How Healthy Are Your Habits? by Cindy Stradling CSP, CPC
It’s easy to get caught in a rut, doing the same thing day after day. These day after day activities are our mindless habits, and are repeated without thought. From time to time, however, it is important to examine these habits and how your mental and physical health are affected by them.
Physical Habits
How we eat, sleep and exercise are all extremely important to our physical health. Yet, it is easy, especially during busy times, to neglect these important habits. When busy it is easy to eat too much fast food, stay up too late working and skip our exercise routine to get more time in at work.
These bad habits catch up, however. Lack of sleep causes lack of focus, which causes you to slow down at work. Bad food and lack of exercise cause weight gain and a bloated, unhealthy feeling, and ultimately lead to sickness and disease.
This week, make a commitment to change one physical bad habit. Maybe you’ll elect to bring a healthy lunch from home, get to bed by 11:00 each night, or take a walk around the office parking lot each day. Small steps are easier to manage, and add up more quickly than you think. Next week, take another small step, until you’ve made your habits healthy again.
Mental Habits
Our mental habits have just as much impact on our well being as our physical habits. A negative mindset can slow you down.
Negative mindsets come from many sources. Maybe you have naysayers who tell you your business will never get off the ground. Or, maybe you are your own biggest critic, constantly chiding yourself, and never living up to your own expectations.
Maybe your bad mental habits are spending too much time draining your brain on work and not enough doing the things you love.
The second challenge for the week is to improve your mental habits, too. If you’re filled with negative self-talk, start writing down what you say to yourself. Then, create a positive response and begin using it every time you have that negative thought.
If there are naysayers in your group, find a way to avoid them, or tell them you don’t want to hear their negative comments. Stand up for yourself.
Take a break from work and relax your mind by doing something you love.
These little habits add up to big impact on your life. Pay attention to the things you do each day and replace the habits that are hurting you with those that can help you soar!