We all have bad habits, but knowing we have them is half the battle. Discover your bad habits and get healthier now!
If you’re reading this, chances are you care about improving and maintaining optimal health, and you take actions day in and day out to boost and maintain your health and wellbeing. But, especially in our modern society, this can be a challenge! We do our best to eat fresh, whole foods, drink clean water, and get appropriate levels of proper exercise. But, many of us have habits we may not be aware of that are sabotaging our health.
Improving these habits will help you experience even greater health, fitness, balance, and overall wellness.
You Eat Out Too Often
Did you know most people in our nation eat out for a meal or snack at least once a day? Not only does this add up financially, but it can also take a toll on your health. While there are an increasing amount of truly healthy restaurants becoming available, depending on your location, the majority of these meals and snacks eaten out of the home are often highly processed, not fresh, lacking in nutrients, and not healthy.
Restaurant food is designed to taste good to keep you coming back, but also to be as inexpensive as possible—also to keep you coming back. Eating out often means poor quality ingredients and foods high in processed salt, sugar, and unhealthy fats. When you eat food made at home, you control exactly what ingredients you’re using, in what amounts, and how they are prepared.
If eating out all the time sounds like you, the goal would be to start aiming to decrease the amount of meals eaten from restaurants and convenience stores, with the ultimate goal of only eating at truly healthy restaurants, or eating out very rarely. The more food you can eat at home, or prepared by fresh, wholesome means, the better you’re going to look and feel!
The main reason most people eat out is for convenience, but with a little preparation, eating at home can be just as quick and convenient, with the added benefit of being cheaper and healthier!
You’re Dehydrated
Many, if not most of us, are dehydrated. Some sources say that 75 percent of the population is chronically dehydrated. Most Americans don’t even get the recommended eight glasses of water each day, then on top of that, many eat foods or drink liquids such as coffee or soda that have dehydrating effects! There are various symptoms of dehydration, many of which can be subtle or attributed to other factors. Some such symptoms can include fatigue, irritability, nausea, fast heartbeat, hunger, and headaches.
Being dehydrated makes it more difficult for the body to distribute nourishment, to pump the blood through the veins, to properly cool the body’s temperature, to lubricate joints and bodily tissues, to maintain healthy metabolism, and a number of other vital elements. Without sufficient water, our body will not be able to function as it should. After all, the body is made up of primarily water!
It’s a good idea to carry a water bottle with you throughout the day and sip on it throughout the day rather than try to chug all of your water all at once. The tissues of the body are like a sponge, and they can only hold so much water at a time. So, to keep the tissues constantly hydrated, sipping on water throughout the day is the best way to do so.
Inadequate Sleep
In today’s fast-paced world, lack of sleep is a growing problem. We’re getting up early and going to bed far too late. In one survey, 56% of the entire adult population reported experiencing drowsiness problems in the daytime. Over half of our population are chronically not getting enough sleep!
Most adults require 7–8 hours of good sleep to be properly rested. When this rest isn’t achieved, especially consistently, then negative results can be expected. Not only will concentration and focus decrease, but metabolism will slow, digestion is affected, appetite increases, and strength and energy outputs decrease. Furthermore, the immune system function, the nervous system, and the hormone regulation in the body will be negatively affected.
The best way to get proper sleep is to set a schedule and routine for when you wake up and when you go to bed to give your body a chance to get into a good rhythm. Avoid anything stimulating around bedtime as well, such as caffeine, or heavy meals within two hours of needing to sleep.
Stress
It’s something we all experience at varying degrees each day. Certain amounts of stress is necessary and healthy, but too much bad stress does a number to our health. Stress increases the hormone cortisol, and a chronic state of stress means a chronic state of increased cortisol. Increased levels of cortisol slows down the metabolism, leads to cravings (especially for high fat, high sugar foods), and is associated with greater amounts of abdominal fat storage.
Not only does increased stress cause weight gain, it has a huge number of other detrimental effects. When we’re stressed, the immune system function decreases, we don’t have the same levels of energy or motivation, we don’t sleep as well, our strength and power diminishes, we don’t learn or remember as rapidly, we’re more emotionally imbalanced, and we age more quickly.
One of the most important ways of boosting and maintaining good health is to decrease or eliminate bad stress. This means different things for different people, but can include things such as meditation, yoga, a hot bath, a walk, or exercise.
Same Day, Same Thing
Many of us have routines and preferences where we do the same thing day in and day out. This means we tend to eat a lot of the same exact foods and do the exact same activity or fitness routines. While these things are good—especially for morning and bedtime routines, the body needs variety in other areas. When it comes to our nutrition, if we’re eating identical foods every day or very often, we are only supplying our bodies with a certain number and type of nutrients. The body needs a wide spectrum and array of various nutrients that different foods provide. To really boost health, a wide variety of fresh, whole foods should be eaten each day and week.
When it comes to fitness or activity habits, it’s also important to get variety and change up what you’re doing to achieve optimal wellness. When we engage in redundant activity or exercises week in and week out, we’re working certain muscles much more so than others, becoming over dominant in those primary muscles and weaker in the opposing muscles. If we wish to be optimally well and balanced, then we need to make sure to move, use, and strengthen the entire body, to prevent muscle over and under dominances happening. Furthermore, most people tend to not engage in enough, or any, healthful physical activities such as flexibility, mobility, and stability work. Most tend to focus most heavily on strength and cardio goals, without much or any emphasis on the other areas of physical wellness. Lack of health and wellness of the body will result if this is maintained.
To achieve optimal health and wellness and to live as vibrantly as possible, take the time to consider your daily habits and what effect those habits are having on your body!
