7 Easy Steps To Make Your Own Healthy Routine

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People often make an excuse for escaping healthy routines and habits because they ‘don’t feel like having to live by other people’s rules’. However, having no routine or system is actually much more detrimental, both mentally, emotionally, and physically. Here are the 7 most effective techniques of maintaining a life-changing routine that will get you unstuck whatever you do for a living.

SEE ALSO: How To Reprogram Your Brain Using Visualization

1) Don’t go checking your Facebook first

It’s somehow become a routine to grab the phone or laptop and go through our emails and social media accounts first thing we wake up. However, this sets you up for the ‘reactive’ mode instead of ‘proactive’. The problem with this approach is that you start the day with other people’s priorities.

Whether they are work-related documents you need to provide or your friend’s problems on Facebook, they become your focus, dragging you away from your priorities. Instead, start your day by focusing on you, and then bend the expectations of others to your schedule.

2) Read a book

Even if it’s only a page a day, reading books provides you with many science-approved benefits. Reading increases your brainpower for up to five days, while also strengthening your ability to empathize with other people. Reading is also known to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s, inducing symptoms. The author of the bestseller Simplify, Joshua Becker, claims that by breaking books into chapters, he’s able to read about of 50 titles a year.

3) Gear up for creativity

By taking the time to write something every day, you improve your communication, as well as the ability to memorize important information. However, more importantly, writing helps you boost your creativity.

Julia Cameron, an American teacher, author, and playwright, advocates writing Morning Pages – up to three pages of anything you want – and writing them every morning. The author of Choose Yourself, James Altucher, has a similar concept of writing down 10 ideas, which help your brain gear up for creativity as you start your day.

4) Exercise every day

While this is the part of a daily routine that most people skip for various reasons, it’s also one of the most important ones. Ceasing to exercise leads to reduced productivity, while depressive feelings quickly take ground. Make your exercise more enjoyable and less of a chore by any means available, including wearing breathable eco-friendly clothing which is made of sustainably harvested bamboo, as a great alternative to synthetic fibers typically used for gym clothes. Choosing low-impact products sets you on the right course for other sustainable practices which make you feel better about what you do.

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5) Make to-do lists

Making these lists is a great way to strap up for the day. Coming up with up to no less than six tasks a day will help you plan your time in an organized way, instead of completing a succession of random tasks, hoping they’ll get you somewhere. In addition, a to-do list makes you plan ahead what you want to do and when which means there is a higher probability you’ll do it.

Regular brakes throughout the day help you from getting bored and losing concentration. At the same time, they make you evaluate your progress, making sure you’re tackling your to-dos as planned.

One of my favorite task-break management techniques is the Pomodoro Technique. In this approach you pick a task and work on it for 25 minutes, followed by a five-minute break. After you complete three more such ‘pomodoros’, make a 15-minute break. Using this technique, people claim to get 40 hours of work done in no more than 17, while keeping the energy levels soaring.

7) Get enough sleep

Lack of sleep affects our judgment, mood, and even the ability to retain information. In the long run, irregular sleep patterns lead to obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. Apart from mental and physical issues, it’s hard to maintain a routine when you can think of nothing else than crawling back to bed. In order to secure a tight night’s sleep, you should limit caffeine intake to early in the day, and set aside technology and for an hour before bedtime.

By evading doing things that will make us better regularly, you deprive ourselves of energy and motivation that those activities create. In the meantime, as you float around, your goals and dreams keep slipping away. By implementing a healthy daily routine, you’ll be able to regain lost time and stay closer to your goals, without burning out.

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