How to Practice Healthy Habits

The U.S. spent close to $3 trillion on health care in 2012, according to the National Health Expenditure Account. This is over 18 percent of the gross domestic product, and the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, predicts it will grow to 25 percent by 2025. By 2082, the CBO says half of all money generated in the U.S. will be spent on health services.

But there is something that can be done. The American Medical Association reports that 75 percent of all health care costs are used to treat preventable chronic conditions. This makes striving for health a matter of personal and community responsibility.

Step 1

Adopt one new healthy habit at a time by breaking a major health goal into steps. For example, there are five parts to the process of creating a healthy body mass index, or BMI, for life -- a wise goal for the 72 percent of Americans who are overweight or obese: getting seven hours of sleep each night; calculating your target number of calories; investing those calories in healthy, nutrient-dense foods; walking 10,000 steps, or 5 miles, daily; and integrating more movement into all parts of your life. Each one of these is a separate habit, and it takes three to four weeks to make a new behavior a natural part of your life.

Step 2

Frame your goal in a positive way. Change is more effective when you are moving toward what you want rather than away from something you fear. For example, you're much more likely to brush and floss daily because you want to attain a beautiful smile than you are to do the same action to prevent gingivitis and the heart disease that it causes. In the same way, don't try to lose weight -- rather, aim to recreate a svelte, lean, body with a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9.

Step 3

Write down your goal in very specific terms. Imagine mountain climbing without knowing where the summit is; there would be no place to stop at the top and celebrate your achievement. The same is true of health goals. For instance, determine the weight you want to achieve and when, at a safe weight loss rate of one pound a week. Visual people might find that it helps to have a picture that symbolizes your healthy goal posted where it can be seen throughout the day.

Step 4

Immerse yourself in planning for goal achievement as a way of optimizing the results you'll attain. According to Dr. David Krueger, psychiatrist and professor of health coaching, the more you take control of designing your own strategies for reaching a goal, the more likely you are to succeed. Rather than joining a diet group, in which others have done the work of planning for you, research nutrition using sources you trust and create an eating plan that you can live with for life.

Step 5

Try using a coach. Professional health coaches work with clients to facilitate health goal achievement . Having a certified health coach provides you with a source of sound medical knowledge who will help you set attainable goals and serve as an accountability partner in a relaxed, nonclinical way. And that's good for the economy too. A study of 174,120 insured Americans, published in the September 23, 2010, issue of the "New England Journal of Medicine," concluded that health coaching provided a 10.1 percent reduction in annual hospital admissions. The participants, who used the services of a health coach in short, phone-based sessions, averaged 3.6 percent lower total annual health care costs than those who did not utilize this service, making engaging a coach a fiscally prudent health strategy.

8 Easy Mindful-Meditation Techniques

According to Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley University, the act of mindfulness can be defined as “maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and surrounding environment.” Consistently practicing mindfulness techniques can reduce the impact of stress on the brain, improve sleep quality, improve attention and even increase a sense of emotional and physical well-being. You don’t have to be a Zen master to cultivate this state of present-moment awareness -- in fact, it can be quite simple to get into that space. “Mindfulness practice does not mean that you try to act like a perfect person,” says Taso Papadakis, Dharma teacher at Golden Wind Zen Center. “There are many paths to access our inherent human wisdom and wake up into the essence of our own life.” If you’re looking for emotional and physical well-being, give one of these eight simple mindfulness techniques a try.

1. Hold Then Release Tension

Tightly squeeze your hands into a fist, count to 20 and let go. Take all your awareness to the sensations occurring in your hands. Continue to bring your attention to these sensations for as long as you can. Repeat several times and notice how focused your mind becomes and how calm you begin to feel. This can be done anywhere and anytime -- all you need is your mind and your hands.

2. Focus on a Single Object

Pick any object in your line of sight on which to focus your attention. Without judgment, sit and watch the object with curiosity. The easiest things to watch are animals, children, waves, trees and clouds. If you are not in nature, watching the flame of a candle can be a quick, hypnotic way to get lost in the present moment. Instead of using your mind to label, judge and categorize the object, simply bring your attention to it. Observe the object with a heightened curiosity of what it might do next.

3. Truly Listen to Music

Play a song, listening closely to the sounds that arise. Journal about where it takes you emotionally, how it makes you feel, the colors that come to mind and the memories that surface. Listening to music without words (i.e., instrumental) is helpful because it shuts off that part of the brain that is trying to decipher, identify and translate meaning. This in turn helps focus your mind only on the music instead of your grocery list, bills or to-do list.

4. Engage Your Sense of Smell

Smell something strong like coffee beans, lavender or garlic and pay attention to what it does to your nose. Where do you feel it? Does it bring up a memory? An emotion? This will help your mind focus intently on the scent. Taiwanese researchers found that using aromatherapy decreased feelings of stress in the body. Choose a scent that is pleasant: You don’t want the scent of rotten eggs to throw you into a bad mood!

5. Explore Old Tastes in a New Way

Use a cube of ice, piece of chocolate or a mint. Place the food in your mouth and focus entirely on how it feels and tastes on your tongue. How does it feel when you bite into it? What about when you chew it? Or swallow it? What sensations do you notice when it’s melting inside your mouth? You can also do this with your meals. Instead of sitting in front of the TV or talking at a dinner table, sit quietly and eat slowly with detailed attention paid to each bite. This will not only focus your mind, it will also affect how much you eat and how the food tastes. Implementing this kind of mindful eating can lower stress, increase satisfaction and even help you lose weight.

6. Focus on the Sound of Your Breath

Place cotton balls or earplugs in your ear (be careful not to stick them too far in) to heighten the volume of the sound of your breath. As you shut off your connections to the outer world, you will find that your mind starts to focus on the sound of your breath. It’s as if you’re alone in an internal temple that only you can create. Research from Weber State University suggests that when you set aside time to focus on your breath, there is a decrease in the secretion of stress hormones.

7. Take a Meditative Walk

Find a place where you can be alone and walk in nature. If you choose, you can listen to soft, meditative music through your headphones. Begin walking slowly, looking down at your feet to watch each step that is taken. Bring all of your attention to your footsteps. How do they feel with each step? Can you feel the difference in surfaces that you’re stepping on? Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.” You will be absolutely amazed what the simple act of walking can do for your present-moment awareness. A sense of calm contentment will come over you as you begin to become even more aware of what the present moment has to offer you.

8. Take a Bath

Taking a bath is one of the most relaxing activities you can do. Fill your tub with warm water and, if you want, some type of scented bubble bath or essential oils. Turn the lights down, light some candles and turn on soft background music. Soak in the warm bath and allow your olfactory system to be stimulated. Focus on the smell for a few moments. Then focus on the feeling of your muscles relaxing as the warm water surrounds your body. Close your eyes and listen to the music in the background. After a few moments, turn your attention to the candles that are lit. To finish off this mindfulness activity, stay in the bath while the water is draining and become aware of how strongly gravity holds us to the earth.

Now that you’ve done a few of these prescribed techniques, branch out and seek unique ways to bring yourself into this mindful state. Dharma teacher Taso Papadakis says, “We are all different in some ways. We have different dispositions, conditioning and chemistry. We don’t all need the same ‘medicine.’ There are many paths available; it takes experimentation and courage.” Take an active roll in controlling the incessant chatter that runs through the stream of your consciousness. By doing so, you will bring peace to your life and the lives of those who surround you.

Is Your Social Media Making You Fat?

Think About How Much Time You Spend Looking At Social Media. It’s probably the first thing you do when you wake up and the last thing you do before bed.

You may not realize the power of this practice. They say we become like the top five people with whom we spend our time. Imagine what we are doing to ourselves with social media and exposure to thousands of messages per day.

You become where you put your energy. Are you putting your energy into taking care of yourself, getting your study on, hitting the gym, being great at work, giving attention to valued relationships, relaxing and making yourself a nice clean meal? Perfect! Do you spend hours on Instagram looking at celebrities, insane sugary recipes and drunk photos of people you don’t really know? Bad.

Take a hard look at who you follow on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Do they encourage healthy body image? Do they support a clean eating lifestyle or unhealthy diet products? Do they inspire you to be a more active and positive person?

Now imagine if all those thousands of messages on your phone, computer, tablet, and TV were ALL positive. How do you think that would impact your motivation to make healthy choices and at the end of the day….your physical strength and personal wellness?

Ready for a change?

Look for these triggers to see if the social media to stare at needs to go:

Unhealthy recipes

Celebrate unhealthy body image or extreme, unrealistic “skinny” culture (Strong is the new skinny, after all.)

Toxic gossiping

“Health” outlets completely void of well-informed advice

Support excessive use of drugs and alcohol

Focus on excessive wealth or materialism

Reality TV (that’s a personal opinion, what a waste of time!)


Here’s Your Challenge!

Take about an hour and look at all your social media. It’s time to purge. What kinds of people, companies, outlets do you follow that do NOT serve you? This can either be through the promotion of junk food or junk news. Gossip and negative messaging can be just as toxic as food. Whatever sources are draining your energy – either through unhealthy foods or anything else — need to go.

Love a particular chef because she makes a gorgeous French Rhubard Cake? Cool. I’m talking about straight up food porn. Guess what? We don’t need a peanut butter, chocolate-covered pretzel, double caramel cheesecake? Okay. We just don’t need it ever. That’s the kind of stuff I’m talking about–the excessive, gluttonous outlets that just don’t have a place in your clean eating lifestyle.

Here’s your challenge. Do 10 and 10. Go through each social media you have and delete 10 outlets that don’t fit your clean lifestyle. Then, go add 10 that do. Social media is something we look at for HOURS everyday. We become a mirror image of what we spend our time looking at, let’s make it awesome!