Here’s to another upcoming and promising year! When making your list of New Year’s resolutions, put these seven ways to improve your mind and body in 2018 at the top of it:
Learn to Love Yourself
More often than not, we treat ourselves with self-criticism rather than compassion after making mistakes. Without the ability to show ourselves kindness, we can never validate our feelings or give ourselves value. Loving yourself is crucial because doing so will translate into every other area of your life: the relationships you settle for, your determination to accomplish goals, and the ability to grow and mature as a person.
Develop a Solid Morning and Night Routine
The quality of a productive day is rooted in a person’s morning and night routine. Routines create structure and discipline by following a schedule, thus encouraging you to upkeep daily habits and thoroughly accomplish goals. Furthermore, routines make you prioritize on finishing the most important obligations first, which subsequently, will give you more free time after the fact to tackle personal projects, spend time with yourself, and catch up with the people you love.
Care About Your Diet and Exercise
When we eat a clean diet and make an effort to exercise daily, we are respecting our bodies by nourishing and strengthening it. First, cut out sugar and processed food, they only increase your risk of developing diseases – such as obesity and osteoporosis – and an addiction to their artificial chemicals. Sugar addictions are especially killer since their impact on the brain compares to cocaine! Exercise, on the other hand, surges a constant influx of endorphins and dopamine throughout our bodies so that we feel in-tune with our emotions and maintain our mental clarity.
Develop Healthy Coping Mechanisms
Regardless of a stressful event’s caliber, facing it with healthy coping mechanisms is vital to the well-being of emotional health. Healthy coping mechanisms enable you to appropriately and safely approach stress by using rational methods and techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, or taking a step back from emotions – as opposed to unhealthy alternatives such as taking drugs or drinking alcohol. Additionally, over time, handling bad and unexpected experiences won’t feel so intimidating anymore, and you become more willing to overcome and confront them.
Eliminate Anything or Anyone in Your Life That Makes You Unhappy
Anything or anyone that makes you unhappy will only waste your time. If you have the ability to change a bad habit, walk away from a situation, or cut ties with a toxic person – there is no excuse as to why you should still allow them in your life. They contribute nothing to you but unnecessary stress and anxiety. By eliminating these factors or relationships, you will ultimately learn to only invest your precious time, energy, and attention into the most important things, like sustaining relationships with your genuine friends and improving yourself.
Practice Self-Awareness
One of the hardest and most uncomfortable things to do is face our insecurities and faults. No one likes to recognize or acknowledge their negative qualities, but doing so is necessary for both our well-being and potential to develop mental and emotional strength. Practicing daily self-awareness enables us to eventually understand every part of ourselves, from strengths and weaknesses to negative triggers and most importantly, our greatest sources of happiness and fulfillment.
Explore New Hobbies
Step out of your comfort zone and ignite your childlike sense of wonder by exploring new hobbies. Partaking in a new activity will stimulate your creativity, become an additional outlet to deal with stress, and challenge you to improve your skills. Also, new hobbies and passion prevent you from becoming stagnant and bored too!
Trevor is a freelance writer and recovering addict & alcoholic who’s been clean and sober for over 5 years. Since his recovery began he has enjoyed using his talent for words to help spread treatment resources and addiction awareness.
In his free time, you can find him working with recovering addicts or outside enjoying about any type of fitness activity imaginable.
