness tracking and mindset activities to help you lose weight, gain health and be more active.
5: Exercise Breaks
Find ways to add in extra activity in your day. Go for a walk in your lunch break. Walk and talk when you’re on the phone. Do some squats at your desk or before you get in and out of the car.
Exercise and being active is the best thing for your mental well-being. It also helps keep your body in shape and helps you burn off extra calories.
Tracking your activity is a great way to ensure your habits are consistent. Check out The Fitness Goals Planner here.
4: Unplug form Technology
Read a book, take a walk, listen to music, make some art, cook something, meal prep, take a relaxing bath. Free up time to do other things by cutting back on screen time. Set a time to log off and put the phone down.
If you check your phone it will tell you how much “screen time” you spend every day. It’s horrifying. If you’re looking at ways to fit other things in your day this is the way to get back some serious time.
Unplugging is great to clear your mind and stop mindless crap influencing your thoughts and feelings.
5: Learn Something New
You can master a new language, , sign up for a dance class, study a new career path or hobbie. Self-education can open up the doors of possibilities in your life. You can meet new people and challenge yourself to get out of your comfort zone.
Creating a habit of always learning something new means opening yourself up to new opportunities in life.
6: Healthy Habit To Quit Smoking & Toxic Chemicals
Do you know that your heart rate and blood pressure drop within 20 minutes after your last cigarette? There are more than 7,000 chemicals in a cigarette and let’s face it, none of them are good.
Your body is constantly fighting that poison. Getting a smoking related illness or disease is not a matter of “if” but “when.”
Eliminating poison from your diet is good for your health and longevity. Sad that I have to write that because it seems so obvious but if that were the case no one would smoke right?
Need some help to stop smoking? Check out Hypnosis to Stop Smoking.
7: Sleep Well
An average of 7 to 9 hours of sleep at night is said to be good for your body. Everyone is different. Some people feel better when they have less sleep. It’s more about the quality of sleep than the hours you spend sleeping.
Your body is doing a lot while you’re asleep. It’s repairing your body on many levels so you need to give it time to do that. Going to bed early is also a way to consume less calories.
Overall, you’ll have more capacity to learn new things, sharpen your memory and focus, and enjoy a better mood when you get a good night’s sleep.
8: Train Your Muscles
At least twice a week, do weightlifting, lunges, push-ups, or your other preferred strength-training exercises.
Workouts can strengthen your muscles, bones, strengthen your heart, and help you slim down and reshape your body. You don’t need expensive equipment for weight training and you can do it at home. You just need to do it!
This is your body and you need to look after it. It’s all you’ve got to carry you through this lifetime. You can’t swap it for a new one. All you can do is maintenance on it. So keep it in the best condition possible. Your future years will thank you for it.
9: Get Outside in Nature Habit
Rather than walking in built-up areas, choose to stroll in open green spaces. So, if you can, choose nature over city streets. Don’t park yourself in front of the TV or computer, move your body and go outside.
Your mood, heart, and bones can benefit greatly from the vitamin D levels from the sun. Breathe the fresh air and allow your mind to process the day. Nature is healing for the mind and body.
10: Be Mindful
Mindfulness improves your mood, relieves pain, and reduces stress. Being mindful means slowing everything down and using all your senses to create an experience in the present moment.
It’s not thinking about the past or stressing about the future. It’s about being in the now. Focusing on one thing at a time.
This is a great skill for weight loss because you can eat mindfully, create an experience from your meal and be consciously aware of each bite. That means you will ultimately eat less because your mind and body are working together to recognise the signs of hunger to fulness.
Conclusion on Healthy Habits
There you are. 10 habits of super healthy people that you can begin adding in your life if you want to lose weight, stop smoking, learn something new or start a new career path.
Choose the habits you want to start with and start small. Consistency is the key. Don’t take on too much or you will burn out. Once you get consistent with one thing you can add in another habit until you have created a new identity in line with the person you want to become.
If you need help click here to make an appointment and I can help you in person or over Skype/Zoom.
You can check out the Hypnotic Gastric Lapband Weight Loss program here or read about hypnosis to stop food cravings which I can help you achieve face to face or ove zoom /skype.
If you want to stop smoking then check out this page.
