Are you one of those people who know you need to take better care of yourself, but have a hard time actually accomplishing this goal? We know the importance of, and the benefits reaped, from living a healthy lifestyle, so why is it so hard? Why do we fall into all our bad habits in the first place? There is no easy answer, but no matter what is driving your poor choices currently, there is hope for you. Here are just a few ways to get you on the right track for good:
Learn to Appreciate Your Body
We won’t take good care of something unless we find value in it, and we need to learn to value our bodies if we want to make lasting changes to our health. We take our bodies for granted—they can endure quite the beating until cracks start to show. This is one of the main reasons we have a hard time changing—the negative feedback doesn’t manifest for so long, we don’t feel any sense of urgency to shift course.
So, stop taking your body for granted, and think of all the wonderful things it allows you to do; things that become more difficult when we are in poor health, like take a nice walk, or horse around with our kids. Be in awe of the various processes going on 24/7 without any conscious input. When you begin seeing it in this new light, you will feel a much stronger pull to make healthier choices, and making these choices will not seem as difficult.
Stop Letting Stress Consume You
High stress levels and healthy choices do not go hand in hand for people who are trying to take better care of themselves —even the healthiest among us are challenged to do right by our bodies when stress is particularly prevalent. When this nefarious foe hits, we are not in a good space mentally, and we don’t make good decisions—while we all have our moments of laziness and emotional eating, these things can easily become the norm when we are consistently feeling badly.
If you can learn to rein in your stress, you will set a strong foundation for your efforts to change—it will be easier to make healthy choices; when you are feeling good, you will want to make these choices; it won’t feel like such a drag.
There are many ways you can tackle this problem, and there is no one best solution for everyone. Maybe it means finding more time for your hobbies, or scaling back on your various commitments. Only you know what really needs to be done. Experiment with meditation or deep breathing.
Start Seeing Yourself in a Different Light
So, for all these years, you have eaten poorly, drank a lot, smoked, or never exercised. You probably hold a pretty negative image of yourself health-wise; you may think this suggests you are just the type of person who has a hard time changing, or is not capable of quitting vices. You see yourself as someone who has always had a problem with ‘willlpower.’
All of this is of your mind—this is not something encoded into your DNA. Start changing how you view yourself. Know you can become a healthy person—it is not something that eludes you.