Something New For You

It’s still early enough in the year to call it new. It’s the beginning of spring – a perfect time for making changes in suit with the season. 2016 could just be a year we hope for something to fall into our lap - or it could be a time to be proactive about getting what we want. We don’t need to change the world or change all of our bad habits, but I would argue that changing just one or two things can enable us to build momentum towards making and keeping changing life habits.

The biggest change I’d recommend to everyone is to exercise. Exercise doesn’t need to be intense in order to bring in valuable benefits. Everyone knows that exercise its good for us, but aside from the obvious “it’s the healthy thing to do” it helps us more deeply than me may initially think. Aside from losing weight and helping us keep strong bodies – exercise can do a lot to set us up for a continuously healthy lifestyle.

Exercise helps us to eat better. Putting in an 30 minutes to 1 hour of exercise, 3-6 days a week will make one think twice about having that greasy pizza in the evening. While it’s not going to kill to have some comfort food every now and then, a body isn’t going to want junk to replenish itself. A body conditioned by exercising is a body that demands proper intake of food, vitamins, and minerals. The body will “crave” what you need because exercise creates a demand for it.

Exercise makes you feel better about yourself. Stress levels go down, productivity goes up, and it’s easier to have further energy for accomplishing more tasks. Efficiency in time due to a clear mind yields better results. More accomplishments can bring an increased overall sense of satisfaction.

It becomes easier to care less about soda and fast food when we are taking care of ourselves. We become more sensitive to the detrimental effects of junk when are bodies get used to taking in the good stuff. We often don’t want to waste the hard effort and time we put into exercising, so changing habits becomes less of a thought and more of an action when we keep up the habit.

In addition to exercise, I’ve exchanged drip coffee for green tea matcha. Green tea matcha is made of the ground up tealeaves. The potency makes the benefits of green tea more attainable in comparison to just steeping the leaves in hot water. This is actually drinking the ground leaves. It’s an incredible alternative to coffee if the caffeine seems a bit too intense. Additionally, the caffeine processes slower and longer than a cup of coffee. The drink leaves you energized but not over-stimulated.

There are a million ways to improve your life – the blessing and curse is that there is always something new that we can do to improve. There’s never a point in which we stop moving forward. What’s new for you?

For further related reading, please check out: Frustration Leads Forward.