15 Healthy Habits to do Everyday

When it comes to living a healthier lifestyle, small changes can have a big impact over time. From the time you wake up to going to bed, there are things you can do that will have a positive impact on your overall health. Unsure where to start? Here are 15 daily healthy habits to incorporate into your routine.

Daily healthy habits

1. Drink more water

Try swapping fizzy drinks for water, at least once a day, and make sure you drink water before anything else. Hydration is key when losing weight, for a variety of reasons, including helping you stay full and boosting metabolism.

However, it’s not all about weight loss, water is essential for overall health too. It regulates body temperature, flushes out waste and helps your brain function¹. But, many of us simply don’t get enough, and spend some of the day dehydrated.

Aim for 6-8 glasses a day²; choosing healthier drinks is among the best daily routines for a healthy life. Start small if you need to: aim to just drink one more glass a day at first and slowly build it up.

2. Go for a walk every day

Even if you can only spare 10 minutes, whether it’s morning, evening or on your lunch break, it’s worth getting outside into the fresh air for a walk. Walking is an underrated exercise and the perfect daily routine for healthy life. It may not be the toughest workout, but it has plenty of health benefits, including:

• Improving balance
• Strengthening bones
• Reducing the risk of heart disease & stroke
• Increasing heart & lung fitness
• Reducing body fat³

Some more good news: going for a walk every day, long or short, can help to increase your exposure to sunlight. This supports the body’s production of vitamin D and natural circadian rhythm⁴, which can, in turn, improve sleep quality.

3. Wake up earlier

Try establishing a more regular sleep schedule as a daily health habit, starting with waking up earlier. This brings many potential benefits with it, including:

• Helping to reduce stress
• Improving sleep quality
• Giving you more energy throughout the day
• Increasing productivity
• Helping you feel happier and more positive⁵

You might think you’re a night owl, but sleeping in can disrupt the body’s natural circadian rhythm, making you feel drowsier in the day. Ensure you’re getting enough sleep though, as this is another key part of living a healthy lifestyle. It boosts immunity and reduces stress, for example. Most adults need between 6-9 hours a night⁶.

4. Maintain a clean environment

Tidy house, tidy mind, right? In fact, a clean environment is important for healthy living for a number of reasons, not just because it helps prevent germs and infections. It can also boost productivity levels and increase self-confidence⁷, helping you to feel happier throughout the day.

5.  Make time for cooking

Having control over your food, and what goes in it, is important for a healthy lifestyle. Compared to ordering in, or going to a restaurant, home cooked meals tend to be more nutritious. For this reason, many people trying to achieve a healthy weight meal prep so they can ensure their choices are as healthy as possible.

6. Move more

Balancing work, family and other daily priorities is tough enough, let alone having to make time for exercise. However, moving more isn’t all about gym sessions and spending hours doing cardio. Simply moving around more is important for physical health and can help increase NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis)⁸. This encompasses all the physical movement we carry out in the day, that isn’t planned exercise or sport, and can help you burn more calories and generally improve health.
Simple changes like taking the stairs more, walking to work, walking rather than using the car for every journey, can all add up throughout the day—and help you work towards the best daily routine for healthy life.

7. Eat more fruits & vegetables

Forming healthy habits is all about making the right changes. A large part of this will involve what you eat. Most of us simply don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables, but they should form around a third of what we eat⁹.

Aim for at least 5 portions a day, and fill around half your plate with vegetables. If you can simply swap one unhealthier, processed snack (like chocolate bars or biscuits) with a whole food that gives you energy each day, you’ll be well on your way to living a healthier life. This could be a banana, for example, a filling fruit and a great source of potassium (among other nutrients).

8. Reduce screen time

Try to cut down the amount of time you spend on your phone, or other screens, each day. Even if it’s only half an hour a day, this small change will add up over time.

Constant exposure to blue light, especially at night, can suppress your body’s production of melatonin and throw your body clock out of sync¹⁰. This can not only negatively affect sleep, but increase stress levels and worsen mood. Reducing screen time will help you sleep, and is a key daily healthy habit for the modern world!

9. Improve your posture

Having bad posture can cause aches, muscle pain and stress on your ligaments¹¹. So, try sitting up straight more, and pay more attention to your posture so you can correct it. Keeping your shoulders back and your head high can also help to increase your confidence!

10. Go to bed half an hour earlier

As mentioned, many of us don’t get enough sleep. Going to bed earlier will help you wake up earlier, and form a healthy sleep schedule. These changes won’t happen ‘overnight’, but the effort you make every day will eventually help form a healthy habit.

11. Eat a healthy breakfast

For many of us, overeating later in the day, or at night, is a common habit and one we’re looking to break. Eating a healthy breakfast can help this, as well as giving you more energy throughout the day.

You might think you hate breakfast, so integrating new ideas into your daily health habits new things. Some ideas include:

• Scrambled eggs with wholemeal toast
• Greek yoghurt topped with berries and nuts
• Smoked salmon and low-fat cream-cheese bagel
• Green or berry smoothie
• Porridge with semi-skimmed milk, apple and cinnamon¹²

12. Eat healthier snacks

Snacks can be integral not only to weight loss, but maintenance also. Letting yourself get too hungry can lead you to overeat later on. Instead of high-sugar, high-fat options, go for whole food snacks loaded with protein and nutrients. Ideas include:

• Nuts and seeds
• Carrots and hummus
• Apple and peanut butter
• Dark chocolate
• Chia pudding
• Hard boiled eggs¹³

Of course, you don’t have to give up your favourite sweet treats completely; in fact you shouldn’t, everything in moderation is key. But, each day, try to add at least one healthy snack into your diet, in place of something unhealthier.

13. Be more mindful

Try to be more mindful in your day to day life, for example:

• Sit down to eat, with no distractions
• Listen to hunger cues
• Stop eating when you feel full
• Pay attention to your stress levels
• Remember, food can relieve stress also!
• Know when to disconnect – social media can be damaging to your mental wellbeing¹⁴

14. Take time to relax

Everyone needs a break sometimes, you don’t need to be ‘on the go’ all the time, every minute of every day. You need to take some time to relax and unwind. Whether that’s a bath, meditation or reading a book, relaxing can help manage stress levels and is an important healthy habit to do everyday.

15. Stretch

Stretching on a regular basis can have many health benefits, including:

• Decreasing back pain
• Preventing injury
• Improving posture
• Decreasing muscle soreness
• Improving range of motion¹⁵

Start forming healthy daily habits today!

Forming new habits isn’t always easy, so start small, and don’t be too hard on yourself. You don’t have to do everything at once, start with one or two habits; small changes will soon add up. Ensure you enjoy what you’re doing, as that will increase your chances of sticking to it. Remember that things take time, but stick with it, and you should start reaping the benefits.