Healthy Habits to help you live your best, healthiest life

This post is a part of Sprig & Vine’s month of wellness: expect Good Food Good Vibes all January long! We will be posting content throughout January that will help you kickstart the year feeling well and good, with healthy eating hacks, feel-good recipes, and tons of wellness inspiration.

When we started January with our Good Food Good Vibes plan, our aim was to provide you with a ton of information and resources to support your resolutions and wellness goals – through feel-good recipes, holistic living ideas, healthy eating hacks, workout inspiration, wellness tips and more; so that you can live your best, healthiest life. You kept up, and hopefully we inspired you to stick to your resolutions as well as create new ones.

This is the month in the year we motivate ourselves to develop healthy habits, cut out the bad ones, and promise ourselves that this year will be different. Usually, our resolutions (however well-intentioned) are accompanied with lofty wellness goals, that are neither practical nor actionable. By the time we reach the end of the month, we are struggling to keep up with those twice daily meditations, early morning sweat sessions, and detox regimens. As our wellness month comes to a close, we want to help you develop healthy habits that will ensure your resolutions last well into February, March, and the rest of the year.

The key to maintaining resolutions is not to make sweeping, ambitious ones; but to cultivate habits by way of little acts that you can repeat daily. Choose one wellness goal, and translate that into an activity that you can repeat – daily or weekly, depending on your goal.

For example, rather than making a resolution to “drink more water,” make it a habit to drink one glass of water every time you use the bathroom. Or to keep a bottle filled with filtered water next to you to prompt you to drink more. Or download an app that tracks your water intake and use it religiously for one week. These activities are more specific and accountable, and don’t take up much time either.

Instead of pledging to “take care of your skin,” start by applying sunscreen daily, or making it a ritual to take off your make up every night.

You get the picture.

We find that making a ritual out of any activity goes a long way in cultivating it into a habit that sticks. Keeping this in mind, we put together a list of healthy habits that are practical, and translate to small acts that can be repeated everyday.

Some healthy habits to try this week:

~ Set 10 minutes aside to meditate – either in the morning to set the tone for the day, or with yoga Nidra at night to help you relax and calm down before bed.

~ Wake up 20 minutes earlier than usual to plan out your day: use a planner, or bullet journal. It will make your day less stressful!

~ Schedule a sweat session early in the morning, so you don’t end up making excuses by the time evening rolls around.

~ Drink water every time you use the bathroom.

~ Make a nighttime skincare routine where you cleanse + moisturise before bed.

~ Drink a glass of warm lemon water every morning, and add a shot of apple cider vinegar if you please. It’ll detox your system and get it ready for the day ahead.

~ Eat homemade lunches (prep your meals in advance over the weekend if you don’t get time on weeknights)

~ Learn something new or be creative by scheduling one hour of learning every evening: use books, podcasts, videos!

~ Stay in. Have a night indoors with your favourite blanket, candles, and book/TV show.

~ Switch off and unplug your devices 20 minutes before bed.

Finally, be kind to yourself.

If you’ve decided to workout five times a week but only make it to the gym twice, being angry at yourself won’t help. It just takes up your energy! Try to understand why you couldn’t make it instead, and make adjustments based on what you learnt. For example, is that 6.00am yoga class not realistic, is the gym too far from your place of work, etc.