Busy people, whether they are stay-at-home moms or professionals in an office are often like a car that has a poor alternator. Sure, the car works, and can even run at 75 miles per hour on the freeway, but eventually, the car will have trouble starting.
In a similar fashion, you can run on coffee and doughnuts and work 18-hours a day, 7 days a week for months, maybe even years when you are young and healthy, but as you age, sooner or later, your body may start breaking down.
Here are 8 health tips for even the busiest people that are good habits for you to get into now!
1. Get to bed early and consistently
There were 8 benefits merely to going to bed early. You will have more energy, need caffeine less to keep you going, and have time in the morning for traits like having a healthy breakfast and exercising.
2. Eat mindfully
The problem is not so much that people eat bad (although they do) is that people eat in conjunction with multi-tasking. They make phone calls while they eat, watch television, get the kids dressed and are so busy they don’t have time to taste their food.
Create a great, mindful Eating guide that will help you turn food into a contemplative experience and help you slow down. Even if you take great carnitine supplements or other supplemental food, you’ll get more out if you eat quietly and concentrate only on eating. No phone calls, no meetings.
3. Make water your friend
While it’s no magic bullet, as experts, if you reach for water 9 times out of 10 as your preferred drink, good things tend to happen to the health of water drinkers such as they finally are able to lose those 20 lbs that have been plaguing them for years.
4. Exercise, but do it your way
It can seem at times there’s a multi-billion dollar collaboration between sports shoe companies, exercise companies, gyms, and people selling expensive exercise courses to get you to buy, buy, buy.
Yes, exercise is important, but working out at the gym or track is far from the only way. Do things you enjoy, whether it’s taking a Tai-chi class, folk dancing or bowling. As long as you are active for an hour or more a week with things you truly enjoy, you’ll be just as healthy.
5. Listen to people
People go through most of their lives getting so busy and setting goals, that they never have time to drink in the now. You may find that your priorities in life completely change with an hour of contemplation a week. Best of all, such inspiring people are easy to find for free on YouTube.
6. Learn to Be Social
It’s an unfortunate fact, but many people, even very successful people in business, never learn how to be social. Instead, they busy themselves with goals, charts, buying big homes or new cars, and when they retire they are totally lost.
They don’t know how to cope, particularly if they are single, or their husband or wife passes away.
The key is to learn how to find genuine friendship, as well as to feel fulfilled. Volunteer to read stories at the local library or school for 5-8 year-olds.
Become junior soccer or football referee. Buy a motorcycle and find a group of people your age to ride with. There is so much out there besides binging on Netflix or watching old Perry Mason reruns.
You can learn a new skill at any age, heck Grandma Moses began painting at 78. However, you will have a much easier time of it if you learn to be social at an early age. People credit Owkanowan’s for their generally long life-span, but perhaps it’s not so much their diet as their social skills that keep them living so long.
7. Limit your bad habits
Mark Twain once remarked, “To have nothing the matter with you and no habits is pretty tame, pretty colourless. It is just the way a saint feels, I reckon; it is at least the way he looks. I never could stand a saint.”
Everyone says you should eliminate all of your bad habits, but most intelligent people prefer Twain’s approach which is to have a few habits but keep them in moderation. Don’t aim for perfection. Moderation is the key. Perhaps twice a month will keep you happy and social at the same time.
8. Be determined to be happy
Regardless of what happens to you, including serious health problems or disabilities, determine to be happy. Living happily is the best revenge.