Wellness is an important factor in life. The word “busy” is often considered a badge of honor worn by anyone who consider themselves hard-working adults, trying to get their lives together. Have a job that provides you food and shelter and pays the bills is something to be proud of but it should not be the only thing that you should be busy with. While our job takes up most of our time in our every day lives, we should not neglect the other aspects of our lives that play a major role in making our life experience all the more enjoyable. Learn ways on how to improve your wellness.
Remember that too much of a good thing is bad so here are 7 simple things that you can incorporate into your daily or weekly routine to improve your overall wellness.
1. Make a Plan
You can’t predict how your day will go but you can plan how you want it to be. Planning ahead allows you to manage your time and define your priorities that way you can take care of the important things first and you can free up time to do other things that you didn’t have time to do before. Your daily plan should help keep you focused all day and give you that feeling of satisfaction at the end of the day when you’ve checked off all your priorities for the day.
Daily planning is a good habit and if you get into this daily routine, you might even be encouraged to do it for longer time periods. Just make sure to follow the S.M.A.R.T. Goals strategy to ensure that your plans are realistic and attainable. However, before you write down concrete plans, you might want to engage your imagination and create a vision board to remind you of your long-term goals daily.
2. Eat Healthy and On Time
One of the things you should plan for is what to eat and when to eat. Most of us are too busy to get up from our office chairs to take our lunch breaks. This can also be due to poor planning of your tasks for the day which results in poor time management.
For those of us who don’t know what tasks are to be thrown at us once we get to work, eating should still be on your agenda. Don’t munch while at your desk but try to finish as much work as you can, take a break to eat and go back to the task at hand.
Believe it or not, distracting yourself from work for a short time can be helpful. It not only re-energizes you, it also refreshes your mental capacity to stay focused so you can focus better after taking a short break.
Similarly, while eating, stay focused on the task of eating too. Savor the smell and taste of the food, chew slowly and sit at a table away from your desk while doing so.
3. Stay Hydrated and Keep Moving
Exercise should be a part of our daily routine but if you don’t have that much time yet, then make the best of the time you have at work. One of the ways to keep ourselves physically healthy and in a healthy state of mind is to stay hydrated and to be constantly moving throughout our day. As most of us need to sit in an office chair several hours a day, we often forget to hydrate ourselves or get up and stretch our muscles.
Keep a water bottle at your desk and make it a goal to regularly drink from it at least every hour until you get your 8 glasses or more quota for the day. You will find yourself needing to pee every now and then at first but take it as an opportunity to stretch your legs and arms and to rest your eyes from staring at the computer. If you have time, take a short walk outside.
Taking short breaks in between tasks can help you be more focused and productive; just don’t get distracted by other things during your break. Also, be sure to refill your water bottle before you get back to your office desk.
Another way to keep moving at home is to do the chores. Don’t let work pile up and exhaust yourself tackling them over the weekend. Do them in small doses each day so you have time to rest up and actually enjoy your day off. The important thing is to remain healthy by slowly incorporating and observing the basic rules to maintain your physical health.
4. Keep In Touch With Your Important People
Busy people seldom have time to meet up with friends or eat a meal together with their families. Even so, we should make time for them in our daily lives. Just saying hello and keeping ourselves informed of what’s happening in each other’s lives is a simple way to strengthen bonds and maintain relationships.
This can be done with a simple text message, a short call or even a heart felt email to share some good news or a funny anecdote. You can do any of these at any time during the day. There are so many ways to send a message to the people you value the most; so don’t neglect this little habit to remind people how much you care and value them.
To maintain your relationships, you must also be honest with yourself and with other people. If you need to apologize, do it as soon as you can; don’t prolong your agony and theirs’. Also, be fair in dealing with others. Don’t hog all the blessings to yourself and learn to share fairly as well.
5. Stay In Touch With Your Inner Self
While eating healthy and on time, keeping yourself hydrated and constantly moving through the day are forms of self-care; keeping in touch with your inner self is the most important self-care routine that most of us neglect.
Staying in touch with your inner self helps you identify your body’s needs so you can give yourself physical care such as a self massage or a warm bath. It also helps you identify what emotions you are experiencing at the moment and how to alleviate them or enhance them.
One of the best ways to get in touch with your inner self is to meditate or do breathing exercises. There are many ways you can start to do this. You can also indulge your inner child by having fun once in a while such as dancing or singing to a lively song while doing some chores or playing games with other people.
You can even make work more fun this way by approaching it like a game. Win by crossing off more than half of your tasks on your To Do list. You can even set up a reward for winning the game; you set the the rules.
Another aspect of your life that could use a game approach is your finances. Try out this money jar budgeting system and see if you can get your bank account or wallet to come out as the winner at the end of the month.
6. Keep Improving Yourself
One sure fire way to stop yourself from comparing yourself to others and to improve your confidence level is to keep yourself busy with the task of self-improvement. How to do this? You just need to keep on learning.
Learn a new skill to improve your job performance if you want to advance in your career. Find out how the experts did it If you want to start a business. Join a dance class or learn from a personal trainer. If you want to improve your physical fitness, . If you want to indulge your creative side, learn how to play an instrument, learn how to draw or learn calligraphy.
As long as you have the desire to improve, then you should include learning as part of your daily routine. Take an hour or two of your day to learn something new. If you can’t take a physical class, learn online or read books. Keep your mind stimulated with new information so you keep improving yourself instead of dwelling on the things you wish you could do but you have no talent for. Remember that knowledge is power and innate talent can only be maximized with regular practice.
7. Keep a Gratitude Journal
One of the simplest ways to end your day on a positive note is to write down the things that you are grateful for that day. You have planned your day, you have accomplished much and you want to thank the Universe, God or the Divine Source for all the blessings you received for the day, in whatever form they came.
Most people start out by writing down at least 3-5 things but if you’re the prolific writer, then a whole essay is also okay. The point of this exercise is to recognize the positive things that made up your day instead of the negative ones. As you review your day, you will also be able to see what things make you happy or sad or angry. You can analyze these situations and get a better understanding of yourself this way too.
Remember, we shouldn’t be too busy to the point of neglecting the other areas of our lives as they play a major role in determining whether our life experiences turn out positive or negative. So stay focused and keep moving forward.
In the meantime, you can check out what is your current level of wellness so you have a clear idea of which aspect of your wellness to put more focus and effort on.
Original Photo by Anthony Fomin on Unsplash.