Hey everyone. I had so much fun writing this one. This little shits and giggles hobby of mine is something I’m starting to look forward to each week and I hope you guys are too. And if this shit is dumb please never tell me. My feelings would be hurt.
Moving on, this week’s post as you can see is about how to live a healthier life. This is important for several reasons—hopefully, most of us want the best quality of life we can achieve and want to hang around for a while. And these tips and habits can help us all do that. These fundamental things positively influence every other area of our lives. And when we’re at our healthiest we can be the best version of ourselves for those we love and the passions we want to pursue. It all kind of ties together in a neat little bow. So here it is—10 tips for living a healthier lifestyle:
1. Move Your Body:
Moving your body is a simple way to live healthier but often comes with several barriers. The widely accepted way of working in American culture promotes a sedentary lifestyle which has many risky health consequences similar to that of smoking. Although there are many obstacles it is still vitally important. It not only has physical health benefits, but also boosts mood, and improves sleep, energy, and productivity.
It also helps when you choose a form of activity you love so that it’s something you look forward to. What’s most important—don’t do a form of activity just because it’s trending or feel you need to get into shape. Only do it if you like it. It’s that simple. If you hate running, don’t run. If you hate lifting, don’t lift. Maybe you love to hike or do yoga. If that’s the case, work those activities into your days. It doesn’t matter how intense or how many calories are burned—it only matters that you enjoy it. If you enjoy it, you can stick with it long enough to reap the health benefits.
This habit can also be difficult with time constraints. I know a lot of us are busy. Honestly, though, I do think most of us could at least find time for three or four workouts a week and try to move in natural ways on the days we truly don’t have time. We just need to learn to prioritize what’s important.
2. Eat Intuitively:
Intuitive eating is one of the best forms of self-care you can do for yourself. For those of you who don’t know what it is—intuitive eating is using your biological cues and cravings to guide your eating choices. It involves listening to your body to decide when, what, and how much to eat. This framework for eating, developed by dieticians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, proved to be very effective in helping me overcome disordered eating and a bad relationship with food. For those of you curious about Intuitive Eating and wanting to learn more, I will link the books and websites on the resources page under nutrition. I also plan to do a separate and more in-depth post about intuitive eating and the ways it’s helped me.
3. Sleep:
Sleep is something extremely important yet often overlooked. Sleep is the foundation that keeps our body systems intact. For example, sleep is responsible for hormone regulation, a healthy metabolism, optimizing memory and cognition, and good heart health. It is also known that not getting enough sleep increases the risk of many non-communicable diseases.
When we live busy lives it can be easy for sleep to be the thing that suffers most. However, I encourage everyone to not sacrifice sleep because of the profound effects it has on our health, energy, mood, and daily performance. Important processes take place to repair our bodies while we sleep and if we don’t get enough quality sleep, these repair processes are disturbed.
To improve your sleep you can do several things such as sticking to a sleep schedule as often as possible, creating a good sleep environment, avoiding caffeine late in the day, exercising regularly, and reading or doing a relaxing activity to help you fall asleep.
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/sleep/why-sleep-important
https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2021/04/good-sleep-good-health
4. Learn How to Respond to Stress:
This tip is essential for living a healthier life because of all the negative consequences stress can have on the body and our mental and emotional health. Of course, stress is an inevitable part of life and therefore learning to respond to and manage it is essential. This is something I used to struggle a lot with and still continue to work on. What I’ve found to be helpful is first and foremost asking myself why I’m stressed. What is causing you stress at this moment? Then ask what action you can take right now to relieve that stress. It sounds simple, and sometimes it really is that easy. For the small stressors that is. Of course, there are big life events that can cause stress and be completely out of our control. I want to address these two kinds of stress and how to respond to and manage them separately.
For the little stuff—the daily aggravating and annoying bullshit that challenges us every once in a while, or even sometimes daily— I suggest making a list of all that needs to be done for you to not feel stressed. For example, you may be overwhelmed by everything you have to do and feel as if there’s not enough time in the day to do it. Newsflash—there’s probably not. But that’s okay. Make your list and prioritize it all. Acknowledge that the world is not going to fall apart or stop spinning just because you didn’t do the laundry today. There is always tomorrow (hopefully). I like to arrange my to-do lists by things I must do today, this week, and this month. Breaking it down helps with the overwhelming feeling that comes with looking at one long endless to-do list. Now as far as managing daily stress I think finding time to do something purely for your own enjoyment at least once a day is a game changer. When you can find time to relax and immerse yourself in what you want to do, stress can oftentimes just melt away. Lastly, for the little stuff, a mindset of gratitude often works. I know it’s cliche but when you think about the big picture of life and all that you do have, especially when so many others are struggling, homeless, going hungry, grieving, or living in imminent danger— being late to work, losing your car keys, or not cleaning the house like you wanted simply seems insignificant. I like to think about zooming out on life. Just zoom out. Is the little bullshit thing you’re stressed about really going to matter in the long run? Let’s not take life so seriously.
Now, taking life more seriously, let’s talk about the big stuff. Job changes, family trouble, finances, relationships, etc. Responding to stress in these situations becomes a little bit more difficult and since I’m probably not the best person to speak on this, I did some research. What I found was that seeking social support and continuing to practice other healthy habits such as exercise, good sleep, and eating healthy can allow us to be at our best despite the struggles we’re facing. If the stressor cannot be eliminated, we must practice our resilience and see it through while reaching out for the support we need and continuing to take care of ourselves even when it seems difficult to do so. Lastly, it’s important not to neglect our hobbies and relationships during these times. When we disregard the things that do bring us joy in life because we’re feeling so much stress, our emotional health will only suffer further.
https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/tips
5. Be Social:
This is an incredibly important component to our health and one that I neglected for a long time. This might even be the habit that I consider to be the most difficult of the 10. Don’t get me wrong I absolutely love to be social. I love to do things with my friends and with my family. I love seeing people, being around people, and getting to know people. I’m at my happiest during the most social phases of life. I think that’s why I had such a downward spiral after I graduated college. I damn near had a midlife crisis. Transitioning from Mizzou to back home was such a shift in lifestyles and although I thought I was mentally prepared for it, I was indeed not. But the reason I say being social is one of the most challenging habits on the list is because sometimes it is just so damn awkward. And for what? I have my people that I am very comfortable with. Maybe even too comfortable with. And socializing with them is no problem. Always a joy. But with the people that maybe you don’t know the best or in large groups of people with a ton of differing personalities— it can be hard. There’s a challenging gray area between being myself and saying some absolutely off-the-walls shit so wild people will stray far from me as long as they live. I really do say some crazy shit sometimes. And truthfully, it’s all jokes, but I never know if someone will catch my humor. And testing the waters is dangerous territory. The number of jokes I’ve said that were so unfunny they made me unable to sleep at night is ridiculous. I’m sure to some extent we all deal with this— overthinking our social interactions. I’m not sure if that’s normal. If it is, leave a comment.
Anyway, the point is, that regardless of all the awkward or unfamiliar challenges of being social, we still must socialize. We are human beings made for and constantly seeking connection, and for good reason. Being social and connecting with others has so many health benefits. For example, socializing leads to improved mental health, it can boost mood, decrease stress, reduce risk for chronic disease, slow cognitive decline, and improve longevity and quality of life.
Be social everyone.
https://www.summahealth.org/flourish/entries/2023/12/five-surprising-health-benefits-to-socializing-with-others
6. Have Fun:
This is kind of similar to the last tip, but having fun doesn’t necessarily have to be something you do with others. Maybe fun for you is going to a coffee shop to try a new menu item and start a new book. Maybe you’re into day drinking with your friends. Or you plan a make-believe vacation while watching a show you love in bed. The point is fun may look different for each of us but what’s important is that we’re having fun our way. That’s how we will reap the health benefits of it. Having fun is good for our health because it releases endorphins, increases serotonin levels, boosts mood, reduces stress, and improves brain function, mental health, energy levels, and our connection with others.
7. Rest:
One of my favorite tips is to make rest a priority. Listen to your body to learn when you need downtime. And when you choose to have downtime, really have your downtime. Don’t think about work or stressors or any other bullshit. Simply rest, recover, relax and enjoy. Our bodies and our brains need this time to thrive. For me I love to take a nap on the weekends, lay in bed and watch a movie or show, or read outside. One of my favorite things during the summer months was to go to my aunt and uncle’s pool and tan. Anything leisurely that you love will work here.
Rest is important because it heals your body, reduces stress, improves productivity, increases longevity, and enhances cognitive function among many other benefits. A lot of times it can be easy to put rest on the back burner because it seems unimportant or unproductive. However, it is quite the opposite. Burnout will do nothing good for us and the easiest way to prevent it is unplugging and taking the time to rest when we need it.
8. Journal:
Journaling is a habit that helps me process my emotions and gain a sense of clarity. I love a good brain dump because it allows me to get all my thoughts and feelings on paper. It just makes me feel lighter. Like I’m not lugging around all this baggage and negativity. Putting what you’re feeling into words also helps you understand yourself and your behaviors, while allowing you to see things from a new point of view. Journaling is very woman-coded and cliche, but it doesn’t have to be. I find it very helpful, and I think many of you will too. Give it a try.
9. Go Outside:
Please touch some grass. Soak up the sun. Get some fresh air. Take a walk. Day drink on a boat. Swim. Whatever it is, being outside is great for us. If the sun happens to be shining it boosts vitamin D. Being outside can also help boost immune function, mood, and creativity, improve breathing, sleep, and mindfulness, and decrease symptoms of anxiety and depression.
10. Pursue Something:
The last and final tip I have for you is to pursue something. What I mean by this is to have goals. Ask yourself what you want to achieve in life. What are you looking to gain? In what ways do you want to inspire and influence the world around you? What’s important to you? What are your passions? What’s something you’ve always been interested in but maybe haven’t been confident enough to pursue or try? My advice to you: do it anyway. I’m going to link a TikTok that I saw that inspired me.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTF55RL9H/
What lovely little ASAP is saying here is incredibly true. So please do yourself a favor. Reflect on what you want to achieve in life, set those goals, and try.