None of us wanted to believe what professionals, researchers, and countless other blogs have been relentlessly telling us. Living with headaches, anxiety, brain fog, feeling unorganized, all of these things could have concerning underlying issues but when your doctor says you just need to drink more water, this is probably true. You may like to believe that your state of mind and capabilities are stable and don't fluctuate with these simple pieces, but you'd be wrong. In order to perform our best, to stay on top of all the things, and to maintain a positive attitude, the first step is making sure your machine of a body is functioning with all of its basic needs met.
This means getting 6-8 or more glasses of water daily. This means getting at least 6-8 hours of sleep a night, or listening to your body to hear out what your body says you need. This means that eating quick meals aren't going to do the trick every day and you might have to do a little meal prepping. When you're deprived of hydration, the first thing to go is your mood. You may recognize feeling more irritable or anxious. When you're deprived of sleep, this is also true, your mood is already off to a bad start but you'll also experience some serious brain fog. Most people want to believe that caffeine can counteract a bad night's sleep and this might be the case every now and then. Though if this is your common practice, you'll actually experience long term effects of fatigue and feel perpetually tired. It will be an uphill battle to get back to homeostasis, if it isn't already. And being deprived of nutrition is a whole other mess. You can eat enough calories but still be malnourished if you're not getting the basic macro's, minerals, vitamins, etc.
But these are likely things you already knew. The problem is how to incorporate all of these pieces into day to day life. Much like previous blogs have pointed out on this page, changes are about making small efforts to the point that these actions become second nature, leaving them effortless. If you try to get all your water, sleep, and meal prep in every week, you might last a month but decide it's not worth it. The consequence would be feeling unsuccessful, being left with the internal message that you'll never get your life together. Start small. Start with choosing one area: drinking half your needed water, or going to bed 30 minutes earlier. Choose one meal a week as the meal you prep or try hard to mindfully incorporate healthy choices. Or, if you're in the middle range of success, as in you do fairly well with sleep/nutrition/water but still feel like you have a ways to go with discipline, check in with yourself to identify what's working well for you. What are the habits you've developed that have stuck with you and are like blinking or breathing? Which habits are you struggling with the most? Can you come up with a plan to choose an area to improve in for one week?
Take a moment to recognize that nothing here is pushing exercise. This is because without the above, exercise is pointless as a healthy habit! You'll still feel exhausted, foggy, and get headaches regularly. So don't forget to feed your brain and body with what it needs so you can live your life glass half full!
Follow up with your forum buddies to check in and see what special habit hacks everyone else has going for them!
Comments