What will you get from this blogpost:
- Understand exactly what healthy habits are.
- Get to know the three uncommon habits that helped me improve my quality of life.
Habits are something we all have, something we all want to improve or perhaps even get rid of. Habits, good or bad, are a constant conversation topic, especially when the new year is around the corner. We strive to be better, act better, and feel better for the coming year, only to realize months later that we’re right back to the same old thing. What if I told you about three uncommon habits that are easy to incorporate into your daily routine and can make a lasting positive change in your life? I also call these habits uncommon healthy habits.
WHAT MAKES A HEALTHY HABIT?
About 40 percent of the actions people take every day are not decided by you but are habits. In a way, this is alarming, because these habits in turn determine how we live, how we behave every day, and what we can achieve in life. Healthy, positive, and good habits are all the more important when you look at it that way. Aren’t they?
According to Medical Dictionary, a healthy habit is “a behavior that is beneficial to one’s physical or mental health, often linked to a high level of discipline and self-control.”
In short, this means that healthy habits are the foundation of your success because they improve your overall well-being and make you feel good about yourself. These habits include regular exercise, eating a balanced diet, keeping promises, and enjoying nature, to name a few.
In this blog post, however, we won’t go into detail about these “normal” healthy habits but will explore three uncommon habits that have the potential to improve your life 10-fold.
But before we get into these three uncommon habits, take a moment and imagine the compound interest that healthy habits will bring to your entire life. It’s simply magical what you can accomplish! But beware: bad habits have the same effect, just in the other direction. So choose them right.
Now to my three habits:
UNCOMMON HABIT NR. 1: CHOOSE INTELLECTUALITY
“Intellectual? Mhh..okay, that’s a weird habit,” is probably what half of you reading my blog post will think. But please stay for a second, let me explain:
What if I told you that you are the creator of your life and the way you think and feel about every part of it.
Read that again: you are the creator of your life and the way you think and feel about every part of it.
Your intellectual habit can be anything from learning or improving a new skill, to reading a book every day, to learning a new language. Let me tell you, if you can master the intellectual habit, you can go far, more than you could ever imagine!
What does it require of you? To dedicate yourself to lifelong intellectual improvement and education. You must commit to constantly growing and learning with the goal of constantly expanding your mind, thoughts, and knowledge.
Understand the purpose behind it. Whatever you see as your new intellectual habit, write down why you are willing to take these actions and what really motivates you to keep going.
Some ideas to get you started:
- Set aside at least an hour a day to study and learn.
- Spend time with intelligent people.
- Seek out other points of view.
- Increase your brain power through nutrition.
- Meditate to clear your mind and teach it to focus and think clearly.
- Read one book a month.
- Participate in personal development programs.
- Practice the elimination of all negative thoughts.
Whatever intellectual habit you incorporate into your routine will make a difference. Do it, keep doing it, and watch your life unfold.
The habits you have will determine how your life will go in the long run. Will you be successful, happy, and healthy? Or will your habits make you sick, sad, and unfulfilled?
UNCOMMON HABIT NR. 2: LIMIT DECISION MAKING
Decisions, decisions, decisions. Every day we make a lot of decisions.
We wake up in the morning and have to decide whether or not to hit the snooze button, what to wear (since Covid, this is more or less no longer a decision-making issue – but it used to be a task of making 100 decisions at once).
We have to decide whether or not to have a glass of water before coffee (or matcha in my case), what delicious breakfast to eat, what the priority task for the day is, and what to have for lunch.
Now, before the clock strikes 12 o’clock, we have made countless small decisions that add up after a while and overwhelm our minds.
I once experienced decision fatigue when I just couldn’t make decisions for myself anymore. Whether it was at work, on my projects, what to cook for dinner, or even when to read a book. I just couldn’t do it anymore. It was so hard, so exhausting.
That’s when I knew: something had to change. In order to maintain my healthy habits, I had to limit my daily choices as much as possible.
I created a list on my phone (now I usually write them on paper, but either works great) where I write down my tasks for the day. My daily tasks, my morning routine, my evening routine, my appointments, and my top three priorities for the day.
I’ve started planning my meals each week and cooking them mostly on Sunday to be prepared for the whole week.
For my workout days (I usually workout in the mornings), I started preparing my gym wear and mat the night before.
Just doing these three little things, I’ve eliminated a whole lot of decision-making. And it changed my life!
The mind feels lighter, you have more energy to use your mind for other things. It’s actually made me more creative. And in the evenings I’m not as exhausted as I used to be.
UNCOMMON HABIT NR. 3: TAKING LONG HOT BATHS
I don’t know about you, but as half Japanese, I grew up taking a bath every day. Not just 10 minutes, but up to 2 hours a day.
I remember my mother showing me how to do this the Japanese way: you clean yourself in the shower, then jump into a heated Japanese bathtub (usually temperature above 40C° degree), squeaky clean, and enjoy the health benefits while you sit there (sometimes for hours).
For me, this is THE time of day when I can take care of myself, review my day, and recover from whatever I need to recover from. Kind of like a little wellness trip in my own four walls.
Of course, I also read up on the health benefits of this super-powerful habit:
According to studies, bathing daily over a two-week period significantly improved fatigue, stress, anxiety, anger, depression, pain, and tended to improve skin appearance as well. In addition, the studies showed significant improvement in general health, mental health, emotional and social function, as well as increased blood flow and elimination of metabolic waste.
While taking a bath may feel like a waste of time at first, I encourage you to try this uncommon habit.
It improves both the physical and emotional aspects of your quality of life and, especially in our hectic times, buys you the necessary time to slow down and take care of yourself.
You can also use your bath time to work on your intellectual or decision-making habits, and combine the three things in one go.
A valuable tip: use essential oils and Epsom salt if you ever crave a little detox.
These three uncommon habits are an effective tool that has improved and continues to improve my life to a great extent. I hope you can benefit from them as well and improve your quality of life.
What uncommon habits are you fond of?
0 Comments