Simple Wellness Habits To Help You Upgrade Your Life
If it was easy to achieve your goals and live the life you truly wanted, everyone would be doing it. But the reality is, it takes awareness, dedication, and consistency to make a lot of the changes we want to see, especially when it comes to health and wellness.
In order to begin to upgrade your life, you’ll first want to be clear on what it is you actually want from life. What makes you feel your best? Do you even know? For some, it could be putting on a nice outfit and makeup, enjoying a massage, or finishing a quality workout… While all of this helps, I believe true beauty and feeling well starts from within.
So what does that even mean?
Many times in life, the simplest task or habit gets overlooked because it’s, well… simple. We understand that to be healthy, we need to live a healthy life but knowing what these habits are and actually living them day to day is very different.
To find true inner beauty and get to a place where you feel well, I encourage you to embrace the non-glorious behaviors that don’t always offer immediate gratification - but that deliver on long-term results.
Think of a health or wellness goal you have. Now imagine taking one baby step towards that goal every single day. The commitment could be 5-30 minutes and fit seamlessly into your lifestyle. Now imagine doing that consistently every day for one month, for one year, or for 10 years. Think of how far you would get!
Start with awareness, remove the negatives, and add the positives.
I work with my clients on common areas of their health and wellness journey that can often be changed to support their goals with ease. While we all start in different places, the road to our goals doesn’t have to be hard or miserable. In fact, I always recommend focusing on the simplest yet most effective habits to get you there.
Nutrition
It’s common that most people don’t know how amazing their bodies are designed to feel when offered real, minimally inflammatory foods. Can you remember a time your body felt amazing?
Awareness: Sit down, screen free, and actually chew your food. While this may sound silly, eating your food slowly and truly enjoying it can help with digestion, fullness, and give your eyes a break from strain.
Remove: Significantly reduce sugar, processed snacks, and take-out. Choose to control your ingredients in meals when possible.
Add: Add a vegetable to each meal. You’ll be surprised how much this one habit can impact your nutrition and how you feel!
Hydration
Many people walk around dehydrated without even knowing so. Headaches, tiredness, dizziness, dry skin, and feeling hungry are all effects of dehydration, though many write these off as their normal.
Awareness: Do you know how much water you actually drink in a day? Many of us know how much coffee or soda we drink but neglect to keep a gauge on our water intake.
Remove: Significantly limit other drinks that include sugar, caffeine, and alcohol. Don’t cut it all out at once. Rather start reducing in volume, and then reduce in frequency.
Add: Commit to drinking 1/ 2 your bodyweight in ounces of water per day. This can be overwhelming, and if that’s the case, cut this amount in half and start there until that amount becomes easy.
Movement
A lot of working adults spend 8+ hours each Monday through Friday sitting at a desk and up to 3 hours seated during their daily commute. This is potentially 11 hours daily of stationary sitting.
Awareness: How often do you find yourself moving throughout the day? This can include exercise, walking, and other forms of movement.
Remove: Try to eliminate the tendency to sit or lay at home after your long day of sitting at work.
Add: Commit to moving more than you do now. If you are completely sedentary, start with 3 days a week of intentional movement. For others, try 5-6 day a week of scheduled movement. If you’re already active, add in weights to your workouts and build strength. Walk, bike, run, take a class, choose the stairs, park further from the door… find what is fun and doable for you.
Sleep
A lack of sleep is an acceptable reality for many these days. Most individuals are overworked, overtired, frazzled, and unable to “shut things down” and simply BE.
Awareness: How often are you able to commit to 7+ hours of quality sleep per night - even on the weekends? Set yourself up for success by setting a consistent bedtime and working backwards from there to see how much time you have in the evenings before tucking yourself into bed.
Remove: Limit your screen time, bright lights, and work emails 1-2 hours prior to sleep.
Add: Add a candle, chill music, and a soft blanket to set the tone. Your environment will support OR sabotage what you’re aiming to accomplish.
Mindset
Mindset is often the last thing we work on and acknowledge but should be first. You’ll want your mindset in the right space to achieve optimal health and wellness.
Reflect on these questions, and revisit the 4 areas of wellness listed above. You may be surprised how the awareness component of your mindset impacts your perspective on these other areas of your life.
How do you really feel about yourself, your body, and your engagement with life? Are you happy, frustrated, proud, always feel like you’re not quite there, etc.?
What words do you use to describe yourself in your mind and maybe even aloud to others? Do you identify as late and unorganized, productive, organized and motivated, etc.?
Do you feel worthy of the time, energy, and money it takes to truly care for yourself with healthy foods, firm boundaries, quality sleep, and gym memberships? Be honest. Many people feel selfish in these areas.
Does your health actually feel like a priority to you? Most people say it is a priority but when you examine their calendars, their behaviors don’t represent that.
How do you unintentionally sabotage yourself from achieving your goals and desires?
Would you describe yourself as generally happy and content, safe and supported, challenged in healthy ways, and living a life on purpose that you actually enjoy?
Seek wellness where you are
Remember, if it was easy to achieve your goals and live the life you truly wanted, everyone would be doing it. I encourage you to seek wellness where you are and take small steps that will lead to big changes. The power of consistency and little changes add up significantly over time. Start small today and stick with it - you’ll be proud of how far you’ve come when you look back down the line.