I’m 33 years old and, as far as I know, still in decent health.
However, there’s a huge difference between how I feel today and how I felt in my early 20s, and I know it’s not all due to age.
My lifestyle has changed pretty drastically, and I think I’m beginning to pay the price. I’m a big believer that the actions we take on a daily basis have a huge, compounding effect on our future, and so I’m in the process of making some important changes to my life right now. I’ll be sharing those when I’m more confident that the changes have stuck.
But in the meantime, I wanted to reflect on where I went wrong and the mistakes I’ve made that have me on a trajectory I don’t want to be on. I hope you’ll learn from them as I have and save yourself from ruining your health before your time. Here are the five unhealthy habits I’ve developed that can ruin anyone’s health.
1. Sleeping Poorly 2 or 3 Nights a Week
There was a time in my life when I slept like a baby. But starting in college and continuing afterward, that all changed. My problem is that I can’t turn off my brain. Sometimes I’m preoccupied with a certain topic, but other times I’m just alert and jumping from one idea to the next.
The fact is, I enjoy being a night owl. Instead of disciplining myself to wind down at night, I consistently gave into this tendency until it became a habit that I couldn’t easily shake. I brought my phone into bed, and I intentionally thought about stimulating topics instead of relaxing.
Another theory I have is one that’s harder to admit. Sometimes I’m not tired at bedtime because I was too physically and mentally lazy during my waking hours. The body keeps the score. Good sleep, a critical component of your health, must be earned. This ties into my next unhealthy habit.
2. Spending the Day Sitting or Lying Down
It didn’t really hit me until recently how little I stand up. The realization came one day when I was playing with my kids and devised a game in which I sit down and they run around me while I try to throw soft balls at them.
How could I possibly need or want to sit in the evenings after having spent nearly the entire day sleeping on my bed, working at my desk, or sitting at the table to eat? But honestly, the more I sit, the more often I want to sit. It’s like my body has gotten used to the minimum effort of holding my bones upright and decided it prefers to slouch in a chair instead.
Not only is the evidence becoming more clear, but also common sense says that sitting nearly every hour of the day is a completely unnatural way of living that is only possible in this crazy modern world. Eventually, there are bound to be consequences from this sedentary choice.
3. Falling Out of Shape
In high school and college, I was a competitive cross-country runner. I ran for more than an hour a day and lifted weights a couple of times a week. But after college, without the camaraderie of a team or the motivation of competition, I let this huge part of my identity slip into a hobby and then eventually into nothing at all.
I went from being probably in the top 1 percent of aerobic fitness to somewhere close to average for my age, and it’s because I never found another form of exercise I loved so much. I have gone through seasons of walking very regularly, but although it’s great for your health and highly recommended, it doesn’t improve your fitness to nearly the same extent, or deliver the same amount of mood-boosting hormones.
4. Snacking out of Emotional Discomfort
My diet isn’t a disaster by any stretch, but in the three years since I started to work from home, I have noticed it moving in a negative direction. Although the quality of my meals has mostly stayed the same, I’m getting more and more of my calories from snacking. When you’re in the comfort of your own home, it’s easy to get up and grab a snack whenever you please.
The problem is that I’ve been noticing myself too often reaching for a snack because I’m bored or stuck or frustrated with a task—not because I’m actually hungry. The end result of all this snacking is quite predictable: I weigh a good 5 to 8 pounds more than the baseline I had been at for the previous decade. Although I’m not yet overweight, I want to get off the current trajectory before it gets harder to fix and negative health effects follow.
5. Carrying Low-Level Stress Most of the Time
Over the course of my life, I would not have considered myself a high-stress person. Most of my friends and family would still consider me laid back. But beneath the surface, I’ve noticed a change in my personality in recent years—I’m much more likely to ruminate on things that are bothering me and carry stress from things that are outside my control. I also carry a good amount of stress from areas where I know could have done better but didn’t.
Although the stress I carry isn’t overwhelming, I do wonder whether the low-level stress on a consistent basis might be at least contributing to several symptoms I’ve had in recent years, such as ocular migraines and brain fog. I know it’s had a negative effect on my sleep and that it could put my entire health at risk if not managed.
You Can Change the Trajectory of Your Health Starting Today
It’s never too late to improve your health. If you’ve tried and failed in the past, it’s probably because you reached a point at which you decided the effort wasn’t worth the reward. I’m here to remind you that it feels amazing to be healthy and in shape.
Everything about life is improved when you are feeling your best and taking care of yourself. That’s why I’m taking action in my own life.
The discomfort of change isn’t permanent. Eventually, the psychological effort to maintain your new lifestyle becomes drastically less. Just don’t give in before the payoff arrives!