Most people sabotage their health and wellbeing on a daily basis without even noticing. For example, when you make a decision to eat something, it probably isn’t always because you’re hungry. Instead, other feeling can drive your decision.
Maybe you’re just feeling stressed out or you’re bored, so you decide to grab a snack. Instead of letting the only physical signal that indicated when you should eat, you’re making your emotional state dictate whether you should eat or not. This can lead to numerous problems, including overeating and eating too much junk food. In order to help you lead a more mindful and healthier lifestyle, check out these 5 ways to stop sabotaging your health.
Identify Your Habits
The most important thing to do before making any lifestyle changes is to identify your current habits. If you overeat only when you’re watching a TV show or a movie, then you need to start eating your meals while sitting at a table. Similarly, if you eat chocolate when you’re stressed, then you need to find a healthier way to calm yourself (for example, by doing a short workout).
Comfort
When you repeatedly perform a certain activity, a neural pathway will be formed in your brain so that the action becomes automatic. For example, when you’re washing your hands, you don’t really think about that activity, you just do it automatically because your brain already created neural pathways between neurons that control this activity.
These same types of neural pathways are what give you a sense of comfort. Your relationship with food and your eating habits are basically controlled by the neural pathways that were created through the process of repetition. If you start eating ice-cream after lunch on most days, then you’ll soon develop a habit and feel the need to do this every day.
As soon as you decide to change your eating habits for the better, you’ll sense a feeling of discomfort. But, remember that it’s necessary to leave your comfort zone in order to improve your health.
Not Having A Clear Goal
Most people share a common goal – to start living healthier. However, what does living healthier really mean? For some, it may mean eating less junk food and basing their diet on fresh produce, while for other it may mean simply going to the gym a few times per week.
Nevertheless, if you don’t have a clear goal set, then you won’t ever able to reach it. In order to start living healthier, you will need to figure out exactly in what ways you should start changing your life.
Make It Enjoyable
Just because you’re following a diet or an exercise program doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun doing it. You should always search for new and interesting recipes and exercises that you can incorporate into your daily routine. As long as you find a way to make your lifestyle changes enjoyable, you’ll easily reach all your health goals.
Fear
Fear won’t just make it harder for you to reach your health goals, it will try to stop you from reaching any type of goal. Fear of the unknown and fear of failing is usually what holds us back the most. This is why most people don’t even try going on a diet or don’t even bother going to the gym.
They think that these lifestyle changes will be so big that they won’t be able to stay motivated. But, if you actually do start eating healthier, you may find out that you like healthy food much more than you enjoy the food you were eating before. Similarly, you may experience a sense of fulfillment every time you leave the gym after a workout.