While many of us set New Year’s resolutions to be healthier, it is difficult to stay motivated as the year moves on. To inspire you to reach your health goals, I’ve put together a list of healthy lifestyle tips. We can all use a reminder of healthy lifestyle tips that can help use reach our 2023 goals!
Healthy Drinking Habits
When it comes to thinking about what kind of drinks we should be putting into our body, some of these are common tips. You might already know some or all of them, but the effects they can have on your health are important enough that a reminder can be motivating.
Drink Fewer Sugary Drinks
The first of the healthy lifestyle tips is to drink fewer sugary drinks. While soda has been decreasing in relative popularity, many people forget that juices and a sugary morning coffee can also have negative impacts on health.
Before adding sugar to your coffee, consider alternatives for sweetening it. Personally, I add chocolate protein powder to my coffee, which eliminates the need for sugar. Even when choosing fruit juices, be careful to select juices that have 0% added sugar, and be considerate of how much of them you drink. Drinks like juices and soda make it very easy to over-consume sugar.
Too much sugar is one of the worst things you do for your health long-term. Please see this article by Harvard Health Publishing for additional information on the negative effects of too much sugar on your health. It’s also an extremely difficult habit for most people to break.
Drink More Water
Although drinking sugary drinks is generally bad for your health, we should all be drinking more water. This can sometimes be difficult in the winter especially, since the cold weather can make us feel less thirsty than we would if it were hot. Remember to drink water. As a tip, remember to fill up your water as soon as it is empty. Keeping water near you will help you remember to drink it.
As another one of the healthy lifestyle tips, drink water when you first wake up in the morning. Sleeping through the night causes you to wake up dehydrated, and drinking water when you first wake up will help you start the day hydrated.
Why stay hydrated? We hear this health tip constantly, so here is some information on why it’s important and beneficial. Once you get used to being hydrated, it starts to become notable when you aren’t. Personally, the thing I notice most when I’m dehydrated is my lack of focus and energy.
Drink Less Alcohol
When it comes to healthy lifestyle tips, drinking less alcohol might be one of the best I can offer. Alcohol has been shown to have negative effects on health, including an increased risk of cancer and mental health problems. As if that weren’t enough, the idea of a hangover should also motivate you to cut back on drinking if you drink a lot at once.
It’s also a good idea to consider drinking only during certain times. These can be situational, like if other people are drinking, or time-based. For example, I don’t recommend having a lot of alcohol before bed. Although you will likely fall asleep faster, the quality of your sleep will be worse.
Healthy Eating Habits
A lot of our health is determined by what we put into our bodies. It makes sense, then that healthy eating habits would make it on a list of healthy lifestyle tips. By being deliberate with what you eat, you can get yourself closer to your health goals.
Reduce the Amount of Sugar you Eat
Similar to the tip in the drinking section, limiting the amount of sugar you eat is best for your health. It’s easy enough to remember what some sugary foods are, like ice cream and candy, but there are a lot of foods that have “sneaky” sugar nowadays. Everything seems to have added sugar in it.
If you have some time, compare some of the brands you usually buy to the other brands available at the store. At least try the ones with less added sugar: you might find that they don’t taste quite as good as other brands. It’s important to remember that that’s the added sugar making a difference.
Eat More Vegetables
This is another of the relatively common healthy lifestyle tips on this list: eat more vegetables. I know that this is one we all already know, but its importance can’t be understated. Make an effort to eat a vegetable with every meal. Fries don’t count. Your body will thank you in the long run.
Not only does eating vegetables fill you up with nutrients and fiber, but it keeps you feeling full. This keeps you from eating food that is worse for you, like sugary snacks. Another practical tip is to keep a vegetable that you like to snack on in the house. My personal favorite is baby carrots. They’re bite-sized, crunchy, and cheap. I can mindlessly eat them all day, and it’s nutritionally good, but not calorie-dense.
I also make it a point to include a vegetable with any meal I cook. Sometimes I try to sneak vegetables into meals that might not necessarily normally have it. For example, my scrambled eggs usually have some spinach and onions in them. I can’t taste the spinach much, unless I add a lot on purpose, and the onions definitely enhance the flavor.
Sleep Tips
Information on sleep is an essential part of any list of healthy lifestyle tips. Many people in today’s society value a “hustle culture” that encourages people to get little sleep in the interest of doing more work. It is easy enough to brag about how little sleep you got the night before because you were working on a project. What people sometimes neglect to realize is that taking care of your health will help you work more efficiently, so you won’t have to spend as much time working to get the same amount of work done.
Neglecting quality sleep is not the way it should be for people who value their long-term health. Getting enough quality sleep impacts our everyday life by affecting productivity, mood, and ability to recover from exercise. See this article on the effects of sleep deprivation.
Reduce Caffeine Later in the Day
Reducing the amount of caffeine you drink later in the day will improve sleep. Personally, I don’t drink any caffeine after noon, but I also generally have trouble sleeping. I don’t want to do anything that could encourage my body to feel awake at night.
Even without a sensitivity to caffeine or a history or trouble sleeping, reducing your caffeine intake towards bedtime will improve your sleep. You might feel more well-rested than if you drink coffee close to bedtime. In general, reducing the amount of caffeine you drink throughout the day, regardless of time, is better for your sleep.
Caffeine causes you to develop more adenosine receptors in your brain. Adenosine makes you feel sleepy as the day passes, so if your brain increases the amount of adenosine receptors it has, you’ll be more sensitive to the adenosine as it builds up throughout the day. This is what leads to a caffeine addiction, and a headache if you don’t have enough of it.
Develop a Healthy Bedtime Routine
It is also beneficial to develop a routine before bed. Developing a consistent bedtime routine helps tell your body to start getting ready for sleep. Try to avoid stressful activities, such as responding to work emails or strenuous physical activity before bed. Alcohol is another substance that should be avoided, since that also interferes with sleep quality.
I recommend that the routine involves removing screens from use for the last hour before you plan on sleeping. Even with a blue light blocker active, the light from the screen will tell your body to be awake. It is especially important that you don’t spend time on your devices while in bed. Your brain will start to associate your bed with a mentally engaging activity, but it should only associate your bed with sleep.
For some ideas, my bedtime routine consists of brushing my teeth and washing my face. Then I make a cup of chamomile tea and read in bed until I fall asleep. Occasionally, I use a meditation app to help me fall asleep, but that’s only on the night where I’m especially awake. I usually fall asleep early in the evening.
Exercise Tips
As we all already know, exercise is one of the most important ways we can become and stay healthy. Regardless of your weight, exercise increases health and reduces the likelihood of many chronic diseases.
Develop a Consistent Habit
One of the most important healthy lifestyle tips I can offer is to develop a consistent exercise habit if you don’t already have one. This is going to have a large long-term impact on your health.
I would also like to emphasize that I’m not telling you exactly what that exercise habit has to be. If it’s taking a short walk every day, that’s great! You know best what exercise is realistic for you. With that being said, I encourage you to reach for just a little more than you think you can handle. Accomplishing harder goals is more rewarding and motivating than accomplishing easy goals.
It can be really difficult to develop a consistent habit, no matter what that habit is. For tips on creating a workout routine, please see this link to James Clear’s article on habit change. He’s the author of the book “Atomic Habits,” which I would highly recommend reading.
Look for More Hobbies
If you are already somewhat active, but would still like to increase your activity level, finding an active hobby can encourage you to do more. A lot of outdoor activities are seasonal, at least in the Midwest, so you might try branching out to a sport you aren’t able to do in other seasons. Cross-country skiing is an example of a calorie-burning winter sport, though the equipment can be somewhat expensive. Bike-riding and hiking, if you haven’t done much of those before, are also great ways to stay active in the other seasons.
Even gardening will get you outside and staying active. See this link to learn about the benefits of sunlight on your health.
Overall
I hope you found something useful from this list of healthy lifestyle tips. There are, of course, many more ways to work toward your health goals than what can be covered in this list. These are just a few practical and potentially inspirational pieces of advice.
