What we do in our early adulthood will impact our wellness in our mature age. However, it’s never too late to start living more healthily and positively affecting your future. Most of us are sometimes too busy to pay attention to our bodies and our minds while being too caught up in the daily grind. In order to make this forgetfulness about self-care a thing of the past, take a look at these tricks on how to start incorporating healthy habits into your probably way too busy lifestyle.
We know that you’re probably tired of hearing this being repeated, but do you know whether you’re tired because you’re repeatedly hearing sound advice or because you’re dehydrated? The matter of fact is that a lot of people simply forget to drink water during the day replacing it with coffee and sodas. However, the effects of dehydration won’t only make your skin dull and tongue dry, they can be pretty damning causing headaches, general discomfort, or even seizures. Luckily, these symptoms can easily be averted by being mindful of your fluid intake. Get a plastic bottle, chill it in the fridge overnight and make sure that when you wake up you drink at least half of it. If needed put sticky notes around your house as a reminder or even download one of the water tracker apps.
During the day most of us are too caught up in our work and errands to pay full attention to our body’s nutritional needs. The first thing you need to do is to try eating three full meals with at least one snack in between. If you’re keen on getting healthy, these meals shouldn’t consist of convenience food such as takeout, but of healthy clean ingredients. Load your plate with vegetables, since apart from looking nice and colorful they are full of vitamins, fibers, and minerals. Make sure that you get enough protein from fish and lean meat. However, don’t forget the significance of fats in your diet. What are the most healthy fats, you may ask? Well, instead of gorging on food such as sweets and chips which are full of unhealthy saturated fats, focus on consuming unsaturated fats. Found in nuts and avocados, these fats have been reported to diminish the risk of cancers and heart disease.
A lot of us are guilty of eating on the go and not really paying attention to what we’re eating. Even though sometimes this won’t be possible since there are only so many hours of the day, try to sit down while you eat and honor your hunger. When you put everything around you on hold and only think of the nutritional goodness in front of you. This means to even put your phone away, no multitasking allowed of any kind. It is said that paying attention to every single bite of food will help you realize more easily when you’re full, resulting in less overeating tendencies and snacking between meals.
Not all of us have time nor energy for a full gym membership and that is completely fine. Even though you may not be a vain person who wants to go to the gym for muscle gains or getting a slim modelesque physique, it is advisable to incorporate more movement in your day-to-day life. Start small, go and get yourself some walking shoes. When you’ve completed this step, focus your attention on planning your walking schedule while being mindful of the time and a route. Keep in mind, you’re not training for a marathon so in order to get yourself moving, a 10-minute walking route is more than enough. For example, if you go to work by bus you can hop off a couple of stops early or if you’re commuting by car just park it a bit more away from your office space.
Nemanja Marinkov is an experienced writer and editor mainly known for his articles about health, fitness, and child care. You can find him on Twitter.