How to Start a Healthy Lifestyle

In this day and age, having a healthy lifestyle is highly important and difficult as well.  We live in a society in which we are always in a hurry with no time to cook properly so we end up eating too much fast or processed food. In addition, as the 24 hours that a day has are never enough, there’s no time for proper sleeping or training, not to mention the high levels of stress in which people live nowadays as a consequence of rushing from one place to another, working too many hours and worrying about work day and night. Having poor eating habits together with few sleeping hours and no physical activity at all is the perfect combo to worsen those stress levels.

If you are aware of all these harmful things we humans do on a daily basis, then you may be interested in learning a bit about how to change your lifestyle into a healthier one in order to improve your life quality and live more happily. This article will give you some important information and tips so that you can start living a healthy lifestyle.

What's a healthy lifestyle?

We hear this phrase everywhere and we think we know what it means, but, do we really know what a healthy lifestyle is? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”, which means that the concept goes beyond only illnesses or the lack of them.

Basically, a healthy lifestyle is one in which a person’s general health and well-being is kept or improved, not only physically but psychologically as well. As a consequence, instead of just thinking of healthy living, we need to talk about a lifestyle that includes proper food, adequate physical activity, healthcare, healthy work environment, and moderate social activity. These ingredients applied properly are the path to achieving a healthy lifestyle.

The importance of living a healthy lifestyle

After reading everything above you may still be wondering why living a healthy lifestyle is so important; after all, living is living, right? Well, of course we are all living, but the key lies on how you want to live. Do you want to spend your precious, unique life worrying, not being able to sleep, feeling pains in your body, maybe being overweight, having toxic relationships, feeling tired all day, feeling unhappy and anxious? The list goes on and on…

I’m sure your answer to this question is of course not, so you need to start making some changes asap. Due to misinformation sometimes people think that to achieve a healthy lifestyle they need to train a lot and eat lettuce all day. Well, that’s absolutely and sadly wrong. Are you starting to feel you need to change some habits? Go ahead and read our tips.

How to start living a healthy lifestyle 2020

If you read till this part of the article, it means you’re interested in changing your habits in order to achieve a better and healthier style of life. In this section you will find some of the most important habits you need to acquire, but before moving forward bare in mind an important recommendation. You will not achieve a healthy lifestyle overnight so don’t try to make all the changes together because you will end up feeling frustrated. Take one or two of the following tips at a time, and once you have acquired the habit, you can move forward to another change. By doing this, your mind and body will eventually coordinate to make this become second nature. The key is being consistent.

• Change your food choice

Go natural. Processed foods have tons of food colorants, preservatives, and other additives that are harmful for our health. Instead, chose more natural thinks and include more vegetables and fruits in your diet. Also, avoid processed snacks: go for almonds, nuts, raisins, and so on.

• Drink more water

Did you know that feeling thirsty is the first stage of dehydration? Your body needs, at least, between 1.5 and 2 liters of water a day. I mean water: your coffee doesn’t count. If you find this very hard to do, something that can help you is carrying your own bottle everywhere. Another tip: a glass of water 15 minutes before your meal will help with the digestions process and will make you feel satiety faster.

• Sleep well

Did you know that around 30 years ago people used to sleep between one and two hours more than nowadays? This clearly shows how rapidly we are deteriorating our health. An adult needs around 8 hours of sleep. Poor sleeping leads to tiredness, increased hunger during the day which then leads to overweight, lack of energy, and much more. Are you sleeping enough?

• Move your body

Do some physical activity. You don’t need to go and take up crossfit from day to night. You can start walking (preferably, at a pace that accelerates your breath), jogging, dancing at your home (there are sooo many Youtube channels with Zumba lessons!) or at a gym, or whatever makes you feel happy. DON’T take up an activity you don’t enjoy: you will abandon it eventually.

Don’t worry if your muscles hurt a little after your training: it means you are not used to exercising, but the pain will wear of a few days after you start.

• Take care of your mind and heart

Avoid toxic people, those who make you feel uncomfortable, anxious, unhappy. Let them go. Be thankful every day. Believe it or not, the gratitude feeling gives you a happy feeling. Sometimes thins or people we take for granted are the most important values to be thankful for: our parents, our children, our home, our bed. Smile more. It’s been scientifically proved that smiling (even when you don’t feel like) has a positive impact on your well-being. Don’t get angry so often and forgive more. 

All the tips mentioned before can be taken one by one in order to start walking on the healthy lifestyle path. Go ahead and try!