Living a healthy life takes more than just eating a nutritious snack and thinking positive thoughts. Instead, the goal should be to follow healthy habits every day. Here are some strategies you can use to live your best life. Just remember that you need to stick to them day after day to truly succeed. 

Start With What You Put in Your Body

While exercise and willpower are good stepping stones to a strong body and attractive physique, you must be careful about what you eat. Controlling your intake and moving to a more plant based diet can prove to be quite beneficial. Some positives of eating more nutritious and wholesome meals can include things such as:

• Promotes weight loss.
• Reduces your cholesterol levels, which in turn, lowers your risk of heart disease.
• Helps your body fight against harmful diseases. 

A common misconception with more plant based diets are that they are low in protein. On the contrary, there are many good sources of protein with additional nutrients and benefits. Foods like legumes, chickpeas, lentils, beans, and even soy products.

Mushrooms are another incredible substitute for meat because they have a hearty taste. They are also healthy since they contain macronutrients that support a robust immune system. The best thing is that you can cultivate mushrooms and grow fungi at home using compost and inoculation. Many simple mushrooms, like button and oyster mushrooms, can grow with this method. 

Making smart choices about what you drink is just as important. Drink plenty of water and start your morning with a healthy tea without the sweetener. You must also limit certain beverages, including alcohol, as these can be loaded with sugar and intoxicants. There are many benefits to limiting or avoiding alcohol, including the ability to lose unnecessary weight so you can maintain a healthy appearance and keep your liver and other organs healthy for the long term. Plus, alcohol is a depressant, which can leave you upset or irritated. Instead, get outside and do something that truly makes you happy.

Then Focus on the Mind

It’s also necessary to create healthy routines so you can maintain a positive mental mind frame even on bad days. One of the many forms of self-care is practicing mindfulness. That is when you focus on your inner self and find ways to relax with breathing exercises, guided imagery, and just being in the moment. 

You can practice mindfulness and improve your physical health by engaging in healthy habits like yoga. You don’t have to try complicated poses. Instead, start simple with poses like the mountain and child’s pose. These exercises can help you to focus on your breathing and reduce the stress in your head and body. On a physical level, yoga is great for increasing your flexibility and and strengthening your muscles.

Another way to be at peace is to maintain positive relationships. When you show love and appreciation for family and friends and do things you enjoy, you may feel your anxiety melt away, and you can enjoy higher self-esteem. Make it a habit to reach out to your loved ones every Monday. Even if you have a short phone call, talking to a friend or parent can help you to realize that you are loved and appreciated. It’s a great way to start each week.

Create a Nighttime Routine

It’s important to create a positive bedtime routine to get the sleep necessary to wake up the next day feeling mentally and physically refreshed. Before going to sleep, try a few habits that can put your mind at ease. One is to write in a journal. Write about your day and the anxiety you felt or the struggles you faced. By writing out your feelings, you can get them out of your head before you lay your head on the pillow and you won’t lose sleep by tossing and turning.

You can also set yourself up for quality rest by preparing your bedroom. Create a restful environment by putting on soft music and consider blackout curtains, so you aren’t distracted by the sights and sounds of the outdoors. You know what makes you calm, so follow your instincts. You might require earphones, a fan, or a good book to put you at ease so you can drift to sleep once you lay your head on your pillow. 

Sleep is critical because your body repairs itself from the day’s physical labor. Plus, when you wake up feeling refreshed and happy, you can get along with people better at work, and you’ll find that you can think more clearly and concentrate on your tasks. Aim for seven to nine hours of sleep to feel your best tomorrow. 

Remember, that intention is one thing, but you must stick with these habits if you genuinely want to feel better. Start with these tips and see what other healthy tactics you discover over time.

Author bio

Katie Brenneman is a passionate writer specializing in lifestyle, mental health, education, and fitness-related content. When she isn’t writing, you can find her with her nose buried in a book or hiking with her dog, Charlie. To connect with Katie, you can follow her on Twitter.

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Have you ever really consciously thought about how much waste you produce? Most people haven’t.

Just take a random thing such as buying mouth wash for instance. You go to the store and buy your Listerine mouthwash today. About two months (or less) later its finished, and you throw the empty bottle in the bin and off to the store you go for another bottle. Do the math and you will see just how many plastic bottles you are throwing out per year, and that’s just you! And surely by now you must know that most waste ends up in land fills or in the ocean where it affects the ecosystem in so many negative ways, since it takes a tremendous amount of time to break down, if it ever does.

Your immediate response, I’m sure would then be, “so, what, you want me to give up Listerine? But my dentist said…” Relax, that’s not what I’m saying, hear me out.

It may seem hard to live a more zero (or less) waste lifestyle; you may know that the lifestyle is great for the world and environment but you just don’t know how to make the transition or you are too used to the current lifestyle that the change can be overwhelming, and for starters you are unsure where to start. I mean how do we solve the Listerine mouthwash problem.

Well one solution to that problem would be to have Listerine makers have stores where you could go and refill your bottles instead of purchasing a new one each time, but that’s for another article.

The thing is, you don’t need to do everything at once and do a complete 180, that will probably never last for most people. No one is perfect, but we can all do a little bit at least, and in turn it all adds up.

The two best things to start with are:

1. Just start with something small. Like using your own bottle when getting a smoothie from Kauai for example.
2. Be conscious about everything you buy and that way you can make better choices and in turn you start to forge a habit and soon you will do it naturally.

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If someone is living a zero waste lifestyle or is pro zero waste (or whatever title or label you want to give it) it doesn’t have to mean that they are totally waste free. It just means they are conscious of their buying habits and they are trying to make a difference no matter how small it is. When you start this way and do something small, often, you slowly form a habit, and then that habit grows.

Thus, soon you will be doing way more than you ever thought you would, and it will just come naturally to you.

One of the best things about living this more conscious lifestyle, is that you realize that you don’t need a lot of stuff that you buy, so you cut down on spending on all that extra unnecessary things.

A few easy and great simple ways to start to reduce waste are:

• Keep shopping bags in the car so you don’t keep picking up new plastic bags from stores.
• If you have coffee or smoothies from places like star bucks or Kauai etc. keep your own cup or shaker to use and avoid the straw, or buy your own metal/bamboo straw to use instead of plastic straws.
• Compost! We should all be composting, you will be surprised how much your trash is reduced just by removing vegetable and and compost waste.
• Choose biodegradable alternatives, such as a bamboo toothbrush that can be found on places like theotherstraw or The Refillery, which are biodegradable.
• Recycle where you can.

Then eventually you can even start doing things like making your own natural lotion, cleaning products, mouth wash and much more!

Check out some great brands and stores that are leading the way in the zero waste life style in South Africa:

• Simply Bamboo
• Shop Zero
• Nude foods

Photography credits:

• Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash
• Photo by Denise Johnson on Unsplash

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