Improving your health isn’t easy. It takes time, hard work, and dedication.
Just kidding! We really had you going, didn’t we?
Actually, there are tons of ways to improve your health that are totally easy. Unfortunately, the myth that “being healthy is difficult” leads a lot of people to give up on being healthy altogether.
Well, we’re here to fix that. Below are 7 health-boosting life hacks that require very little effort on your part. Add these way-too-easy life hacks to your daily routine.
1. Drink Lemon Water First Thing in the Morning
Before you eat breakfast, before you even prepare your morning coffee, drink a cool glass of fresh lemon water. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that a daily dose of lemon water is loaded with benefits.
For one thing, your morning coffee can dehydrate you. Lemon water, on the other hand, will start your day right with a healthy helping of hydration.
Lemon is also high in vitamin C, which supports a strong immune system. And it’s said to improve your skin, digestion, and kidney health. It may even assist you in losing weight.
2. Add 10 Minutes of Exercise to Your Daily Routine
Don’t tell us you don’t have time to exercise. You can spare just 10 minutes a day to fit in a short but rigorous workout.
Therefore, you also can’t tell us that workouts are too strenuous. It’s just ten minutes, once a day. You can give something your very best effort if it’s only for ten minutes, right?
Now here’s the good news: it’s worth it. 10 minutes a day is 70 minutes a week, 300 minutes a month. Besides, any amount of exercise is healthier than no exercise.
And that’s the goal, here: health. That’s also good news.
Most of us, at some point in time, have given up on exercise altogether after a failed attempt at some pipe-dream fitness goal, like “washboard abs.” The sad truth is, these goals actually are unattainable for most people, except those who are abnormally committed to them.
“Better health,” on the other hand, is completely attainable. It’s vague, easy, and only takes ten minutes a day.
3. Do Brainless Exercises
Here’s a fun alternative for adding exercise to your routine. Collect for yourself a list of what we like to call “brainless exercises.”
There is an astoundingly enormous variety of exercises you can do that require almost no attention whatsoever. The most notable examples are exercise bike/treadmill workouts.
The point is, you can plop these workout machines in front of your TV and exercise all day while binge-watching The Mandalorian. In fact, you can exercise so gently that you won’t even realize you’re doing it (especially on an exercise bike since you’re sitting down).
You can typically find used exercise equipment in good condition for very cheap. Aside from this, you can do wrist curls, abdominal holds, or even sit on an exercise ball instead of the couch. (Balancing on the ball works out your core.)
Spending 0 conscious minutes on exercise is even easier than an intense, 10-minute workout.
4. Take Cold Showers
Yes, we know. The very idea of taking cold showers makes most of us cringe.
Typically, we look forward to bathing as a relaxing, comfortable experience. Cold showers, on the other hand, are not about enjoyment. But they are known to provide a variety of benefits.
When that cold water hits your skin (yes, we mean cold, not lukewarm), it shocks your body and jolts you awake. This can increase your alertness throughout the day and get your heart pumping hard, improving circulation. It may also increase your energy level, improve your mood, and prevent depression.
It’s also believed to reduce muscle soreness and help you recover quickly after a hard (10-minute) workout. Lastly, it may also boost your immune system, relieve itchy skin, and help you lose weight.
5. Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is another advantageous way of shocking your various bodily systems into a more awakened state. All of us already fast while we sleep. Our bodies accept this normal part of our daily routine and continue working as usual.
But when you fast for longer than normal, your body is forced to do things differently to help you survive. One such change is that your body holds tight to any important nutrients still in you.
But it lets go of all the toxins and other waste it doesn’t need, flushing them out of your body. Thus, intermittent fasting is a quick and effective way to detoxify.
It will also cause you to shed a little weight. Without food, your body must consume fat and other tissues for energy.
Your body also allocates more energy toward keeping you alive during fasting by repairing and preserving your cells. This actually slows down the aging process.
How to Do It
If you’re in decent health, it’s safe to go a whole 24 hours without food. But a fast of this intensity can be difficult for beginners. Also, it’s possible to still benefit from a shorter, easier fast.
For example, try a 16-hour fast that includes your sleep period. Have your dinner and stop eating at 7. Then, sleep in late, and have breakfast at 11 in the morning.
While fasting from food, it’s very important that you still stay hydrated. This keeps your body working and greatly multiplies the benefits of the fast, like flushing out toxins.
Black coffee and tea are okay, too, because they have no calories. But such beverages will dehydrate you, so you must drink more water to compensate.
6. Become a Vitamin Connoisseur
Next, make sure you reach your daily value of vitamins. Even better, research certain types of vitamins that can help you with specific issues.
Vitamins have been studied for a long time. So now, there are vitamin blends that are purposely formulated to achieve certain results.
To start with, there are men’s vitamins, women’s vitamins, and kid’s vitamins. There are vitamins to help with joint function and even gummy hair vitamins for hair health. Whatever physical issue you need to improve, you can probably find a vitamin product for that.
Disclaimer
We are definitely not telling you to gobble down vitamins like candy. There are some types of vitamins you can overdose on. Excessive amounts of these vitamins can cause heart problems, liver damage, and even death.
Be sure to clear your planned vitamin increases with your doctor. And, if you’re taking more than one vitamin blend, check the labels. If the different blends include some of the same vitamins, you could be taking too many doses per day.
7. Plan (and Prepare) Your Meals
Two of the biggest causes of unhealthy eating habits are poor planning and laziness. We know it’s tempting to spend your lunch break at the fast-food restaurant next door to your workplace. It’s easy, quick, and takes no thought or effort from you at all.
But, surely, you know that the majority of fast food items are about the worst thing you can put in your body. And, to be completely honest, it’s really not that hard to make and bring a simple, healthy lunch to work.
This is especially true once you make it your routine. You’ll simply do it out of habit with very little effort.
Bag a Healthy Lunch
Plan a balanced, healthy meal (sandwich, apple, water), and then stuff it in a bag. Or, make smoothies (with plenty of protein, fruits, and veggies) for several days and store them in the fridge/freezer.
And here’s the best part: you can have as much tasty variety as you want. To clarify, getting groceries for the week costs way less than getting fast food every day. So go ahead and spoil yourself with lots of healthy meal plans, spending what you might have spent on fast food.
To make sure you don’t get bored of turkey sandwiches, get roast beef and ham, too, plus all the toppings. You can keep extra lunchmeats in the freezer so they last longer.
Prepare Dinners, Too
Also, perhaps it’s a long drive home from work. You feel way too tired to cook, so you look for the most appetizing takeout meal available on the way home. And, usually, the tastiest is also the least healthy.
But there’s a way you can avoid cooking after work without resorting to fast food. You can plan and prepare your dinners ahead of time, the same as with your lunches.
Have a hearty, healthy meal prepped beforehand, ready to put in the oven the second you get home. Or, throw it all in the crockpot before you leave for work. Then, you do get to enjoy a delicious, prepared meal without any post-workday effort.
To help with convenience, you can make easy casseroles with ingredients that are already prepared, like pre-sliced vegetables. You can even prepare several batches of dinner on your day off and freeze them.
Then, you’re set for the week. Just thaw the day before, cook, and serve.
Use These Hacks and Start Improving Your Health
Using the guidance above, improving your health is a snap. Add these little changes to your daily routine to start living healthier.
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