Too many people believe that the minor aches and pains they experience, like headaches or indigestion, are an inescapable part of life. They aren’t. By cultivating healthy habits today, it’s possible to live a life that’s not only symptom-free, but is characterized by a vibrant feeling of wellbeing and high energy.

Health is Created by Healthy Habits

Our lives are largely run by habit. Habits are the result of repeatedly thinking and behaving in a certain way until those behaviors become automatic. For example, when you learn to drive a car you have to focus on every step of the process. But with continued practice the required skills for driving become second nature and no longer require focused mental attention. They have become habitual.

Your level of health is dependent on your lifestyle habits. These include the way you eat, how much exercise you get, how you sleep and other factors that are mostly running on autopilot. Most people don’t consciously create these habits. They are naturally acquired from family, friends, life experiences, media and society in general.

Despite desiring better health, many people struggle to achieve it because their current habits lead them to repeat the same poor health decisions over and over again. If you really want better long-term health you need to create better habits. Fortunately, there are simple things that done every day will yield amazing results for your health. 

Creating New Habits for Better Health

If you have poor health, or just want better health, there are many habits of health you can start that will increase your level of health and vitality. None of them individually are that difficult and most of them don’t cost anything. The only reason they are difficult is because the momentum of your current habits make it easy to keep doing what you’ve always done. Changing directions means having to make an effort to shift this momentum.

The good news is you don’t have to face all that momentum at once. In fact, it’s best to start by picking just one habit and focusing on doing it consistently. This is because after about three to four weeks of doing the same thing in the same manner every day the behavior will start to become automatic and won’t take as much focused effort. And at the same time you’ll feel better, both physically and emotionally.

Once a new habit has been established, you can pick another one and work on it for a few weeks until it also becomes habitual. Each habit you develop will help you feel better and it will become easier to develop momentum in the direction of a healthy life. 

When you’re building your habits of health don’t worry if you miss a day, or need to revisit building a habit. Instead, think about how well you’ve done and keep moving forward. Any day you work on improving your health is a long-term win.

Positive changes don’t require big efforts. They require many small ongoing efforts, but these small changes yield big results over time. With each small, positive change you make you’ll feel better about yourself and find it easier to make the next positive change. Eventually, you’ll have the force of habit working for you instead of against you.

Strategies for Health by Steven Horne