A healthy lifestyle is not easy to come by. Despite the internet being awash in articles extolling the virtues of yoga, meal plans, and fitness regimens, it still requires some personal investment. Everyone has at least one Yoga fanatic in their life these days, but actually heading to a class with them is an entirely different jar of probiotics.
Every journey begins with the first step, whether you’re training for a marathon or just trying to lose 5 pounds.
Here are some simple baby steps towards a healthy life for those of us who are finding the pill of a gym membership or three yoga classes a week to be a little hard to swallow. No one’s judging, but here’s some bullet-proof, easy life tweaks whether you’re an Iron Man or more of a Doritos man.
Drink Tea
Whatever your preferred flavor may be, hot or cold. A pitcher and six bags of Green in the fridge left overnight works just as well as an electric kettle by the bed and a few tea bags on the bedside table. Neither requires much effort if any, and tea is pure classy benefits, from antioxidants to a metabolism boost to strengthening your bones and more.
Stretch
Cake famously sang “As soon as you’re born you start dying,” luckily for all of us, you don’t. It’s not until age 26 that your body stops producing a majority of new cells. In order to not completely fall apart before 40, a couple of simple stretches for five minutes when you wake up before you clock in or even before you go to bed will do wonders for your circulation, joints, and muscles.
Vitamins
Sometimes fitting a decent meal into your day can be as implausible as the Cleveland Browns winning the Super Bowl. Proper nutrition is tough. Meal prep and packing lunches can be an insurmountable task. Vitamins can be your frontline defense for avoiding a trip to the doctor. Copious amounts of Vitamin C can knock out anything from a common cold to helping you go toe-to-toe with cancer, while supplements like Niacin (B3) have been shown to have multiple benefits. A couple of clicks on Amazon, and for the price of a few rounds at a cheap bar, you’ve just added a few quality years to your life expectancy.
Engage your mind
There’s a lot of downtime commuting to and from work, and most really treasure every second in bed. Using that time to read, write or actively listen keeps your mind working. Just like a muscle, the brain needs to be stretched. Whatever your interests are, follow them. Whether it’s a dream journal in the morning, a quick blog post, a doodle in a sketchbook, a TED talk in the car, or a chapter or two before bed, that’s 15 minutes of your day that you’ve staked a hard claim on and invested in yourself.
Money
Money, without a doubt, tops most lists as a leading stress factor. Some of the best advice rarely taken is to have three months’ worth of bills and expenses saved up. It seems like a lot. It is. Luckily, there are apps like Acorns, which does the work of depositing your spare change for you. An automated low dollar transfer into a savings account also works wonders. After a year of forgetting you did it, you’ll have a couple hundred bucks socked away.
None of these include running a marathon, but they are taking the first few steps.