6 Healthy Lifestyle Ingredients for Students

Lots of people make leading a healthy lifestyle a top resolution every year, but only a few follow through. Many fail because they make this resolution with good intentions but fail to deliver because they think of it in the short-term. When planning to change your lifestyle, the only way to ensure success is by incorporating those healthy habits in your life while thinking of the long game.

Diets have been proven to fail lots of time for their sheer unsustainability. We put together six of our top habits for healthy living.

Work on your Mental Health

When you develop a healthy mind, you start thinking positive thoughts and dealing with shortcomings better. Looking at your bad habits and analyzing them helps you see what you can accept as part of you and what you can change if you worked harder. You could start with your relationships and how they impact you and then decide whether or not they are good for you. You could also examine your view on food and what triggers you to get off the right track when you choose a healthy eating plan. Accepting flaws and working on what you can change is one of the things that lead to a better way of living.

Get Active

An active lifestyle is associated with several positive benefits, among them lower cholesterol and body weight, better sleep, heart health, and healthier bones. The best way to ensure you stick with a workout plan is to choose an activity that you enjoy, and it doesn’t have to be complicated. Jogging, skipping rope, body-weight workouts such as lunges and squats, and cycling to work are sustainable workouts.

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Adding the recommended 10,000 steps to these daily makes for a sufficient challenge. Even better is that you don’t have to set an intentional plan to hit these steps as you can get them done during your day. Get a fitness tracker and see how many you can get in when walking to the office after parking a little further than usual, walking pets, or running errands. Walking increases your cardiovascular activities and reduces the risk of obesity.

Seek Help where you Need it

The universe is ready to send you the help you need to get your goals off the ground if you only seek it out. If you have more than you can handle at university, it doesn’t hurt to get help, so you can focus on other things, such as mental health. Issues related to mental health are common among the students and often lead to negative consequences. Help comes in many forms. One can begin with finding a website that writes essays for you when he or she is overwhelmed by assignments. You get a professional at a high-skill level to handle the particular unit while you sit and, say, stitch together a healthy meal plan.

Fuel your Body with Good Food

It’s said you cannot outwork a bad diet, and that couldn’t be truer. All the steps and workouts will be reduced to nothing without a healthy eating habit, and luckily that has been proven to be less strict than was thought long ago. You can still eat a little bread while losing weight or maintaining your ideal goal as long as you are moderate.

Most health experts insist on a macro-based food plan that pays emphasis on the three top food groups – Protein, Carbohydrates, and Fats. Micronutrients found in vegetables are also a huge part of eating and so salads are a great accompaniment for your meals. For protein, 0.8g per kilogram of body weight is recommended or more for athletes. Carbs are determined by your personal goals while healthy fats can make up 30% of your meals.

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Sources of these food groups include;

• Protein: Beans, Tofu, Meats of all types – lean cuts, seafood, lentils, eggs, milk, and nuts, among others.
• Complex Carbs: Cereals, whole bread, whole grains, corn, beans, potatoes, and rice, among others.
• Fats: Avocado, nuts, cheese, dark chocolate, egg yolk, extra virgin olive oil, and chia seeds, among others.

Replace Bad Habits with Good

We all have vices that we always think of changing, so why not make a list and start working on them once and for all? Smoking, negative thinking, procrastination, putting yourself down, and choosing toxic people are all things most of us struggle with every day, but they can be changed if we decided we wanted better. Some of the habits are really bad for our health – like binging on junk food could lead to heart disease while smoking messes the lungs, so it would be beneficial to quit them.

Twenty-one is the number of days a habit is said to take to form, so alternating one negative habit with a positive one at a time for this duration could be great for you. The key is pacing yourself, not being too hard on you when you fail, but pushing the hardest to succeed.

Get Enough Sleep

Getting enough shuteye is up there with a healthy diet. National Sleep Foundation says seven to nine hours is ideal for a healthy adult, but some people find it hard to sleep that long. If you find it hard to get these many hours in, here are some tips to get you to sleep better:

• Keep the same schedule every night
• Choose a supportive mattress
• Minimize noise and light that may make it hard to fall asleep
• Avoid caffeine hours before bedtime
• Turn on electronics to limit distractions

Some of the benefits of getting enough sleep include; limited risk of heart disease, maintaining a healthier weight, less stress, improved mood, and clarity at work and school.

Easier than Thought

Living a healthier life can be summed up in four words: food, love, sleep, and exercise. When the mind is relaxed and you are thinking good thoughts, you are likely to relate better with food, sleep soundly, love yourself and others deeply, and overall, lead a much happier life. That’s not so hard, is it?