With a quick search on Google, Bing, or whatever search engine makes you happy, you can find advice on health habits that is completely overwhelming.  I just did this and came up with 453,000,000 results.  In other words, I could be busy for a very long time researching how to be healthy.  In fact, if I quickly went to 10% of these websites and just checked out each site for 1 minute, I would be trapped at my computer for 86 years straight.  What is a fella to do?  Let’s be smart about this.  The very act of looking at my computer screen for any amount of time is actually a BAD health habit according to many of these sites!  So I narrowed the results down to websites that are trusted health sources (like the American Heart Association, Mayo Clinic), trusted news outlets (NPR, CNN, NBC), and university websites with medical or nursing schools.  I looked for the most cited examples of health habits in all the lists.  I then did a bit of translating with my own health background to simplify the wording and group habits together into categories that make sense (walking and activity are pretty synonymous, so combine these).  

What did I come up with?  Nothing new.  Here is my list:

1.  Eat a healthy diet: lots of vegetables, avoid processed foods

2.  Exercise regularly and be very active outside in nature

3.  Do mental exercise:  meditate, yoga, read, work on fun hobbies, practice gratitude

4.  Prioritize sleep; including good sleep hygiene

5.  Have significant and positive relationships

6.  Stop bad habits: smoking, excessive drinking, excessive media, eating out

7.  Do see a health professional for health screening

Seven magical steps to health.  Actually this is not magic at all.  This is hard science broken down to nice steps that make sense without having to read thousands of pages of very difficult studies.  At the same time, this is all common sense.  Most people could produce this list if given some time and space to think through things.  

Conversely, media consistently promotes the exact opposite of these habits.  Again, I did the same search methodology as noted above with the following summary of bad habits showing up over and over again:

1.   Unhealthy diet – processed foods, eating out, large amounts of beef
2.   Violent lifestyle
3.   Positive depiction of drinking alcohol and/or smoking
4.   Addictive media contributing to sedentary lifestyle
5.   Bad relationship choices

What do we do with this?  We have an uphill battle given the bad influences in our lives. Let’s be aware of the situation, and work on small change and choices that can move us towards health.  Pick a habit above to work on this week and take some time off from unhelpful media input.  My goal the next few weeks is to do two yoga sessions per week (just 10 minutes) and decrease a few high cholesterol foods in my diet (less milk and eggs – substituting some almond milk into the regimen and oatmeal). Just a few simple steps and these add up over time. 

I’m glad you are here reading this information and hopefully taking it to heart!  Peruse the posts on this site and be inspired to continue working on habits that will bring you health.