12 Simple Ideas to Improve Health or Building Healthy Habits
At the beginning of every new year, people
around the world resolve to improve themselves. Today the most popular New Year’s resolutions are
related to health – to live healthier lifestyles, to become happier, to exercise more, to
quit smoking, and to cut back on drinking. They are all noble goals, but I hate to break
it to you – 80% of planned resolutions fail by February! For precisely this reason, we’ve
composed a list of ideas to help you improve your health. These ideas are not resolutions,
but they can help you become healthier. They’re simple, they’re specific, and they
don’t require much willpower to implement.
Hi, Andrey here, welcome to the Practical Health
channel! Idea number 1. As you might know, 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated, and
drinking enough water is critical for keeping a healthy body metabolism. The idea is to place bottles of water everywhere you spend your time, so you increase your water intake. And, if you can drink mineral water from either glass or metal bottles, that’s ideal. By the way, not many people realize it, but sometimes we eat when we feel thirsty, not hungry. So, drinking enough water also helps control weight. The next idea might help you improve your diet. Put healthy foods in highly visible, easily accessible places, so you minimize your time and effort to reach out to healthy foods. You can place fruits and nuts on countertops,
and keep all of the ingredients for a salad on hand. You can go even one step further
and make unhealthy foods harder to reach. In our house, my wife puts all of our sweets in the garage – and yes, believe it or not, we do have some sweets around! Even if you’re not explicitly trying to improve your diet, chewing more thoroughly – up to 30 times per bite – is something else you can do to improve digestion.
When you chew, enzymes in the mouth begin to digest food immediately, and food with a finer grind is digested more
easily in the digestive tract. Chewing thoroughly gives the stomach enough time to release enzymes and break down your meals. Plus it’ll also help you reduce overeating. And the beauty of this
little idea? You can practice it 3 times a day! If you want a more high-tech method of enforcing your weight control resolution, get wi-fi-capable weight scales. They’ll save you the hassle of spending time tracking your stats, and their smartphone app will cleanly present any collected data so that you can track personal trends over time. By the way, you can also get a wi-fi-capable blood pressure monitor, it’s also a great health monitoring tool. While we’re talking about gadgets, another idea is to get a fitness tracker, if you don’t have one. In general, the relationship between trying new routines and seeing results is quite weak. Using a fitness tracker is a good way to monitor improvements and increase motivation. Plus, if you have an iPhone, you can direct all your health and fitness data to the Health app to have an opportunity to review your data anytime. We have a special video all about fitness
trackers in case you’d like to check it out! One more note about devices with screens: consider
using a blue-light filter on your smartphone, tablet, and computer.
This is recommended after 7 pm, or roughly around sunset, because in the presence of blue light, the body secretes less melatonin, negatively impacting sleep. Today, many devices, like the iPhone, Android phones, PCs, and Macs, offer blue light filtering as a standard option. If you want to further reduce blue light in the evenings, consider getting blue-light-blocking glasses. Oh, by the way, the practice of making New Year’s resolutions is not a new thing, it can be traced back to ancient times. The Romans, for example, pledged loyalty and made promises
to the god Janus every January. Or the ancient Babylonians, who would promise to pay
off their debts at each year’s end. The tradition of making a promise to improve in
some way, shape, or form is nothing new. Ok, let’s move on.
Next, you can improve
your health if you sleep on your back, provided you don’t have any medical conditions
like lower back pain. It takes a bit of time to get used to, but considering that it
keeps your spine aligned, reduces neck pain, and removes pressure from internal
organs, developing this habit is worth it. Plus, if you can implement this one idea, you’ve
already incorporated 8 hours of health-conscious activity into your everyday routine! Keeping with the theme of the body, you can also try eye exercises for several minutes each day.
There are tons of exercises. To perform my favorite, focus on a near object like the tip of your nose for 10 seconds, then focus on a distant object for another 10 seconds, again on a near object, then on a distant one, and so on. Just keep in mind that it looks a bit funny to anyone around, so you may prefer to do this exercise while alone. If you need other ideas for eye exercises to try, Google gives great results. Something else you can try anytime is practicing controlled breathing. This leads to better sleep, better digestion, and lower stress
levels. Even just 5 minutes of breathing practice with, for example, the 4-7-8 technique can leave you noticeably more relaxed. We have several videos that cover respiration for anyone who wants more information on the topic. Here’s another idea: avoid sitting as much as possible. Spending too long in a sitting position negatively impacts the body in lots of different ways. There’s only one real workable solution I found that helps avoid sitting all day, and that’s getting a standing desk.
We’re getting to the end of our list, and this one probably goes without saying for many: never miss your annual medical checkup! Every time you do a medical checkup, it’s an opportunity to learn something new about your body – from test results and experienced professionals. To wrap up, we have one more idea: create a
learn-it list to accelerate your learning. Write down specific topics or materials
you want to read, listen or watch. So, if you’ve got some extra time and low energy, pick an item from your list and read an article, or watch a YouTube video, or listen to a podcast. Learning doesn’t have to be a high-energy process! And you can choose any area – history,
religion, rock music, or some kind of crash course. It doesn’t matter what you choose to
learn, just keep your brain active. Well, that’s it for today! I hope you can try some ideas on this list to make positive changes to your lifestyle, and they become part of your default behavior. After building healthy habits one after another,
you’ll see a huge cumulative effect over time. By the way, if you have a good idea to extend our list, please leave it in the comment section.
Thank you for watching! Stay
strong, stay healthy, see you next time! Bye!.
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