The 10 Most Powerful Daily Habits to Transform Your Health

Whether your interests are to improve your health in general, avoid a specific medical condition, or to improve a health condition you already have, transforming your health is a process that requires multiple moving parts working together.

These 10 powerful daily habits can help you enjoy a spectacular health transformation that can help you enjoy a longer life and greater quality of life in the process.

1. Get a Good Night’s Sleep.

Sleep is one of the best things you can do for the overall sake of your health. Not only does sleep have a huge impact on the way you feel the next morning, getting a healthy amount of sleep night after night can help you avoid many different, sometimes serious, health conditions, including:

• Obesity
• Type 2 diabetes
• Heart disease
• High blood pressure
• Chronic inflammation
• Depression

The ideal amount of sleep, according to the National Sleep Foundation, for adults between the ages of 26 and 64 is seven to nine hours of sleep per night. When you fail to get enough sleep for just one night, you can experience diminished efficiency at work, inability to concentrate, and an ill-temper the next day. Prolonged sleep deprivation has even more serious consequences to your mental and physical health as well as your emotional wellbeing.

Getting more sleep is not always as easy as going to bed an hour, or even 30 minutes earlier. Sometimes you need to make serious adjustments over time to “trick” your brain into shutting down for the day, so you can get enough sleep.

Switching your mattress to the Botanical Bliss Organic Latex Mattress from PlushBeds is an excellent choice for bringing a healthier mattress into your home, while ensuring you get the good night’s sleep your body deserves. Organic mattresses do not introduce harmful chemicals, VOCs, and other materials into the air inside your home that can damage your health and the health of your family, making it an excellent choice for your health today.

These mattresses also come with 25-year warranties, meaning they continue improving air quality in your home for many years to come.

2. Change Your Diet

Just as making the switch to an organic mattress can improve the air quality inside your home, cleaning up the air you breathe, switching to an organic diet can create significant health improvements throughout your body by nourishing every cell with foods that have not been introduced to potentially harmful chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides, and more. The Chalkboard Magazine recommends making the switch to a plant-based diet to really fuel positive health changes in your own life. Don’t forget to mix things up a bit with a diet that includes:

• Seeds
• Sprouts
• Roots
• Shoots
• Leaves
• Fruits

Each of these things has unique offerings for nutrient provisions and health improvements, and eating a variety of these items brings balance to your diet.

Regardless of the things you introduce to your diet, there are some things you want to exclude from your diet, too. These include:

• Trans and other unhealthy fats
• Refined sugars
• High salt or sodium foods
• Bleached flours
• Heavily processed, pre-packaged foods
• Fast food items
• Convenience foods

Switch instead to foods made with whole ingredients, and plan menus that include natural ingredients and a variety of fruits and vegetables.

Resist the temptation to make switches to junk foods containing “healthy” labels. Even foods that are labeled organic or gluten-free can be unhealthy if they contain high amounts of salt, sugars (even natural sugars), and unhealthy fats. Remember, junk food is still junk food, even if the label says it is healthy.

3. Exercise

Look for opportunities to get exercise each and every day. Even if you can’t go work out in the gym, swim laps around the pool, or go for a mile-long run each day, there are ways to add five to ten minutes of high-intensity movement into your day.

In fact, these short bursts of activity can quickly add up to one intense workout in terms of impact to your health and fitness.

Exercise isn’t only about achieving a perfect physical form. In fact, the real health benefit of exercise isn’t about shedding calories for the average person. It often has more to do with getting the blood and oxygen flowing to all parts of your body, maintaining good circulation, and ensuring proper transport of minerals and nutrients throughout.

For some people, exercise has the added benefit of releasing endorphins that make you feel great. Ideally, you would work some form of exercise into your morning routine, allowing the oxygen to flow to your brain at the beginning of the day to keep your neurons firing on all cylinders throughout the day.

4. Meditate

If meditation isn’t your thing, consider taking a few moments each morning to simply sit in silence. No noise from the television. No conversations. Just silence. Enjoy the silence as a means of creating calm before the chaos of your day truly begins.

Some believe this can enhance listening skills, and help you focus on hearing things that are really important. Others understand the value this has to offer for health. It can be instrumental in relieving stress, reducing blood pressure, and more. Some unexpected health benefits of silence, according to Medical Daily, include:

• Stimulates brain growth
• Improves memory
• Reduces insomnia
• Increases sensitivity
• Boosts immunity
• Reduces cortisol levels
• Promotes hormonal balance

Whether you meditate, or simply enjoy a few minutes of silence each morning, adopting this habit can have a substantial impact on your health for the better.

5. Get Up Earlier Each Morning

The 1735 Edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack, penned by Benjamin Franklin, told readers, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Old truths are sometimes the most reliable, and it seems that he was truly onto something.

It may sound counterproductive to encourage getting more sleep while also encouraging people to get up earlier. However, the hours of the morning before the sun comes up can be among the most beneficial of the day.

The simple solution is to go to bed earlier at night, so you can experience these health and wellness benefits for yourself by waking earlier the next morning. It may take a while to develop the habit, but the mental health benefits alone make it worth the effort for people who suffer from depression and other mood disorders.

Additionally, the productivity improvements and ability to accomplish more in your day makes this small change a real winner for men and women who make the switch.

6. Drink More Water

The flipside of that, of course, is to drink fewer sugary, caffeinated drinks at the same time. Even many drinks you’ve been convinced are healthy contain high amounts of sugars, unhealthy fats, and other harmful ingredients. In addition to drinking more water, reduce your intake of the following beverages:

• Alcohol
• Tea
• Coffee
• Sodas
• Fruit juices
• Smoothies (unless you make them yourself)

If you need to add a hint of flavor to encourage yourself to drink more water, consider infusing your water with fruit, mint, and other seasonings.

If you need encouragement to help you drink more water, consider using mobile phone apps that help remind you to drink more water throughout your day.

7. Control Your Spending

Stress is a killer. Literally. Money is one of the most common things people experience stress over. Unfortunately, many people respond to this stress by spending more money. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle that can create lasting damage to your mental and physical health. Stress is associated with many conditions that negatively impact health, according to Mayo Clinic. They include:

• High blood pressure
• Excess belly fat
• Increased cortisol levels
• Obesity
• Frequent headaches
• Fatigue
• Erectile dysfunction in men
• Low sex drive in women

Reducing money stress through more effective money management can be instrumental for improving your health.

8. Take “Me Time” Regularly

Some experts suggest dedicating some time every day to “me” time, while others suggest at least once or twice a week. However, you choose to do it, it’s important to set aside time that is just to do the things you want to do. If you are the kind of person who has difficulty doing that, mark it on your calendar, and let others know.

It doesn’t need to be a large amount of time, just a few minutes, half an hour, or even hour when you aren’t responsible for anything, and can do something you want to do instead of focusing your efforts on the things you need to do.

While a few minutes, five, or ten minutes every day is ideal with one or more longer “me” moments each month, it is important that you don’t allow other things to encroach upon this important time for you. The following are the benefits that can be realized from doing so.

• Helps you recharge your internal batteries
• Allows your mind an opportunity to rest and relax
• Reduces stress
• Boosts creativity
• Improves interpersonal relationships

Setting aside time for yourself every day is an investment in your health and your happiness that delivers life-changing results for many people.

9. Start a Gratitude Journal

Gratitude. It’s a simple word that many people have difficulty putting into practice. Yet experiencing gratitude is widely known to improve emotional and physical health alike, while aiding in relationship building and shaping your personality. A gratitude journal is an excellent tool to help you practice the art of gratitude.

Writing in it daily allows you to recognize the amazing world around you and all the health benefits gratitude can offer, such as:

• Reduced pain
• Lower blood pressure
• Stronger immune systems
• Sleep improvements

Some believe that practicing gratitude helps people live longer, too. It’s a great way to extend your health, happiness, and overall wellness, while enjoying greater quality of life in the process.

10. Volunteer

While most people are quick to acknowledge the social good of volunteering, and the feel-good factor associated with doing good for others, few understand the very real health benefits volunteering offers.

According to Mayo Clinic, volunteering, like gratitude, can help you live longer. Other health benefits of volunteering include the following:

• Socialization and social development opportunities
• Reduced stress levels
• Provides a sense of purpose
• Teaches valuable skills
• Reduces risks of depression

Depending on the type of volunteer work you participate in, you might find that you get plenty of exercise in your role as a volunteer, too, which offers additional health benefits to consider.

These daily habits can be instrumental tools for helping you to improve your overall physical, emotional, and mental health. While you don’t have to make all 10 changes at one time, each change helps you increase the life-changing health-bringing benefits you experience. Try one or all today, and see how quickly your health begins to improve.

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