Wellness isn’t something that can be bought. To enjoy healthy bodies and minds, we need to put in work — we need to eat the right things, exercise, and do all of the little things that add up to a happy and healthy lifestyle.
But even this view of wellness, while perfectly true, is incomplete and perhaps even a bit misleading. We can’t focus on our wellness without focusing on what we eat, the exercise we get, and all of the rest of it. But we also shouldn’t assume that every day of a healthy life is a constant struggle. On the contrary, the key to healthy living is to build the best practices we know about into healthy habits or, better yet, enjoyable hobbies. If we do that, maintaining the healthy habits we build won’t be nearly as difficult as a short-term diet or exercise plan.
The power of habit
How powerful are habits? Incredibly powerful, it turns out. Much of what we do every day we do unconsciously. One study illustrates the point: Researchers gave two groups of people popcorn at a movie theater. One group got fresh, enjoyable popcorn; the other group got lousy, stale popcorn. Researchers found that the participants who regularly ate popcorn at movies ate the most popcorn, even if they had the lousy stuff. And it wasn’t as if they didn’t notice: Both habitual popcorn eaters and non-eaters rated their popcorn as expected. It’s just that, thanks to their habits, the moviegoers who always ate popcorn kept right on munching through their popcorn regardless of whether it was good or bad.
The lesson? You don’t have as much control over what you do as you think you do. Fortunately, changing and ending habits doesn’t require you to pay attention to what you’re doing 24/7. On the contrary, by identifying your own habits and seeking to replace the “reward” part of a given habit loop, you can switch up a habit and, ideally, do something healthy as unconsciously as you once did something unhealthy.
Supplements and routines
Most of us have a morning routine, whether we’re proud of it or not. Your morning routine is a great place to start making changes. Can you drink less coffee? Eat more healthy foods for breakfast? The morning is also a great time to make a habit of taking supplements, such as multivitamins and CBD.
CBD is a particularly hot product in wellness these days — and for good reason, say the CBD experts at the CBD Insider. Top CBD brands like cbd Select are everywhere these days, offering regular people a chance to feel a little less stressed or anxious. CBD can be taken in all different forms, including edibles and vape oils. And although CBD is derived from the drug marijuana, CBD is nonpsychoactive — which means that it won’t get you high. For many, making a habit of CBD is a good way to ease anxiety and gain a healthier attitude.
Hobbies and the joy of exercising
What we know about hobbies tells us that, by and large, your exercise routine will get easier the longer you do it. If you wake up every day and go running for an hour, it will be a whole lot more miserable the first few times than it will the 100th time; eventually, it may become so ingrained in your routine that you’ll be unhappy if you don’t do it.
But that doesn’t mean that healthy habits are built on suffering. The reality is that you might have a much easier time building a healthy exercise habit if you choose something you enjoy. You can find lots of ways to do this, because there are so many healthy hobbies, explain experts who offer dance lessons in Montclair, NJ. From dance and yoga to recreational sports leagues and outdoor activities like hiking, there are hundreds of ways to making moving around a habit.
You’ll have to make conscious choices as you change your habits. You’ll have to identify the unhealthy things that you do (like eating too many chips) and replace them with healthy things (maybe kale chips would do the trick!) without going so far that you hate your new habits. Over time, though, your conscious decisions will pay off. Your focus on wellness will become less “focus” than “instinct.” And when you reach that point, you’ll have healthy habits that will last a lifetime.