60 Second Health Improving Habits

Staying in good health requires a fair amount of time. However, there are a number of easy things that can give you big health improvements that only take a minute or less of your time. I was thinking the other day about how many of these I have layered on in the last few years and with most of them, I really notice the impact. I'll share ten of my favorites in this post. All of them take less than a minute to do, so if you add all ten to your daily routines, in only ten minutes a day you get a big boost of wellness! 

1. Start the Day with a Positive Affirmation

Let’s begin with something easy to do before you even get out of bed–start your day with a positive affirmation. Tell yourself it’s going to be an amazing day. Or look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself, “you got this”. Doing this is going to give you a little internal boost of confidence and it is going to make it so much easier to take on whatever challenges you are facing ahead in your day. 

2. Drink a Cup of Hot Water in the Morning

Another thing I do first thing in the morning is to drink a cup or more of water. Unless it’s quite warm, I’m usually starting my day with a cup of hot water and a squeeze of lime or lemon. Evidence suggests that this practice stimulates your digestive system to begin working for the day and helps keep you regular. In addition, it is giving you a quick start for rehydrating your body.  If, like me, you tend to try to slow down how much you drink in the evening so you don’t have to get up at night, front loading your daily hydration to the morning can be really helpful. 

3. Balance While Putting on your Socks

Another morning habit is putting my socks on while standing up to practice balance. Most people begin to lose their sense of balance sometime in their fifties. While there can be a number of reasons for this, a loss of balance can be the result of normal aging–in particular the decline of the sensors in your inner ear. If you are not regularly practicing balance as a part of a yoga routine or other sport, it’s a good idea to find another habit in your daily life that can become a balance practice.

4. Take Two Deep Breaths Before Your First Bite

Meals are a habit you already have, so try stacking on a healthy habit of taking two deep breaths before you begin your meal. Take a moment to notice what is on your plate, appreciating the way it looks or perhaps smells before you take that first bite. These brief moments of a pause before digging into your meal give your body time to get the digestive juices flowing. It also gives you a reminder to practice slowing down during the rest of the meal as well. 

This is such a simple thing, but trust me, it truly can make a massive impact on how well your digestive system functions. Years ago I was struggling with heartburn and acid reflux. Over-the-counter and prescription medications didn’t help me at all. An Ayurvedic practitioner suggested a number of ways to slow down when eating my meals, and amazingly this did the trick. It took a little time to heal my gut in this way, but it worked when nothing else had! 

5. Take a Cold Shower

At the end of your shower, practice turning the water to completely cold. See if you can manage to hold out a full sixty seconds. It took me a while to work up to this and it is a bit more challenging in the winter, but there are a number of good reasons for taking a cold shower. For starters, it’s just hard to do and it’s good to do hard things. This helps build up resilience and confidence in yourself. It also strengthens your immune system, improves circulation, flushes out inflammation and has a whole host of other health benefits. I also notice that it improves my level of focus for at least a couple of hours afterward. 

6. Cultivate a Gratitude Practice

This one is one of my favorites. Set aside time for feeling grateful. Gratitude is such a powerful tool for positivity and it’s one of the easiest ways of shifting your mood when you are in a bit of a funk. Spending just a few moments a day to consider what you are grateful for will help you begin to focus on all the little things that bring a moment of joy to your days, whether it is the soft glow of the sunlight filtering through the window in the morning or how much you enjoy your first cup of coffee. As you begin to recognize what feels good to you, you can begin to prioritize these moments in your days. 

7. Mindfully Engage With Your Senses

This one isn’t necessarily an everyday habit, but rather one to do when you are feeling stressed or anxious. Engage with your senses for a few moments. Look around and notice something curiously with your eyes. Smell the air. Listen to the noises around you. Then feel your feet on the ground. It’s great to get outside to do this, but you can do it wherever you find yourself. 

8. Move and Stretch Frequently

One thing that I am really working on now is doing a better job of getting up and stretching frequently. Your body needs to move to stay healthy. Research shows that people who sit for eight or more hours daily and don't engage in physical activity have a similar risk of dying as do people who are obese or who smoke. I have a tendency to get focused on work and sit for long periods of time, so I’ve been challenging myself to not sit for longer than an hour at a time. Ideally, I’ll get up and go outside for a moment or two and just notice something beautiful. 

9. Notice Beauty and Feel Wonder & Awe

Make a practice of noticing the beauty around you. Beautiful things move us and these can provide a bit of a lift in your mood and overall well being. This can be combined with allowing yourself to feel wonder and awe. Not only does this feel great, but it can slow your heart rate and allow you to feel a sense of connection to something much larger than you. You don’t have to find a beautiful sunset to feel a sense of awe, it can be found in the simplest of things, such as the way steam rises from a mug, or color patterns in the bowl of apples sitting on your counter or the glow of a candle.

10. Dim the Lights in the Evening

Begin dimming the lights when the sun begins to set. Even better, actually watch the sunset as well. This is going to help you regulate your circadian rhythm. This takes a little longer, but while we are talking about circadian rhythm, if you get outside early in the morning and get morning sunlight, you are going to be doing your body a big favor too. Try to get at least five minutes of bright sunlight in the morning or twenty to thirty minutes on a cloudy day.

I hope you have found one or more of these suggestions to start including in your own daily routines. I personally have found that just the few minutes that these take make a big impact on my wellness and I hope they will for you as well!