Surprising Health Benefits from Improving 10 Lifestyle Habits

With the Lively Habits app, we strive for a successful life. Some of you may think it means having billions in our bank accounts. Although that would be nice, there are many other factors in life that also make us successful! A successful life looks like having a healthy body, happy relationships, and financial wealth. Ideally, you are successful when you are able to maintain the perfect balance in your life between health, social life, and finances. But, of course, life is hard and sometimes it feels impossible to reach your goals.

We all experience days where we want to just stay in bed and avoid all our responsibilities, essentially blocking out the real world. That’s completely fine! But did you know that there are ways you can improve your lifestyle habits to boost your mood and motivation? There are 10 simple lifestyle habits that you can follow.

Physical Health

1. Balanced diet — eat fish & vegetables
2. Calorie control — portion & calorie control
3. Daily exercise — 20 minutes of daily exercise
4. Quality sleep — 7 hours of quality sleep
5. No bad habits — no smoking & substance abuse
   

Mental Health

1. Mental health — positive mindset & resilience
   

Social Health

1. Social health — socially connected to family & friends
   

Financial Health

1. Financial plan — financial planning & control
   

Medical Health

1. Blood pressure — blood pressure control
2. Weight control — weight control
   

This list may seem overwhelming and a lot but did you know that just improving one of the ten habits can help positively improve your other habits and health. Let me tell you about John’s success story.

John works a 9-6 job in finance and buys a sandwich from the local shop every day for lunch. On average, he spends $12 a day on just lunch, which ends up costing him $60 a week. This is John’s daily routine and he feels that it’s just right for him because he does not have the time to settle down. One day, his co-worker Sally, convinced him to start cooking at home and bringing lunch to work.

John does not feel so great about this idea but he is willing to step outside his daily routine to try it out. Worst case scenario, he can go back to the sandwich shop. He heads to the grocery store to pick up some fresh and healthy ingredients and starts following recipes he found online. The next day, he brings his lunch to work, feeling proud that he did this himself, proving to Sally that he is capable. This starts to build up into a part of John’s daily routine.

A couple months later, John reviews his finances since he started making his own lunch. Turns out, the average cost of cooking at home and bringing lunch is $3, compared to the $12 he previously paid when he ate out. Looking at his bank account, he finds out that he has saved over $500 from this habit.

In the end, by bringing lunch to work, John’s finances improved, his diet is healthier, which leads to a healthier body. He has more energy during the day and is happy and proud of what he has accomplished with his life. We can see from John’s story that by changing up a part of our daily routine, we are able to impact other areas of our health.

John went through what we call the Whole Health lifestyle. It covers physical, mental, social, financial, and medical areas of health, which leads us back to the 10 lifestyle habits mentioned before.

Physical Health

1. Balanced diet — what do you eat?
2. Calorie control — how much do you eat? what is the portion size?
3. Daily exercise — how much do you move around? how active are you?
4. Quality sleep — how well you rest? do you get 7 hours of sleep a day?
5. No bad habits — no overdrinking or excess smoking, moderate yourself
   

Mental Health

1. Mental health — how well you manage stress and think positively
   

Social Health

1. Social health — how well your relationship is with others
   

Financial Health

1. Financial plan — how well you manage your personal finances
   

Medical Health

1. Blood pressure — keep tabs on your medical health
2. Weight control — keep tabs on your medical health
   

These 10 lifestyle habits help you stay on track with a healthy lifestyle. It only takes a couple minutes a day to remind ourselves of these healthy habits. Harvard research has shown that following healthy lifestyle habits can improve your health. Also, did you know that you could live more than ten years longer than those who don’t follow these habits? Wow!

Living It Up Anywhere

The idea of living your best life can be done anywhere, at any time, and all it really takes is a mindset shift. Take it one core lifestyle habit at a time, whether that is eating healthy and less, daily exercise, quitting bad habits, getting a routine checkup, or being positive. Take a chance today to Live It Up!