Healthier Choices: Swapping Out Harmful Habits for Better Ones

Improving our life is something we should all strive towards. And while it could be hard for some people, it certainly comes with great benefits. But in order to do that, we have to recognize those habits that are harmful and just plain bad for us. Understanding those daily habits that might end up being a problem will be much better, and it can give us a way to improve our life.

For example, in the US around 36% of people report having at least one unhealthy, bad habit. Either they have insufficient sleep, obesity, excessive drinking, physical inactivity or smoking problems. All those things can be very problematic, and you need to start making smaller, but healthier changes that have the potential to improve your life. And it seems hard to do until you actually get started with them.

Identifying Everyday Harmful Habits

The hardest thing to do for most of us is to get started and figure out how to remove these harmful habits. And the best approach in these cases is to see what problems we are dealing with. Usually, the most harmful habits include:

• Smoking
• Too much screen time
• A lack of exercising
• Drinking too much
• A bad diet
• Addiction to certain things.

According to ConsumerShield, using the phone while driving leads to around 1000 injuries and 9 deaths on a daily basis. So not only can these bad habits affect your life negatively, they can also place your wellbeing in danger. Figuring out how to step away from these issues is extremely important, and it’s certainly something you want to avoid.

Building Awareness and Setting Goals

Ideally, once you identify there are bad habits you can get rid of, you want to assess how they affect your life. Be honest with yourself and figure out how these problems are affecting you. And once you do that, you can start creating a list with how you can address these problems.

For the most part, you want to create multiple, smaller and achievable goals for changing your habits. You should also try to create a program/guide on what steps you need to go through. Ideally, that means stepping away from those bad habits. For example, you want to start drinking or smoking less every day. Or, in the case of a bad diet, you shift to healthier foods. And lastly, if you don’t exercise, you can start exercising slowly every day.

Healthier Alternatives to Common Bad Habits

There’s no denying that most of us have at least a couple of bad habits. And while they might not seem like much, they certainly creep up on us. Ideally, the best approach is to figure out what alternatives are there to regular bad habits, and slowly adopt those!

Screen Time

If you spend too much time in front of your PC or TV, then what you can do is to focus on going for a walk or performing outdoor activities.

Taking regular breaks is also very helpful. And, for a lot of people, finding a new hobby can also be a fun approach as well. The idea is to step away from screens and limit how much time you spend in front of them.

Diet and Nutrition

When it comes to dietary changes, the most important thing is to check ingredients and see what each food product includes. Going for whole foods and stepping away from processed foods can indeed help more than expected. You can also focus on eating more salads as well, something that can prove to be extremely useful. And then we also have a variety of other ideas, like preparing your own foods or doing meal prep to avoid eating randomly, especially fast foods.

Counting calories, using apps and just being more careful with the foods we ingest is a very good idea, and it will help improve your approach towards health and what you eat. Of course, you can’t make radical changes. Instead, you should focus on making simpler changes slowly, as that will help quite a bit.

Exercise and Movement

We all have the opportunity to exercise, in fact we can do so from the comfort of our homes. But we are complacent and don’t really think we have the time to exercise. Yet we do, and there are various ways to do that. A good idea is to download some free workout apps on our phone and do some basic exercises. Even simple things like walking, running, they will be handy. The most important thing is to stay active and exercise as much as you can. Because not only does that motivate you, it will provide the means to stay in a good shape. And yes, you should try to vary those workouts as much as you can!

Maintaining Motivation and Building Accountability

Once you get started with making changes, you need to stay accountable and motivate yourself. It’s another part of this process where people fall off. Having a support system is important, and you also want to use apps or any tool you can to track your progress. That’s helpful, because it will help you focus on what you can achieve, while also having the focus you need to pursue great results.

It also helps if you talk with your friend and encourage them to keep you accountable. Other things, such as joining groups can be very handy, since you always want some people to help you keep that high level of accountability.

Final Thoughts: Small Changes, Big Impact

As we mentioned throughout the article, making small changes can indeed lead to very good results in the long run.

Staying consistent and focusing on balancing your growth is what you want to pursue the most. Yet at the same time, you also want to change your mindset, understand what’s bad in your life and make those changes. Because only when you realize what’s bad and what issues you might be dealing with, that’s when you get the best possible outcome and experience. Yes, you might struggle in the beginning, but if you focus on what’s good for you and stay consistent, that’s when you’ll get the best outcome!