A healthy lifestyle begins with setting strong intentions.
In an unprecedented time like this, we might find ourselves overwhelmed by different obligations. Work, family, friends, personal well-being: in meeting the many demands placed upon us, we can often lose sight of what matters most.
What are the missing links in your life that are preventing you from living it to the fullest?
Often, even when we want to change our life for the better, we find ourselves held back from achieving those ends. This is because living your best life doesn’t happen at the drop of a hat—it happens when we plant good behaviours that blossom into building healthy habits that form healthy routines.
Key Takeaways:
- Understanding how habits are formed and maintained will help you take stock of your current habits, and help you reshape them.
- Certain behaviours, like supplementing your habits with CBD, encourages healthy patterns and long-term growth.
Creating Healthy Habits
We are all creatures of habit.
Whether for good or ill, the actions we repeat are the ones we are most likely to do again. This is because, no matter how smart or single-minded we are, we’re hardwired to follow patterns.
On its own, this is neither good nor bad. The habits we make, however, can be positive or negative for our health, relationships, and personal well-being.
Once we’ve developed a habit, they can be difficult to break! For instance:
How many days does it take to form a habit? On average, around 66 days, although this depends on a variety of factors, both inherited and external.
Dr. Abraham Maslow was a pioneer in behavioural motivation.
In 1943, he proposed his “hierarchy of needs,” in which he suggested that to achieve our full potential, we need to meet basic needs like physiology, safety, belonging, and self-esteem first.
Developing these ten habits will help orient your life around these basic motivators, and allow you to attain your full potential.
#1 Stop Skipping Breakfast
We’ve all heard it: breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But the average American skips out on this vital meal, leaving them woefully unprepared for the rest of the day.
Time spent sleeping is typically the longest period a body goes without eating during a 24-hour cycle. Breakfast is, quite literally, breaking this fast.
While some people try to skip this meal to lose weight or gain an extra few minutes of sleep, people who do this often have the opposite physiological impact on their bodies.
Breakfast helps you:
- Increase alertness
- Maintain metabolism
- Regulate eating patterns
Poor nutrition starts with poor planning. Bringing back breakfast into your daily routine is more than just fueling your body—it helps you start your day with sustenance, energy, and nutrients your body craves.
#2 Drink More Water
More than half of your body weight comes from water. When you’re dehydrated, you aren’t just going to feel thirsty—headaches, mood swings, and loss of focus are common side effects of mild dehydration.
Replacing water for fizzy sodas, coffee, and even sports drinks will decrease unnecessary stimulants like sugar and caffeine from your diet, and help you from crashing later in the day.
Finding ways to replace these drinks can help you elevate your mood naturally.
There is no science behind the myth that you absolutely must drink eight cups of water a day.
But it can’t hurt!
#3 Go to Bed at a Reasonable Hour
Sleep is a bit like a piggy bank. Every day you have to put in enough hours, or one day you’ll end up finding yourself broke! Sleep debt is a real thing—the more nights in a row you miss out on your REM cycle, the more you’ll have to make up later.
Stimulants like coffee and sugar interfere with your circadian rhythm, meaning they make it harder to fall—and then stay—asleep.
Money may never sleep, but your body requires at least 7 hours of rest per night in order to recharge and regulate your organ systems efficiently.
While some people can cruise by on getting little sleep time, it doesn’t work for everyone. Seven hours is the bare minimum, but others require more to make it through the day and to start living a healthier lifestyle.
Set your bedtime an hour earlier. You’ll find your day-to-day rituals much easier when you’re not nodding off at your desk.
#4 Exercise
Nutrition, hydration, and sleep are some of our most basic needs. But there’s one that’s often overlooked, and it needs to become a positive habit.
The Mayo Clinic suggests that the average adult should get in at least 150 minutes of exercise per week.
That’s almost three hours.
Does that sound like you?
For those that already have busy weeks, this number can sound unachievable. Instead of blocking out time, an effective way to achieve this is by setting concrete goals for physical activity.
- Plan out a fitness routine – Arriving at a gym for the first time and seeing all of the strange workout machines can seem like visiting an alien planet. Thus, find what kind of exercise works for you and develop a plan around them.
- Set goals for yourself – It’s easier to work towards something instead of aimlessly chugging away. Devising objectives, like muscle gains, weight loss, or distance goals, are all great ways to motivate you to exercise. Nothing will get you running quite like prepping for a marathon!
- Have a recovery routine – After you work out, your body is low on nutrients that need to be replenished. Protein shakes can help increase gains, while Resilience CBD oil helps reduce muscle pain and soreness.
Our bodies need exercise. From sitting at a desk for hours on end to the WFH setups, we’re currently adapting to, making exercise a habit is a sure way to enhance your life.
#5 Log Off
24-hour news cycles, influencers, online feuds and fake news… it seems impossible to escape the Internet these days. If there’s ever been a bad habit, our propensity to check our phones every five minutes is one of them.
Some reports say that we spend one day a week online. Over the course of a lifetime, that can scale to years staring at a screen rather than time better spent elsewhere.
Apps are being (and have been) designed to instil better phone usage habits. But sometimes the best method is to delete your apps altogether. Making it more challenging to reach social media websites is a way to limit the amount of time we spend “doomscrolling” and more time actually socializing.
This can help enhance your psyche, self-esteem, and happiness.
#6 Re-Organize
There’s a reason the word habit is in habitat.
Spaces like our homes, offices, cars, and closets are all deeply entwined with our lives—they’re all negatively influenced by clutter and misplaced items.
Marie Kondo suggests these tips when re-organizing a space:
- Start by discarding clutter first
- Organize by type of item rather than by location
- Discard easy items first, sentimental items last
With so many Americans working from home, repurposing a space as a home office can increase productivity. Design a space around how you are going to use it. If you have a home office already, focus on stocking it with the essentials and removing things that are in the way.
Out of sight, out of mind. Out of sight, better mind.
#7 Find and Nurture Hobbies
The easiest habits to develop are formed around things that interest you.
Finding hobbies you’re passionate about will leave you personally fulfilled, and help you avoid the negative habits that eat away at your precious time (looking at you, Instagram). For instance, baking bread has become particularly popular in some circles is a great possible idea on how to improve mood.
Is there a hobby you’ve wanted to try? Photography? Knitting? Painting? Use your hobby as a new healthy habit to stimulate your mind, relieve stress, and stay productive.
#8 Practice Mindfulness
The attitude that we have towards life reflects the way we treat others.
Most of us have an internal dialogue that spins like a record. This internal conversation guides us through the day, but can quickly drop us into a downward spiral if negative or compulsive thoughts enter the chat.
Psychologists today tell us that we need to differentiate between our thoughts and our feelings. Splitting the two, we can focus on changing our reaction to negative feelings with harmful or pessimistic thoughts towards constructive and sensible ones.
Seems simple enough, but it’s harder than it sounds! Who hasn’t yelled out at a fender bender or a stolen parking spot? Personality habits can be the hardest to break, but can ultimately bring us the greatest peace of mind.
#9 Make a Habit of Resisting Old Habits
Making new routines means breaking old routines.
There’s only so much time in a day, making every minute a precious commodity. Developing a new habit means taking yourself away from other habits you have already developed. It means going on a walk around the neighbourhood instead of burning through all nine seasons of Seinfeld.
If you find yourself straying away from the routines you want to develop, keep sticking to the course. It takes roughly two months to set a new habit in place, meaning you need to exercise some degree of discipline. With hard work, you can set your mind to anything, including healthier habits.
#10 Incorporate CBD Into Your Daily Routine
Ever wonder “Is CBD good for muscle recovery?” CBD products are a great supplement to your daily grind, promoting general wellness, health, and vitality. When added into your daily routines along with the helpful habits above, many find themselves enhancing various facets of their life (both physically and mentally).
A few things CBD is known to help with include but is not limited to:
- Better Sleep – Sleep isn’t always easy to find, especially these days. CBD products help promote restful sleep at night, making you ready to go in the morning.
- Tension and Stress – CBD doesn’t just help at night. It has been found to be beneficial in stress-management
- Aches and Discomfort – CBD products such as CBD lotion can help provide immediate relief to muscle aches and discomfort. Incorporated into a fitness regimen, it can help your muscles ease into their regeneration, minimizing your downtime so you can lace up those running shoes again.
Your trusted expert for CBD, Resilience offers no-nonsense products that can be incorporated into your habits to provide solutions you can trust. We’re a CBD company that believes in peak performance and dynamic results, offering oils and topicals that function exactly as they say they do.
We make buying CBD easy. Check out our online store for our full line of CBD, and make these habits routine for a healthy, balanced, and productive life.
Sources:
1. Psychology Today. Habit Formation. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/habit-formation
2. Victoria State Government. Breakfast. https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/breakfast
3. WebMD. Are You Dehydrated? https://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-diet-dehydration
4. Sleep Foundation. How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?, https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need
5. Mayo Clinic. How much should the average adult exercise every day? https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/expert-answers/exercise/faq-20057916
6. KonMari Method. KonMari Philosophy., https://konmari.com/category/konmari-philosophy/
7. Psych Central. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. https://psychcentral.com/lib/in-depth-cognitive-behavioral-therapy/
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Written by: Michael Tatz | Linkedin
Michael Tatz is the Co-Founder of Resilience CBD, and a passionate leader in the health & fitness world helping others rise to and crush their wildest goals. A former Division 1 college wrestler, Army Officer, and investment manager at Goldman Sachs, he has pushed his body and mind to the limits on the mats, dressed in camo, and in the boardroom.
Today, he spends his time leading Resilience CBD to develop the absolute best recovery products for athletes everywhere. Resilience was founded after CBD personally impacted Michael’s life, and the brand was built to partner with everyday athletes in pursuit of conquering their most difficult challenges, rebounding after their toughest performances, and rising to their goals that once seemed impossible.
