Healthy Habits You Can Incorporate From Home
Let’s face it: we’re all spending a lot more time at home these days. Now that we are a couple of months into the new year, it’s a good time to reassess any goals we set. If any of your resolutions were related to healthy living or any aspects of creating a healthy lifestyle, how are they going? Are you meeting your goals or has the motivation dissipated?
Many people struggle with developing healthy habits, at home in particular. Our homes are often filled with unseen temptations since food and snacks are easily accessible at all times, and when the weather is colder it’s more difficult to find the motivation to get off the couch and go out for a run.
Ready to put down the remote and get back on track? Here are some tips for creating good personal habits at home that actually stick.
How to Start Healthy Habits at Home
Identify the trigger for bad habits.
Many times we don’t even realize that something is triggering that craving for a glass of wine or a box of cookies. Identify the trigger, and you can change the outcome of what you do next. Around 10am do you get up from your desk and go for a snack? Pause before you start munching and ask yourself: “Am I eating because I need a break, or because I’m genuinely hungry?” Try going for a quick walk around the block first and see how you feel. The same goes for that glass of wine at the end of the day. If you find drinking wine a comforting way to relax, swap that glass of empty calories and sugar for a cup of chamomile tea with a packet of True Lemon. Breathe deep.
Download a habit tracking app.
There really is an app for just about anything! Do a quick search and you’ll find many different apps for tracking your progress with the good habits you’re trying to adopt. See how many days you can go without breaking your streak, and set up reminders to pop up in order to stay motivated throughout the day.
Make simple healthy substitutes.
Replace sugary soda with water and True Lemon Wildberry Lemonade. Swap out that unhealthy sugar-filled creamer for healthy coffee creamer alternatives like these. Love Ranch dressing with your veggies? Try making your own from whole ingredients - you may like it even more than the original (this dairy-free Ranch recipe is incredible). Enjoy cracking open a beer at the end of a long day? Crack open a can of sparkling water instead.
Reward yourself
Creating healthy habits for life means keeping yourself motivated to continue doing them every single day. Remember to reward yourself for completing each habit. For example, if you are trying to exercise more often, focus on how good you feel and how much energy you have afterwards. If you managed to trade your usual glass of wine for a cup of tea instead for 5 days during the past week, reward yourself on Friday night with a luxurious bubble bath with scented candles and by cranking up the latest Taylor Swift album. Little rewards will keep you going.
Keep doing the habit (even when you don’t want to)
The thing about habits is that keeping them is about repetition. They have to be in place for long enough for your brain to stop thinking about them - you just do them automatically. Not feeling motivated to complete the habit today? Do it at 50% capacity. For example, if you’re trying to go for a run every morning but are tempted to just stay in bed, tell yourself to just get dressed and do some deep stretching or go for a walk. You may find that once you're up, you’ll end up doing more than you expected.
Ideas for Healthy Habits to Start
If you didn’t set up specific goals at the beginning of the year, this is a great healthy habits list to get you going! Remember to start off gradually, as doing too much too fast will lead to mental exhaustion. Choose 2-4 ideas from this list and work your way up from there once the habits are fully formed.
Here are some ideas for daily habits to improve your life:
• 8 hours of sleep each night
• Do at least 30 minutes of exercise
• Meditate for 5 minutes
• Stretch for 10 minutes
• Swap out 1 can of soda for True Citrus with water
• Do 10 push-ups
• Fill your plate with 50% vegetables at each meal
• Say 3 positive things about your body
• Choose sobriety 5 days a week
• Swap 1 cup of coffee for 1 cup of tea
• Limit TV-watching to 1 hour a night
• Turn off your phone 30 minutes before bed
These are some great tactics to put in place that will create a solid foundation for healthy habits to change your life in a truly positive way. Looking for more advice? Here is a simple way to build healthy habits.
