Everyday Habits to Start for a Healthier Life

This year I’m making every effort to be better than I was the year before. This includes everything from the way I deal with my relationships, to how I spend my time, and how I take care of my body.

And what’s been helping me the most to live an overall healthy lifestyle has been adding habits into my everyday life that are productive and make me feel good. Because if I feel good and I’m happy, then I’d consider myself successful.

The best part about it is how simple these habits are because living a healthy lifestyle should be just that: simple.

Call it a form of spring cleaning if you will, but after doing a life cleanse I put together these daily habits that have been amazing for me to be healthier inside and out.

Everyday Habits to Start for a Healthier Life

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For the Body

Drinking More Water

I don’t know what happened, but I used to be really good at drinking my daily recommendation of water. And with that, I was using the bathroom like clockwork but it made my body feel so energized.

When I got rid of my old water bottle I found it harder to keep track of how much water I was drinking everyday. I’ve recently purchased a new water bottle and now I’m finally getting back on track to drinking a lot of water every day. It’s not my favorite as I’m currently looking for one with time markers on it but it’ll work for now.

I highly recommend if you’re looking to drink more water, invest in a large water bottle that can hold a full days worth of water. Or at least get a water bottle with time markers on the side (if you can get both go for it) so it can remind you to drink, something similar to this water bottle is really helpful.

Getting Active

Even though this blog focuses on fitness, I’m talking about more than just working out.

Up until a few months ago I didn’t really do anything active besides going to the gym. And to be honest it showed. Working out became this thing that I did out of habit, not because it was fun or because I wanted to be active.

I realized that there are other things I can do to keep active that were fun and allowed me spend time with friends. So I started to take yoga classes by the beach. I went salsa dancing a few times. Even going on hikes or simply walking on trails around lakes became a regular occurrence.

And doing new active things like these actually made me put less pressure on myself in the gym and I started to really enjoy working out. Rather than doing it just out of habit or wanting results, it became fun again.

Meal Prepping

I’m not going to lie, there have been plenty of times that I’ve said that I don’t meal prep. That I don’t like it and that I don’t feel like I need to. Well I never expected that I would become someone that meal preps every week.

Something that started as a way for me to save money instead of buying food everyday turned into much more. After meal prepping my breakfast, lunch, and snacks every week not only did I realize how much money I was wasting before, but I realized how much easier it is to make sure I’m eating healthy every day.

Meal prepping has seriously changed the way I look and food and healthy eating. Sure you can still eat healthy without it but it just makes it so much easier. You’re not scrambling trying to figure out what you’re going to eat and then reaching for the unhealthy food just because it’s convenient.

And your body just feels so much better. It’s funny because now if I don’t meal prep I feel lost as to what I should eat.

For the Mind

Journaling and Meditating

I put these two together because they tend to have the same effect and go hand in hand. Journaling has been a part of my life for years and meditation came soon after.

It’s a great stress reliever, and in such a fast paced world it’s nice to slow down and reflect. Or even just allow yourself to be present in the moment. I actually have two journals. One that I actually write with pen and paper with long accounts of my thoughts and life, and one I keep on my phone with the app Jour.

With pen and paper I can do much deeper reflections and so I use it maybe twice a week. I love writing and because it’s a lot slower than typing, it forces me to slow my thought processing down which is nice. And I use Jour on my phone to keep up with everyday mindfulness.

As for meditation, I’ve recently become a fan of guided meditation. I used to not like it because I wanted to let my mind be free and think about nothing. But I noticed when I had unguided meditations my mind tended to wander more often and it took more effort to turn off my thoughts.

With guided meditation I have somewhere to bring my thoughts back to if they start to wander.

My current favorite way to meditate is with the app Balance. It offers many different types of guided meditations that are great for beginners and it caters to your needs. Balance is the best meditation app that I’ve tried and I’ve tried a whole lot.

Lowering Screen Time

My screen time is ridiculously high. I’ll admit that I’m addicted to my phone and at one point I was addicted to social media. I’ve gradually been rewiring my brain back to enjoying thing offline rather than what’s on a screen. Which takes some effort when part of your job is running a blog.

Recently I’ve made it a habit to put my phone on airplane mode an hour or so before I go to sleep and an hour after I wake up in the morning to have some me time. I’ve also added restrictions on my phone. And as crazy as that sounds, it works.

It’s not realistic for me to delete all of my social media. So the next best thing was to restrict my usage.

I deleted social media apps that weren’t productive to my work and the one’s that are, I made sure that I put a time restriction of 30 mins a day. The good thing is that I have enough self control that when I see that I’ve hit my limit I don’t add more time, I just do something more productive.

And after doing that for a couple of weeks I actually use my phone and social media WAY LESS than I used to. I’m not on Instagram or Pinterest for more than a few minutes a day and my productivity has gone way up. I have more time to spend reading and playing music or being outside. Which is a much healthier use of my time and energy.

Practicing Gratitude

This is something that I do everyday that has made a huge impact on my mental health. The thing is, as much as I preach positivity and happiness no one is happy all of the time. That’s just not real.

But what has helped me to stay in a positive mindset more often has been practicing gratitude on a daily basis. Even when something terrible happens to me, I try to turn my thoughts to things that I am grateful for. Because even if everything is going wrong in my life, I know that it could be a lot worse.

So every night before I go to sleep I try to name at least 3 things that I’m grateful for. It could be something that happened that day. Or something that I might normally take for granted.

The more you show gratitude the more you can appreciate the bad things that happen in your life. Because without them you wouldn’t be able to appreciate how amazing the good things are.

For the Soul

Reading a Good Book

With all of this technology people really under estimate the power of reading a good book. Books allow you to escape and at the same time relax your mind.

When I was younger I used to read all of the time but as cell phones became more popular and more advanced, reading took a back seat to more video content like YouTube and Netflix.

But over the past year I’ve come to appreciate how great time offline can be. Books bring you into a whole new world in a way that I believe that videos can never do. It’s amazing being able to actually use your imagination and train your brain to do more than look at pictures on a screen.

I don’t know if there are more people that feel the way that I do but after making reading a priority again my overall happiness and wellbeing has improved. My focus has gotten a lot better as well as my ability to write and my anxiety has gone down.

Spending Time With Friends and Family

There is a big push right now to work more. Hustle culture is real. A push to have a full time job, side jobs, and gigs to stay busy. But what’s much better for your health is to set boundaries. Get in the habit of taking time off and spend more time with friends and family.

This should be a no brainer but making a habit of spending time with the ones that you care about is so freeing. And you don’t have to do anything extravagant with them unless you want to. It can be as simple as you all sharing a meal or playing a game together.

Spending time with your loved ones can help relieve any work or life stress you may have. As well as increasing the bond and love that you have for one another.

Dancing Au Naturel

I know this might sound crazy but this is sooooo good for your body confidence and feeling good with who you are. Try blasting some music and spending a few minutes just dancing and getting comfortable with your body and how it moves. The music can be happy or sensual. Or whatever you feel at that moment.

Just start moving.

And if you’re not comfortable dancing in the nude you can always keep your under clothes on but the point is to really get used to seeing your body for what it is and learning love it. Healthy and happy. Flaws and all.

Everyday Habits to Start for a Healthier Life