5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Physical and Mental Health

It’s 2018, which can mean only one thing: New Year’s resolutions. One of the most popular areas for resolutions is health, with many of us setting goals to lose weight, cut out junk food, or start a new exercise routine. Unfortunately, although made with good intentions, many of these resolutions are often broken, which can lead to feelings of failure.

If you are yet to make any resolutions, here are 5 easy and low effort ideas aimed at improving and making positive changes to your health.

Listen to Birdsong

The way you kick off your morning can have a huge impact on the rest of your day. While you could get up early for an exercise class, if you struggle to get up in the morning, it may be hard to stick to. Instead, research has shown that listening to birdsong boosts mental health, so find a nature playlist to start your day right.

Practice Being Mindful

Being mindful involves the practice of being self-aware and more engaged. Mindfulness also promotes good mental health and reduces stress levels. To become more mindful, you could attend a meditation class, or, for a low effort option, incorporate silence and breathing exercises into your daily routine, whether on your commute or during lunch.

Reduce Bad Habits

When a New Year starts, it can be tempting to resolve to cut out junk food, give up chocolate or quit smoking. While these resolutions are all good for your health, they can be difficult to keep. Rather than going cold turkey, aim to reduce a habit. This could be cutting your snacks in half, limiting your number of takeaways, or switching from cigarettes to a VIP vape.

Decrease Tech Time

The world is obsessed with technology and as a species, our screen time is increasing. You may spend all day at work looking at a computer, to go home and binge watch a series on Netflix, or spend hours scrolling through social media. While we’re all guilty of this, screen time has been linked to depression, so reducing tech time could help your mental health.

Let it Go

It’s no secret that life can be hard, but stress can have some worrying effects. In general, we spend a lot of time fretting about things that we are unable to change, which can be damaging to our overall health. To help, ask yourself this question: Will it matter in 5 years? If the answer is no, try not to think about it for more than 5 minutes.

There you have it: easy, low-effort resolutions that can improve your physical and mental health. Which ones are you going to try?

This is a contribution from one of our contributing writers.

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