8 Small Lifestyle Habits To Adopt In 2020 To Make You Healthier

Small lifestyle habits are those everyday tasks you find yourself doing daily, the good, the in-between and the bad. In fact, it sometimes gets hard to tell what’s doing you good and what isn’t. Trust us when we say that goal setting isn’t an easy task, but it doesn’t have to be impossible. You can’t sit around dreaming about your goals to make them happen, you have to be proactive. The key is to make your goals smaller.

Believe it or not, but you can find balance and happiness again by simply adjusting smaller lifestyle habits. It’s the mundane and daily routines that affect us the most. Sometimes these small lifestyle habits are even holding us back from achieving those larger goals. Wouldn’t it be nice to set some small goals and finally be able to stick to them?

The cliché New Year’s resolution article won’t help much, especially if you’re just going to set big goals that might set you up for failure. What happens if you exercise every day, eat ‘clean’ and eat lots of veggies and protein? What the heck else could you do? Well, lots. Large goals often leave a lot of gray areas unmentioned and that’s why most New Year’s resolutions don’t last. You need to focus on what you can change and what the root of the habit is.

Realistically, good health is extremely complex. There are lots of small tweaks you can make to your daily habits in order to help you live longer, and with more energy, focus, and happiness. These small lifestyle habits might be the reason your health improves and your body starts to thrive.

Small Lifestyle Habits Are More Realistic

As you enter 2020, look closely at specific habits you can tweak rather than reaching past the stars. Set smaller goals that you can achieve. Also, try not to place ridiculous demands and pressure on yourself because that will just stress you out and make you feel less capable of achieving your goals. The mind is clever and almost every time, it does the opposite of what is being demanded to do. It’s a safety mechanism. Instead, you need to set positive and exciting steps to achieving your small lifestyle habits and goals. You’re not a military sergeant.

Psychologists tell the Stylist that telling yourself you have to do this, or you have to do that, is just going to pile the pressure on and cause you to fall at the first hurdle. Positive change is all about flexibility. In fact, it’s easy to get really focused on the goals we set and treat success as a black and white concept. However, that kind of thinking isn’t conducive to achieving them.

Go Easy On Yourself

Rather than saying ‘I have to achieve these things’ or ‘I have to stop smoking,’ say ‘this is what I would really like to happen, but it doesn’t have to’. Experts state that when you take the pressure off, and you give yourself the flexibility you’re more likely to make the right choice to help you achieve that goal. It also helps to start with smaller lifestyle habits whatever your intention. When you turn your goal into a preference rather than a demand and just accept that sometimes the journey will be boring, but you can deal with it. The goal is more important than the frustration of tolerating it. Therefore, you’re more likely to achieve it.

Moreover, it’s best to set only one goal at a time in order to give yourself more of a chance at sticking at it. Breaking that goal into smaller, bite-sized steps can also be a great way to hold yourself accountable for your progress.

Some of these small lifestyle habits will significantly help improve your health.

8 Small Lifestyle Habits To Adopt In 2020

Before I state the first one, please note this is not a reason for you to indulge in fatty fried fast food.

1. Eat Lots Of Fat

Please don’t take this suggestion as an excuse to eat all the fat you want. However, good fats from foods like avocado, olive oil, fatty fish, and nuts are essential for immune system function, fat burning (seriously), feeling satiated, and keeping glowing skin.

Interestingly many people have a massive fear of fat and studies show that this fear has a lot to do with a long era of carb and sugar diet dominance. Luckily we now know these diets all have some really negative health effects. It’s time to leave that mentality behind. Moving forward and up!

2. You Need More Sleep Than You Think

It’s funny because we seem to skimp on our sleep when we need a lot more. Small lifestyle habits like getting more sleep can have some major health benefits. You can go for quite a long time skimping on sleep, but after a while, the side effects are no joke. Experts state that skipping just an hour and getting six hours per night might increase your risk of obesity by 23 percent.

Studies explain that we all need seven to nine hours every night, even if that means skipping a 6:00-a.m. workout every once in a while. Small lifestyle habits like sleep can be life-changing. If you have trouble getting to sleep, try using relaxing essential oils, eat sleep-promoting foods. You could also try to learn from your sleep patterns by wearing a tracking watch or creating a better environment for sleep.  Often the lighting of the room has a massive impact on your sleep quality.

3. Drink Water, Lots Of It

You can never ever have enough water and this is a small lifestyle habit we can all improve on.

I don’t think people realize just how important staying hydrated is. Drinking enough water (ideally 64 ounces, or 8 eight-ounce glasses per day) will lead to more energy, better skin, and maybe even weight loss.

4. Don’t Stop Moving

This is an easy, small lifestyle habit to start creating. Sure, getting in an intense exercise session every morning is great for your health, but you really want to keep your body moving throughout the day.

It doesn’t matter how heavy you lift or how fast you run, you can’t undo the negative effects of sitting for the entire rest of the day. According to a recent study, apparently, some of exercise’s benefits are negated by prolonged periods of sitting.

You might want to invest in a tool that tracks your steps to encourage you to move enough throughout the day. Try taking the stairs or taking short walks around your office at the top of every hour. Small lifestyle habits like walking can do wonders for your physical and mental health.

5. Start Introducing Probiotics Into Your Diet

There are different ways of getting into more probiotics. You don’t have to rely on the supplement form. Food items like fermented cabbage like sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, and plain yogurt with live bacteria are all fantastic.

If you’re going to take the supplement route, then taking a probiotic is your best bet. There is so much science pointing to the vast health benefits of a healthy gut, from a better mood to a strong immune system. The easiest way to start creating this small lifestyle habit is to start working on your microbiome by eating high-quality probiotics daily.