Habits Daily

[Eddie Boyum]

Herewe're talking about small adjustments that benefit every human. With these minor modifications to your daily routine, you can start working toward better health without having to give up a ton of time, money or enjoyment.

Going without sleep is a lot like expecting your phone to run all day on a 12% battery. Your body needs time to not just rest and recharge, but also to do important work, like learning new things and solidifying memories.

Adults should get at least 7 hours of shut-eye each night. If this is a challenge for you, turn to your circadian rhythm. This is your body's natural process that should help you fall asleep, stay asleep and wake up feeling refreshed.

Any exercise helps your mental health, and that includes walking. If you want to shift your daily habits to combat symptoms of depression or anxiety or to boost your mental wellness in general, make it a point to lace up your walking shoes each day.

Reading also does a lot for your brain, like strengthening connections. That study showed that diving into a book has both short- and long-term benefits for your brain health. So, make reading one of your daily habits to maintain the boost. When you do, you'll also be actively working to fight cognitive decline as you age.

Another stress reducer and mental health booster, meditation gives you a way to tune into the present moment. In our busy, hyperconnected world, this can go a long way toward not just keeping yourself healthy, but also protecting your happiness.

Starting meditation could be as simple as doing a little reading on it and setting a timer for, say, 5 minutes each day. There are also plenty of good apps to guide you. You can even incorporate a meditative mindset into your regular activities, such as mindful eating.

So let's be specific: Work to get more plants onto your plate. A plant-supported diet helps you maintain healthy cholesterol and blood pressure levels and reduces your risk for some chronic conditions. Plants are full of the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients we need to keep our bodies working optimally.

Try to incorporate more fruit, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes into your daily meals. It might be helpful to keep a produce bowl on your kitchen counter so you can grab things as a quick snack, too.

This is one of those areas where it's easy to see how healthy habits help. Since we're mostly water, it makes sense that we would need to continually replenish our body's supply. Getting enough water helps your body flush waste and keeps your joints lubricated while acting as a shock absorber for your spine and helping your digestive processes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that men have two drinks or fewer each day, while women stick to a max of one drink per day. To help yourself out here, figure out a nonalcoholic beverage you like a lot. Soda water, bitters and a lime can scratch the cocktail itch without adding another alcoholic drink to your daily total.

If you already have a group of friends or family, let this be a reminder to hit them up. Call someone you haven't talked to in a while or invite a few people over for a game or movie night. Check how you feel afterward. Better? We thought so.

You could try going off social media apps for a while and see how you feel. If you want to incorporate this into your healthy daily habits, carve out time each day when you're screen-free. For better sleep, maybe make that the last hour before bed.

Your healthy habits can also be fun and rewarding. What have you always wanted to do? Your answer to that question might point you toward a new hobby to explore in 2024. Getting into it can help you reduce stress and boost mental well-being.

Ultimately, you have a lot of options for healthy daily habits you could incorporate into your lifestyle. You can pick one or two, or go big and go for the full dozen. Either way, you'll be moving toward a healthier, happier you.

Your attitude determines your altitude. "Succesful people don't just drift off to the top. Getting there requires focused action, personal discipline and lots of energy every day to make things happen," says American author and entrepreneur Jack Canfield. And he couldn't be more accurate.

Developing these habits require determination, oodles of patience and constant effort. Maybe it'll take just a few weeks or maybe more than a year, it doesn't matter how long it takes to build the habit as long as you don't give up.

Dan Buettner is a National Geographic Fellow who researches Blue Zones, regions of the world where people tend to live longer. His research has looked at what habits and lifestyles contribute to longevity. In this bonus episode, he shares those habits with producer Fiona Geiran, and they discuss how Dan has incorporated many of them into his daily routine.

This bonus episode is normally something we share only with our TED Radio Hour+ supporters, but we're making this one available to everyone. To get access to all of our bonus content, listen to the show sponsor-free and support our work at NPR, sign up for TED Radio Hour+ at plus.npr.org/ted

Wood calls attention to the neurology of habits, and how they have a recognizable neural signature. When you are learning a response you engage your associative basal ganglia, which involves the prefrontal cortex and supports working memory so you can make decisions. As you repeat the behavior in the same context, the information is reorganized in your brain. It shifts to the sensory motor loop that supports representations of cue response associations, and no longer retains information on the goal or outcome. This shift from goal directed to context cue response helps to explain why our habits are rigid behaviors.

There is a dual mind at play, Wood explains. When our intentional mind is engaged, we act in ways that meet an outcome we desire and typically we're aware of our intentions. Intentions can change quickly because we can make conscious decisions about what we want to do in the future that may be different from the past. However, when the habitual mind is engaged, our habits function largely outside of awareness. We can't easily articulate how we do our habits or why we do them, and they change slowly through repeated experience. "Our minds don't always integrate in the best way possible. Even when you know the right answer, you can't make yourself change the habitual behavior," Wood says.

Public service announcements, educational programs, community workshops, and weight-loss programs are all geared toward improving your day-to-day habits. But are they really effective? These standard interventions are very successful at increasing motivation and desire. You will almost always leave feeling like you can change and that you want to change. The programs give you knowledge and goal-setting strategies for implementation, but these programs only address the intentional mind.

In a study on the "Take 5" program, 35 percent of people polled came away believing they should eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day. Looking at that result, it appears that the national program was effective at teaching people that it's important to have 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. But the data changes when you ask what people are actually eating. Only 11 percent of people reported that they met this goal. The program changed people's intentions, but it did not overrule habitual behavior.

According to Wood, there are three main principles to consider when effectively changing habitual behavior. First, you must derail existing habits and create a window of opportunity to act on new intentions. Someone who moves to a new city or changes jobs has the perfect scenario to disrupt old cues and create new habits. When the cues for existing habits are removed, it's easier to form a new behavior. If you can't alter your entire environment by switching cities-- make small changes. For instance, if weight-loss or healthy eating is your goal, try moving unhealthy foods to a top shelf out of reach, or to the back of the freezer instead of in front.

The second principle is remembering that repetition is key. Studies have shown it can take anywhere from 15 days to 254 days to truly form a new habit. "There's no easy formula for how long it takes," Wood says. Lastly, there must be stable context cues available in order to trigger a new pattern. "It's easier to maintain the behavior if it's repeated in a specific context," Wood emphasizes. Flossing after you brush your teeth allows the act of brushing to be the cue to remember to floss. Reversing the two behaviors is not as successful at creating a new flossing habit. Having an initial cue is a crucial component.

Adopting new, healthier habits may protect you from serious health problems like obesity and diabetes. New habits, like healthy eating and regular physical activity, may also help you manage your weight and have more energy. After a while, if you stick with these changes, they may become part of your daily routine.

The information below outlines four stages you may go through when changing your health habits or behavior. You will also find tips to help you improve your eating, physical activity habits, and overall health. The four stages of changing a health behavior are

Making the leap from thinking about change to taking action can be hard and may take time. Asking yourself about the pros (benefits) and cons (things that get in the way) of changing your habits may be helpful. How would life be better if you made some changes?

Think about how the benefits of healthy eating or regular physical activity might relate to your overall health. For example, suppose your blood glucose, also called blood sugar, is a bit high and you have a parent, brother, or sister who has type 2 diabetes. This means you also may develop type 2 diabetes. You may find that it is easier to be physically active and eat healthy knowing that it may help control blood glucose and protect you from a serious disease.

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