Start Living a Healthier and Happier Life Today: Here's How!

An unhealthy lifestyle also puts us at risk of contracting lifestyle-induced diseases like diabetes, high cholesterol, sleep disorders, obesity, blood pressure, mental and emotional disorders, stress, and depression.

It can also lead to loss of concentration and low immunity. These health problems not only affect our ability to lead a happy life, rise up the career ladder, and prevent us from enjoying various activities but also give rise to recurring financial expenses.

On the other hand, a healthy lifestyle gives you physical, mental, and emotional well-being. It equips you to better deal with life's ups and downs. And it allows you to live life to the fullest.

If you want to enjoy everything that life has to offer, then it is necessary to build a healthy routine and incorporate healthy habits into your lifestyle. While it might seem daunting initially, following healthy habits and lifestyle is not that difficult! All you need to do is put your heart and mind into it and see your life turn around for the better.

To help you do just that, we’ve put together a starting list of habits that you need to build into your daily routine to lead a happy and healthy life.

Start your day early. Try to get up with the sunrise or at least by 7 - 7.30 in the morning. This will give you time to start your day in peace and get ready for work or help your family get ready for their day without unnecessary rush and stress.

Rising early also allows you to have some 'me time' before the chaos of the day starts. It gives you time to have a healthy breakfast and exercise.

Breakfast is the main meal of the day. A good breakfast helps your brain function properly, it keeps the body equipped with the energy required to run around, it helps in managing weight, and it helps in preventing type 2 diabetes.

So, start having breakfast that’s rich in fiber and nutrients to get an active and healthy start to your day.

To keep away health issues, you should ideally exercise 45 minutes daily, or at least 3 - 4 times a week. Exercising keeps the body agile, it works the muscles, and builds bone strength, helps keep the mind active, and burns fat.

If you can’t follow a great exercise routine, start with brisk walking for 45 minutes to an hour every day, preferably in the morning. Start taking the stairs instead of the elevator.

Learn to meditate and practice yoga. Yoga asanas help build the body’s strength, mental focus, and deal with various health issues. To get better results, try to include Pranayam in your exercise routine, or you can do it separately in the morning or at night before bed.

Pranayam helps improve blood circulation, calm the mind, improve concentration, and mitigate the risk of other health issues.

In this fast food era, it is very difficult to maintain healthy eating habits. But if you want to lead a healthy life, you need to make changes in your food choices.

You need to avoid junk food and choose fresh fruits and vegetables instead and home-cooked food over eating out. A slight change in your eating habits will go a long way in making a healthy you.

Food is called fuel for the body for a reason. It helps provide the body and the mind with the requisite energy to function at optimum levels. To do so, you require at least three complete meals daily — breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Try to fix a schedule for these three meals and have them every day at a fixed time. We have already talked about how important breakfast is. Lunch and dinner are equally important.

To maintain good health, make lunch the second largest meal of the day. Your dinner should be the smallest meal of the day, and you should have it by 7 – 8 in the evening. This will help you sleep better and manage your weight.

Being thankful or practicing gratitude brings peace and happiness. Try to say thank you for all the good things that happened to you during the day or all the things and people you are happy to have in your life.

Being grateful empowers the law of attraction to give you more of all the good things in life and everything you are grateful for.

In times of stress, it also makes you aware that life is not all bad and that there are good things and people in your life. It gives you the strength and power to hang in there and work on overcoming your difficulties.

You can practice being thankful in the form of prayer when you get up in the morning or at night before bed. Alternatively, you can also maintain a gratitude diary to note everything you are thankful for.

Ego is important. It pushes us to create an identity for ourselves and improve our self-worth. However, too much is bad, and the ego ruins relationships.

It often creates insecurities and fears that have no place in your life. It leads to unnecessary stress. This is why it is necessary to control egoistic tendencies that may arise from time to time.

You can work on controlling your ego by practicing humility and being humble.

Kindness is the antidote to a lot of negative experiences in life. To lead a happy and healthy life, it is important to be kind to ourselves and others. So try to do one kind act every day.

You can start by complimenting someone’s sense of style, dress, attitude, or way of working.

You can also donate to charities, volunteer for a cause, or help needy people. These things give purpose to life. They make you feel good, which in turn positively impacts your health.

Like waking up early in the morning is important, going to bed early at night is also necessary for maintaining good health.

Going to bed early and getting a sound sleep of 7 – 8 hours a day can greatly impact your health.

It energizes you for the next day, it helps build body strength, improves mental focus, and it also aids in weight loss. Good sleep habits keep away stress too.

Hobbies are important. They provide a healthy diversion from your day-to-day routine, help you relax, and forget your worries for some time. They also add more dimension to your personality. So find something that you love to do.

It can be anything - reading, cooking, traveling, photography, writing, listening to music, singing, playing a musical instrument, dancing, embroidery, gardening, pottery, carpentry, etc.

Set aside some time for this activity and immerse yourself in it. Give it your complete attention and see the magic happen!