Working Out and Eating Healthy Aren’t the Only Ways to Take Care of Yourself
It’s 2021, let’s start thinking outside the cliché box.
Whenever people talk about living a healthy lifestyle, they always go for working out, eating a balanced diet, taking supplements, etc… While all of these play a role in maintaining your overall health, they should not be the only things that come to mind when you are trying to live a healthy lifestyle.
Here are three simple things to keep in mind:
1. Relationship Maintenance
Establishing and maintaining healthy relationships is an important part of living a healthy life. So you workout 4x a week, you only eat foods that are made with lean and fresh ingredients, and you have 10,000 friends on Instagram, that’s great! What happens at the end of the day though when you’ve completed your workout, eaten dinner, and liked 20 new posts on Instagram? Do you have people surrounding you that love, support, and enrich your life?
I had this friend, we’ll call her… Molly. She was so wrapped up in her relationship with her husband that she never took the time to be with her friends or do anything for herself; all she did was work, gym, cook, and do whatever her husband wanted. When I met Molly she was a very outgoing individual. She always knew what she wanted in life, was very opinionated, and a true social butterfly. Then she met her husband and everything changed. I’m not saying that Molly’s husband is a bad guy by any means, but she just became so wrapped up in what he wanted and needed, that she forgot about her own life. I mean we’ve all been in love and we know it can sometimes be consuming and hard to come up for air. What’s not good, and becomes borderline unhealthy, is when we lose our individuality. When Molly decided to start brushing off her friends and always saying no to anything that involved them, they started to take the hint and one at a time went their separate ways. Why did this happen? It’s simple, Molly failed to take the time to maintain her relationships. Being married to your best friend changes your life, I would know. However, it’s important to remember that even though things change as we get older, we still need to make an effort for those that love and care about us, and we need to maintain those healthy relationships so that they can stay with us for the long haul.
— Ok, maintain healthy relationships; check!
2. Get to know yourself!
What does Heidi need to be happy daily? What are her favorite things? What makes her feel most relaxed? What are her goals for the day, week, month year, life?! Believe it or not, when I was a young adult I struggled to answer these questions. I never truly took the time to figure out who I was; all I know is that I was a chronic people pleaser and I didn’t even realize that I was neglecting to establish my own identity. Take the time to get to know yourself; figure out what you like to do, what your favorite things are, and what makes you happy; it’s self-care, I know you’ve heard of it, and yes, you guessed it, it plays a part in living a healthy lifestyle.
— Relationships and me; check, check!
3. Get off your phone, computer, couch, and go do something!
“But Heidi, you said that we needed to think of ways to be healthy other than working out, this sounds a lot like working out to me!” Stay with me, I’m not talking about working out. What I mean is get out there and make the most of your life! Our time on this earth is limited, take advantage of, dare I say, all the things that we have available at our fingertips. There are so many things we can start doing right now to enrich our lives, and the majority of them are free. Write an article, write a book, teach yourself a new language, start a Youtube channel, learn to cook, take a road trip, meet new people — whatever it is just do it! (Ok now I sound like Shia LaBeouf, or Nike, whichever you prefer, sorry guys, you know what I mean). Either way, get out there and make the most of the time you have on this earth, don’t find yourself in a position 20 years from now where you are wondering what you did with your life and playing the “what if” game; just get out there and do it now, no matter how big or small, you got this!
— Relationships, me, and do stuff; ok, understood!
As I sit here and say all these things to you, I am speaking to myself as well. I can honestly say that I am doing these things for myself now, but it took me a long time to get here. I’m still working towards well, living my best life, and it’s an ongoing process guys, and that’s ok. The path to a healthy lifestyle requires a lot of patience and persistence, but we can’t give up! What’s something small you can do right now to get yourself started?
If you liked this story, I’d love for you to check out some of my other ones!
