To rephrase a popular statement, the habits that got you here won’t get you where you want to go. 

You change your life when you change your habits. 

But it isn’t about “breaking” bad habits; it’s about replacing them with good ones. 

But what if you’re mostly okay with your life? What’s so terrible about having (enjoying) a few bad habits? 

For starters, bad habits keep you from reaching your goals, harm your health, and waste your time and energy. 

Bad habits are dangerous. 

Here are the top 5 you should replace today. 

Insufficient Sleep

Sufficient sleep is a necessity, not a luxury. Sure, you can grind your way through 4-5 hours of sleep a night, but you will pay the price sooner or later and won’t like it very much. 

Sleep plays a vital role in stress management. Insufficient sleep leads to bad decisions, and bad decisions lead to stress and emotional health challenges.

Insufficient sleep also takes years off your life. Want to die before your time? Skimp on sleep. 

Sleep restores and maintains your system. The body and brain make repairs during sleep. 

Adequate rest and sufficient sleep are vital to your health, happiness, and well-being. 

Create bedtime rituals that support healthy sleep habits. Avoid sleep-disrupting chemicals like alcohol, caffeine, and sugary foods a few hours before bedtime. 

And consider shutting off screens and reading a book while taking a relaxing bath instead. 

Gadget Drain

How often have you had your phone, laptop, and tablet all on at the same time, and the television, too?

Has life really come to this, where we must interact with every device simultaneously to entertain ourselves and not be bored? 

First, too much screen time takes a toll on your eyesight. 

Secondly, we all know by now how the blue light emitted by electronic screens affects the body’s melatonin levels, disrupting sleep.  

Start replacing this bad habit by at least reducing your gadgets’ brightness and holding them about a foot away from your eyes while browsing. This should help with your melatonin levels. And remember to take frequent breaks from your screens, too.

Sitting Too Much

People who spend most of their time sitting down risk their health severely. If this sounds like you, you need to make some changes. 

Excessive sitting has been associated with obesity, muscle wastage, cancer, and decreased bone density.

Your body was designed to move. To be active. To live! So get up and move around!

The answer isn’t quitting your sedentary job and finding a one that forces you to be active. 

But you can set the alarm to remind yourself to get up every hour and get a glass of water, use the restroom, or brew some coffee for the office. 

Sitting and not moving slows your metabolism and makes you injury prone. 

If you work from home, take occasional breaks and do a few jumping jacks, or run/walk in place during commercials while watching television. 

Be creative. Find an activity you enjoy and then do it to raise your heart rate and get some exercise to reverse the damage of sedentary living.  

Too Much Fast Food

Granted, this is a hard habit to replace for many people because this food is fast, easy, cheap, and so tempting when racing home from work, feeling tired and depleted, and all you want to do is rest.

(And even the non-fast food options aren’t exactly healthy either because of all the salt, fat, and sugar.)

Fast food is loaded with trans fats, which cause weight issues, diabetes risk, high cholesterol, heart disease, and inflammation.

And even though the food tastes great, you don’t feel so great soon after eating it. 

Save fast food for the occasional (rare) treat and prepare healthy meals at home instead. 

Make meal preparation easier by following a menu and prepping ahead of time, using a slow cooker, and taking turns cooking, if possible. You can even make healthier versions of some of your fast food treats at home.

Alcohol

Alcohol is a touchy subject. But the truth is, it’s best left alone, especially considering how many people have a family history of alcoholism. Wine is also unnecessary for heart health because you can get the same benefit from drinking a few ounces of unfermented, pure grape juice (unless you have diabetes, in which case you should avoid fruit juice altogether because it’s loaded with sugar). 

Alcohol affects your liver and mental health and weakens your reasoning and decision-making abilities. It can even negatively affect your bones, fat loss efforts, memory, and blood pressure. 

Bad habits can shorten your life, damage relationships, pack on the pounds, cause exhaustion, disrupt sleep, and throw your system into metabolic disarray, to name a few. 

Why not begin unlocking your best life today by replacing your bad habits, especially any of these five, with life-enhancing, energy-producing, relationship-building habits that fill your life with a lot more joy, peace, and satisfaction?

Photo by Manan Chhabra on Unsplash

The post The Top Five Bad Habits You Need To Replace appeared first on Lifestyle.

We all go through seasons of life when we want to change certain things about ourselves and live a better life.

We want to eat better, exercise more, procrastinate less, work less, worry less, have more passion and excitement, be more spiritual, or simply drink more water each day.

And then it hits us. Old habits have to go. Because to become something else requires us to do something else.

Starting a new habit seems easier said than done. After all, we had that habit for a reason – it served a purpose. 

Why does it feel like bad habits don’t take any effort while making new ones seems almost impossible at times? (We touched on this in last week’s post.)

Here’s a simple three-step process for making new habits a whole lot easier. Whereas last week’s post might’ve spoken more to creative thinkers, this might appeal to the analytical thinkers in our midst.

Following this easy three-step process internalizes the new behavior until it becomes a habit that we do automatically without thinking about, like flossing our teeth before brushing.

Decide On Your New Action

Step one is deciding on the new action you’re going to start doing and how you will execute it.

You’re not going to start meditating more. You’re going to brush your teeth as soon as you get up and then sit in your favorite chair for 10 minutes to pray, meditate and journal.

You’re not just going to start exercising more. You’re going to take a fifteen-minute walk after dinner Monday-Friday.

Decide what you’re going to do and then how and when you will do it. Be clear and specific.

Show yourself that you’re committed to this “new” you by scheduling your new habits on your calendar. Commitment is half the battle. Getting yourself to take action is the other half.

Remind Yourself To Do It!

Step two is giving yourself reminders. You won’t have too much trouble sticking to your new habit the first few days because you’re so excited. But, after a few days, enthusiasm can begin to fade, and you’ll feel tempted to slip back into old habits.

Maybe it’s cold or rainy after dinner, and sitting on the couch under a cozy blanket would feel better! Or maybe your day with all its duties and demands is starting to get away from you…until your reminder alerts you that it’s time to take action. This is one reason why setting an alert or reminder on your phone is important because it’ll prompt you into action. When the reminder goes off, take a few seconds to remember why this is important to you, and then commit to it like NASA with a short countdown before launching into action without any excuses.

Make It Routine Until It Becomes A Habit

Step three is making it a routine until it becomes habitual. It takes time and repetition for a new behavior to become a habit. Until that day comes, make routine your friend. By “installing” the new action into your routine, you prepare the way for success and have an easier time following through with the new behavior without expending as much willpower.

Make going to the gym part of your lunchtime routine, or pack an apple in the morning to eat during your break instead of visiting the vending machine.

This three-step process really isn’t all that exciting or profound. It doesn’t have any secret hacks or magic formulas. But, by deciding on your new action and how and when you’re going to execute it, and making it a routine part of your day, prompting yourself religiously to follow through with reminders, is a surefire process for creating new habits that unlock your best life.

The post Part 2: Three-Step Process For Making New Habits appeared first on Lifestyle.

However, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying the holidays and indulging in special treats or rich foods. We just need to make sure we don’t eat that way the rest of the year!

Some people go on one of those guilt-ridden juice cleanses and deprive themselves of their favorite foods in January to atone for eating poorly during the holidays. But this kind of all or nothing approach rarely works because it’s unsustainable. A better approach is to set small, realistic goals that slowly reset your mindset and body.

It’s Really Not a Big Deal

A couple of days of overindulgence is really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. So don’t treat it like a major catastrophe or as an excuse to eat more junk food because the “week is lost as far as healthy eating goes.” Instead of wallowing in guilt or regret for falling off the wagon, just hit the reset button.

Hit the Reset Button ASAP

A quick rebound is the biggest predictor of long-term health success. A weekend or two of over-indulgence won’t affect your long-term health goals if you get back on track as soon as possible.

Just don’t let a few bad eating choices become the new normal for your eating habits moving forward; start eating nutritious meals again as soon as possible.

One Meal at a Time

Getting back on track is more manageable when you do it one meal at a time. Just focus on making one nutritious meal, and then another, and then another.

A few days of eating nutrient rich food like fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds and whole grains is all you need to cleanse your palate and blunt cravings for sweet and greasy junk food.

Work Out

Healthy eating and fitness go hand in hand; nothing revs up your metabolism like a good workout. If you want your body to burn carbs and fat more efficiently, slowly incorporate, or reintroduce, exercise into your routine.

To be consistent with an exercise program, it helps to remember the mental and emotional benefits of working out to stay motivated.

And when you feel stressed and are tempted to comfort yourself by overeating or scarfing down a pint of your favorite Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, stop flirting with temptation and go for a walk or run immediately instead to conquer any cravings for comfort food.

We all overindulge from time to time but it’s really no big deal. Health and fitness is not a predefined road that requires perfection. Just focus on making your next meal healthier, throw in some exercise and before you know it you’ll be back on track in no time.

The post Getting Back on Track after a Period of Overindulgence appeared first on Lifestyle.

When you’re trying to break a bad lifestyle habit, routine can be your friend and your enemy. Eating healthy foods and exercising regularly is challenging in the beginning but if you stick with it long enough it becomes a habit and you go into autopilot mode.

The Challenge

Having big health and fitness goals is great but can be overwhelming. Think about it, a goal to “give up sugar for 30 days” sounds more achievable than a goal to “be healthier.”

The easiest way to break bad lifestyle habits is through small incremental changes. When you make a small change every day you hardly notice that something is different.

The Science

Science says that it takes a little over two weeks to break a habit, so if you want to unlearn the old habit and learn a new one you must be willing to commit for at least 30 days. This is not to say that 30 days is some sort of magic line that makes you immune to your old ways but it’s a good place to start.

There are three distinct stages that make up a habit: cue, routine and reward. The cue triggers the routine. For instance, stress can be a cue for cravings. When triggered, you automatically go into routine mode and start doing things to satisfy the craving. The satisfaction you get from doing this is the reward.

The first step to breaking bad habits is identifying the cues, routines and rewards associated with them.

New Routine

While it’s possible to avoid the things that trigger bad habits it’s much easier to replace the current routine with a new one. This way it’s a lot harder to go back to your old ways when you inevitably hit a rough patch.

The first step to changing a routine is to come up with a specific plan. For instance, if your goal is to go to the gym more often, sign up for a class.

Secondly, plan to tackle one small goal every week. Science shows that it is impossible to change multiple habits at once. So don’t try to give up sugar and bread and eat more fruit and vegetables all in one week. Do one thing at a time.

The changes should also be incremental. If you give up sugar one week, don’t reintroduce it during “fruit and vegetable” week. You would continue limiting your sugar intake while adding fruit and vegetables because this way you don’t lose any ground.

You can have the health you desire by using incremental micro changes to break bad habits and transform your life one day (or one hour) at a time.

The post Break Any Bad Lifestyle Habit in 30 Days appeared first on Lifestyle.