In recent years, more and more people are thinking about how to lead a healthy lifestyle. Some people try to start a new life on Monday, others put it off until January 1, but the target date comes, and life remains the same. Some people lack motivation, others haven’t been able to define a plan for transitioning to new healthy habits. The purpose of this article is to help those who have decided to start leading a healthy lifestyle right now, without looking for excuses and justifications. You will learn about how to start leading a new life and not deviate from this path, we will also consider the advantages of a healthy lifestyle and a rough plan for a consistent transition to it.
Recognize Intrinsic Motivation
As the classic of Russian literature Leo Tolstoy said, “The greatest truths are the simplest.” Sleep 7-8 hours, lead an active lifestyle, do not overeat and do not spend 12 hours a day at work. But in practice, it is difficult to follow the principles of a healthy lifestyle every day.
Even if the advice is written step by step, it is difficult to follow. The person does not fully understand why. This is a lack of intrinsic motivation.
Polina Borisenkova
psychologist-consultant
Internal motivation is many times stronger than external motivation and helps to achieve results. To find it, the psychologist advises performing the “Cartesian coordinates” technique.
Consistently ask yourself questions:
What will I get if I don't? What will I lose if I don't?
What will I get if I do? What will I lose if I do?
There may be several answers to each of them. It will be easier to make a decision when it becomes clear where the most significant arguments - the reasons - lie. In each step, I will clearly show how the coordinates work and what helped form healthy habits.
We look for internal motivation in the answers to all questions. Analyze them together. If any of the points resonates with you most strongly, it will be internal motivation.
Spiritual world
A correct lifestyle also implies spiritual health, a happy inner content of a person. To take care of your inner world, you need to engage in introspection, reflect on your actions, and analyze previously experienced experiences.
- You need to work with your inner world, keep it clean.
- Avoid news that unbalances you and causes anxiety.
- Take care of peace of mind, the absence of negative thoughts and fuss.
- Do yoga. It balances and allows you to achieve harmony in your inner world and body.
- Don’t forget about positive emotions, in particular laughter. The more a person laughs, the healthier he is. You need to learn to live and enjoy your existence. According to experts, an individual who smiles often gets sick much less often and is more resilient. If a person is subject to constant stress, is in a bad mood for a long time, his health weakens, and his immunity decreases.
Form and reinforce habits
The human brain receives and transmits signals every second. A person does not consciously control some of them, and as soon as the brain understands that this is not the first time it has encountered the situation, it forms a habit.
The brain wants to automate and speed up actions to save energy and time. It all depends on the characteristics of a person’s character and the efforts he makes to form habits.
A new habit is formed gradually. There is no need to switch to a healthy lifestyle on all fronts at once. This way you will take on too many responsibilities and the initial mood may quickly burn out due to sudden changes. Make one small change at a time. For example, start drinking a glass of water in the morning. And so on for 21 days. And praise yourself for your success. Then start doing exercises every morning. And so on for 21 days. And again praise yourself.
Polina Borisenkova
psychologist-consultant
Developing good habits is talked about a lot and interestingly during TedTalks.
Google engineer Matt Cutts explains in three minutes how he implemented the “try new things in 30 days” technique.
Entrepreneur Derek Sievers cites Peter Gollwitzer's experiments as an example of why we fail to achieve our goals.
Psychiatrist Judson Brewer explores how to break bad habits.
Believe that your path is the only right one
Oh, how often you can hear an appreciative “feh” from newly-made vegetarians who hear you order lamb in a restaurant or a surprised “how do you eat that?” from a newbie zodnik who yesterday decided to switch to fresh celery. Remember that this is annoying to say the least. And in general, this is only your path and your decision, which others are not obliged to support. Don't be that boring person that soon you won't be drinking green smoothies all alone.
How to stay active and healthy in self-isolation? WHO recommendations
We approach a healthy lifestyle system in 6 steps: 1. Sleep 7-8 hours
Every day I fight the urge to sit longer on an article or a book. But there are also new episodes of “VDud” and TV series, meetings with friends who work in the office from 11 to 20.
Melatonin is a sleep hormone that is produced in complete darkness and is needed by the body for healthy functioning. When there is excess light—gadgets are turned on, lights are on the street—the concentration of the hormone drops.
Lack of deep sleep is the second problem of sleep deprivation. According to research, chronic lack of sleep can lead to premature aging and an increase in the concentration of beta-amyloid protein, one of the triggers of Alzheimer's disease.
The Smart Alarm application has 6 options for monitoring sleep phases
I used to sleep from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. and thought I was keeping an 8-hour schedule, until I found out: if you don’t go to bed from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. for a long time, the lack of melatonin will develop into depression.
Sleep analysis motivates you to wake up early
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Get enough sleep
Entire industries have been built on selling products to those who lack energy. You can buy vitamins, supplements and energy drinks, special gadgets and inspiring books. Or you can just get enough sleep.
If you regularly sleep six hours or less, it is natural that you will lack energy. Most people need How Much Sleep Do We Really Need? 7–9 hours of night rest. When you start getting enough sleep, many problems related to your health and vigor can be solved. To do this, try to change your morning and evening routine.
Learn to get enough sleep
