kc2017For a good life, healthy habits are essential to your wellbeing. These are healthy behaviors you do each day for your overall health and wellness. These behaviors don’t all have to be related to food and exercise; they should be a balance of healthy behaviors that work for your life and make you feel amazing. For example, you could plan to meditate, pray, breathe or just close your eyes for 2 to 5 minutes a couple of times per day. For some it may be journaling your day or attending a yoga class.
When you begin to consciously add healthy habits to your lifestyle, I suggest starting slow and small, and decide what is important to your lifestyle – not someone else’s. Also decide on habits that will benefit you and that you are willing to give a good go at maintaining them. Do a bit of research when you decide on one and see what impact it might have on your health and wellness. Once you have decided, begin to incorporate one or two of those habits. Always be mindful that you won’t be perfect but you will be making progress toward some good, healthy habits. When you are successfully performing these each day you can begin to add more. The habits you want to adopt are up to you. Below I have listed five of my daily, non-negotiable healthy habits. You may want to consider these for yourself.
- Water – I start my day with 10 to 12 ounces of plain water before I have anything else. Water is essential to waking up your systems. Shawn Stevenson of The Model Health Show calls it your “inner bath”. Because of this, I picture the water coursing through my body, getting it started for the day and getting rid of the trash!
- Greens and Red Juice by Organifi. This is a fairly new habit for me. I have been working it into my daily routine over the past six weeks or so. Each afternoon around 2:30, I blend one stuffed cup of spinach with Aquatic Greens from Perfect Supplements, coconut water or Bai and a scoop of Red Juice. This is such a boost to my system and I have really noticed a difference in my afternoons and evenings. This is particularly important to me since I am an afternoon/evening exerciser.
- Making my Bed – Every Single Day. It just starts my day off right – I can finish this small task and it makes other more daunting tasks seem doable. I love knowing that when I come home in the afternoon or evening, my room is a tranquil place I can go. I walk in and there is a pretty bed, all nice and neat. It seems to make some of the chaos of the day melt away and it encourages me to put my clothes away and not just drop them on the floor.
- Preparing my food and workout bag – I work outside the home and this healthy habit is a must for me. Each evening after dinner, I get my food ready for the next day. This typically includes breakfast, lunch and snacks. I make sure that I grab any portioned lunches from the laundry room fridge and put them in the kitchen fridge. I put everything together on the same shelf in the kitchen so that in the morning all I have to do is get my lunch tote out, put the ice packs and food in and zip it up! I also get my workout bag ready. I pack my clothes for the next workout. I do keep two pairs of socks in my bag along with a few other essentials like face wipes, a sweat towel, deodorant and my water bottle.
- Nightly Routine – Typically I start my nightly routine with a few minutes in my bed scrolling Facebook and/or Instagram. I limit this to about 15 minutes. Then I wash my face and remove all make up, brush my teeth and apply all my anti-aging essentials. I use make-up removing wipes and make-up remover for my mascara. I then apply under eye cream, serum and hydro gel moisturizer. Right now I am testing a few products and beginning to make the switch to cruelty-free items. I do not skip these steps no matter what time it is when I go to bed. I will do product reviews on those in the future.
Creating healthy habits takes some deciding and planning. Decide on one or two habits that you would like to start and do some research on how they will help your health and wellness. Then get started. Remember one day at a time. You may want to incorporate your new habits into you calendar or set reminders on your phone until your are doing them without having to think about them. Let me know what habits you choose and why. I would love to hear from you on your progress.
See you on Tuesday with some tips for sticking with those habits. Until then, have a god life!
Kim
