Every day, we engage with hundreds of good (or bad) habits to get by with our daily lives. If we’d like to strive to live long and healthy lives, then surely we should also strive to create the most healthy habits if we want to achieve this.
It’s easy to get caught up in lofty goals, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to the small daily recurring rituals if we want to make some big changes for our overall well-being. Here, we delve into the basics of habits and how to get started with creating healthy ones.
What Are Habits?
Habits can be defined as learned behaviors that are repeated, especially when they are paired with a specific contextual cue. Some are automatic (such as buckling a seatbelt), and others take a little more effort (such as journaling or meal prepping).
Of course, there are good and bad habits, and if we want to lead healthy lives, then we should stick to the good ones as best as we possibly can.
How Do We Change Our Habits
Habits that need updates or changing usually include excessive drinking, smoking, binge eating, and a sedentary lifestyle. It seems difficult to break these bad habits at first, but all it takes is a little bit of hard work and some determination. According to this study, it takes around two months for a newly introduced habit to become routine. This means that you’ll have to actively practice these rituals daily for two months straight before turning them into automatic habits.
Getting Started
When we want to change our daily habits, the first step is to acknowledge the things that need changing, and the second is setting a chosen start date. Of course, you should also make sure that your goal is realistic. Otherwise, your quest to build healthier habits may end in disappointment.
According to James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, it’s all about making sure that your new habits can tick certain boxes. These boxes include the fact that your habit should be easy (or attainable), satisfying to do, attractive, and obvious (so that you won’t just forget about them).
Start Small
Building new and healthy habits can seem daunting at first, but it’s crucial to, therefore, break down any big goals that you have into smaller and more achievable ones. For example, instead of making a New Year’s resolution, you can try a monthly resolution, and if things go well, you can add more months (and hopefully turn it into a lifestyle in the end).
Habit Stacking
This practice involves stacking or simultaneously doing your new habit along with an already-established habit. It’ll be a lot easier to solidify a new habit if you try pairing your old and new habits together.
Examples of Healthier Habits to Adopt
Now that we’ve delved into the basics of habits, it could be a good idea to see which habits you would like to introduce in your day-to-day life to live healthier. The most obvious healthy habits you could introduce include:
- Drinking more water
- Eating more plant-based foods
- Moving more (even if it’s just starting with 10-minute walks)
- Meal prepping more for a healthier diet
- Reduce, reuse, and recycle waste
- Eating more whole foods and less foods that are processed
