Healthy habits for the New Year
If you’re thinking of making a New Year’s resolution, why not make it a healthy one?
Take a look at our top healthy habits for 2020, and how you can achieve them.
With a few small changes to your lifestyle you can adopt a good habit that will make a big difference to your health in the long run.
How To Make A Habit
Habits are different from resolutions as they are something you do regularly, just like brushing your teeth or drinking tea in the morning.
To establish a healthy habit, you need to make it part of your daily, weekly, or monthly life until it becomes routine, and something that you don’t think about.
Here are a few tips to help you develop and maintain your healthy resolution:
- Make a plan for what you need to do to establish the habit – for instance how often you need to do it, when you want to achieve it by
- Set realistic, measurable goals – as part of your plan you should do some goal setting and work out what you want to achieve, why, and how you will know you’ve achieved it
- Concentrate on one thing at a time – if you try to do everything at once you will feel overwhelmed and might give up on it all. If you have three, seven, twelve healthy habits you want to develop in 2020, do one a month to give them each time and space to get used to
- Repetition is key to developing a habit, and forcing yourself to do something when you don’t feel like it
Healthy Resolutions for 2020
A healthy habit could stem from a New Year’s resolution to give up something bad or make an improvement in your lifestyle.
With that in mind, here are our top ten good health resolutions for 2020:
- Limit your alcohol intake – this is a good one to start with, as lots of people have a ‘dry January’. See our tips to stay within your healthy limit.
- Take up a regular exercise – for many people adopting an exercise will be a New Year’s resolution, but it’s important to find the right exercise for you so you can stick with it. If you don’t enjoy the gym you could walk, take up yoga, cycle, dance…
- Drink water, not fizzy juice – fizzy drinks often come loaded with gas, sugar and chemicals, which don’t do you any good. Switch to tap water instead of fizzy juice to reduce bloating and calories, and get hydrated healthily instead.
- Quit Smoking – if you smoke then this is the biggest healthy habit you can adopt this year. It’s never too late to reap the benefits from quitting smoking, and there’s more support than ever to help you kick this bad habit.
- Eat your five a day – this is another easy healthy habit to adopt with a few small changes. Add fruit to your breakfast cereal, drink a small glass of fruit juice, put salad in your sandwiches, add vegetables to your dinner and you’ll get there in no time.
- Ride a bike or walk to work – if you drive or get the bus to work, consider switching to the bike or walking. It will save you money, get you fit, and help the environment. This is a good habit to develop in spring or summer when the weather is better
- Start the day right – start your morning with a filling, healthy breakfast and you’ll feel alert until lunch
- Control your Portions – eat enough to satisfy your hunger and meet your nutritional needs, and not more. Don’t take second helpings or pile your plate high with unnecessary calories
- Get enough sleep at night – adopt a sleep routine and make sure you get between six and nine hours of sleep every night so you feel your best
- Meatless Monday – if you’ve enjoyed adding more fruit and veg to your diet, consider joining the ‘Meatless Monday’ movement. Every Monday, opt for healthy vegetarian meals instead of meat or fish
What’s your healthy resolution for 2020?
Rachel - Silversurfers Assistant Editor
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