Just 24% of American adults meet the physical activity guidelines for aerobic and muscle-strengthening activity.

Getting into an engaging workout routine takes time and a lot of effort. Not many people can start exercising and stick to it without regular setbacks, making it a daunting process. If you’re going to drive results and see positive changes, you need to create healthy lifestyle habits that turn into a healthy routine.

In today’s post, we’ll tell you 4 of the best habits to adopt when you’re starting to work out. Sticking to a workout plan takes dedication, but you can gradually develop greater dedication by creating a habitual mindset. Keep reading and develop the habits you need to enjoy a healthier lifestyle in 2024.

Habit Stacking Explained

Whenever you begin examining your daily habits, you’ll see that you’ve dug into certain ways of going about your day for no particular reason. You do things a particular way just because you’ve always done it that way. This is just our brains making sense of the world.

Habits can negatively impact your physical and mental health, but you can also use them to your advantage to create a healthier lifestyle. One of the ways to do this is with habit stacking.

Habit stacking involves taking something you already do habitually and attaching another habit to it. A common example is to start flossing after you brush your teeth. Eventually, this will go from habit stacking to a daily oral health routine.

Any of the healthy habits we’re about to discuss can be stacked together so that they’re easier to integrate into your routine.

1. Meditate Regularly

Everyone knows how important our physical health is. If you’ve just begun exercising as an adult, you’re probably already noticing how much better you feel after a run or trip to the gym. What’s becoming clearer to more people, however, is the importance of mental health.

Our mental and physical health are intertwined. Exercising is proven to reduce symptoms of anxiety and stress while releasing endorphins that give you a jolt of positive energy. Cultivating good mental health, in turn, makes it easier to get into a workout routine.

One of the ways to boost your mental health is to practice meditation and mindfulness. Spending just 15-20 minutes per day sitting in meditation can help a great deal with anxiety, stress, and depression, among other issues.

Habit-stacking meditation practice is easy. Your body always feels at its best after a good workout, so you can tack on a quick meditation practice after a run or trip to the gym. Feeling good emotionally, as well as physically, will incentivize you to stick to your workout routine.

2. Create Better Sleep Habits

Sleep is so important to our overall health, but just 1 in 3 American adults gets the required 7-9 hours of sleep per night. When you do get enough sleep, you feel more energetic and ready to tackle your workout routine. 

When you’re asleep, your body also recovers from whatever you did during the day. If you get enough, your body will feel ready to go the next day, making it easier to stick to a daily workout regimen. When you’re sleep-deprived, your body will be more inflamed and the mental hurdle to working out will be greater.

Creating better sleep habits comes down to routine as well. One of the surefire ways to improve your sleep is to go to bed at the same time every night. Temper your caffeine intake throughout the day and avoid big meals close to your bedtime.

The other way to promote sleep is to create a more sleep-inducing atmosphere. Keep your smartphone and other electronic devices in different rooms to avoid residual light that could disrupt your sleep.

3. Enjoy a Better Diet with Mindful Eating

A good diet is one of the most impactful healthy lifestyle habits to adopt. If you eat nutrient-rich foods, not only will your body feel good and ready to work out, but you’ll enjoy all of the lasting health benefits good food provides.

Creating a balanced diet with plenty of vegetables, fruits, nuts, healthy fats, natural enzymes, and omega-3 fatty acids will prepare you for your workout. Eating an abundance of these nutrients will give you more energy to work out and help fight inflammation during workout recovery.

Most people don’t pay attention when they eat, which causes them to eat too much. By practicing mindful eating, you take more time and pay close mind to each bite. Listening to your body’s signals will create a healthier relationship with the food you eat.

4. Spend Time Outdoors

You should always make time to exercise outdoors a few times per week. As a society, we spend around 90% of our time indoors, including when we work out, which deprives us of a variety of benefits that being outside provides.

On a base level, we don’t get things like vitamin D and we’re exposed to contaminants when we’re always indoors. There have been numerous studies over the years devoted to showing the many health benefits of spending time outside, however.

Time spent in nature can reduce stress and lower blood pressure. It also improves lung function and heart health, due to the natural air purification functions of trees and shrubs. From a mental health perspective, walking on a wooded path can reduce cognitive decline and boost positivity.

You can perform a variety of exercises outdoors that can strengthen your workout routine. From going on long outdoor runs to playing sports, you can do any activity you do in the gym outside. Many cities have even incorporated outdoor workout equipment into their parks and outdoor spaces.

Choosing the Best Habits to Adopt

These are just a few of the best habits to adopt for a healthier lifestyle. A workout plan is only effective when you can stick to it, so all of the habits around your exercises must make you feel good. The better you feel, the easier it is to stick to a workout routine.

Are you ready to get started on the path to a healthier you? Click here to learn more about taking control of your health!

 

“Today is a great day to get into a car crash,” said no one ever.

Yet more than three million people in the U.S. are injured in motor vehicle accidents every year. What’s more, statistics show that you’ll be in an auto accident an average of three times over your lifetime. Regardless of whether that accident is a low-speed fender-bender or a high-velocity crash, good chiropractic care is critical to the spine’s long-term health in the aftermath of a car wreck.

While it’s always a good idea to get a thorough check by a medical doctor for broken bones or signs of concussion—even after a seemingly minor rear-ending—a chiropractic doctor can treat the misalignment of the musculoskeletal system in the way a physician can’t. A chiropractor can help the spine’s long-term health without masking symptoms using highly addictive pain medications and/or surgery.

Here are three reasons why a chiropractor should be one of the first people you call after a car accident:

 

Reason #1: Prevents scar tissue and long-term spine issues.

Think of your spine as a rubber band. You can stretch a rubber band, but it eventually loses its elasticity. Each time your body is subject to any kind of impact –- a car accident, a bumpy roller-coaster ride, a tackle during a flag-football game —  that elastic is stretched even more. Eventually, those micro-traumas (or more serious traumas, in the case of a car accident) can cause long-term issues if left untreated.

It doesn’t take much impact to throw spinal alignment out of whack. Run-of-the-mill x-rays can show a lot, but they don’t show the micro-tears that can happen as a result of an accident — even ones that happen at school-zone speed. A chiropractor can make adjustments to bring the spine back into alignment, releasing natural anti-inflammatory properties to reduce pain and aid in a speedy recovery. Adjustments also help by reducing the forming and even the breakdown of scar tissue that leads to stiff, achy joints and eventual arthritis.

 

Reason #2: Restores mobility.

Injuries to the neck and back can wreak havoc on the body’s range of motion. Inflamed muscles and joints with built-up or forming scar tissue can make it difficult to turn your head, tie your shoes, or do many of the things you love to do. Mobilization of the spine through frequent adjustments can not only help you reach that itch in the center of your back, it also helps you feel better faster.

 

Reason #3: Provides short-term and long-term relief.

When seeking chiropractic care after an accident, most patients report feeling some immediate relief, thus eliminating the need for medications or surgeries. Add that to the benefit of increased mobility and you have a patient who develops far fewer long-term issues than those who don’t receive chiropractic care. And those who can continue to work and move freely are proven to recover faster and more wholly than those who can’t seem to rouse themselves out of bed.

Spinal adjustments after an accident not only keeps minor injuries from becoming major, they restore range of motion and naturally reduce pain and stiffness. If you’ve been in an accident, the sooner you consult a chiropractor, the better. Dr. Damron and his team at Damron Chiropractic & Wellness are here to help. They can assess your injuries, develop a  plan of treatment and put you back on the road to living a pain free and well-adjusted life.

If you’ve been involved in a car accident, schedule an appointment with Dr. Damron today. Even if it seemed like a minor fender-bender, it can have long-term effects on how you feel every day. Make your appointment today.