Can you believe we’re already halfway through January 2022?! Time flies when you’re building healthy habits. Speaking of which, this week for our Healthy Habits Challenge, we’re focusing on how to break bad habits and how to get better sleep for a healthier you.
In last week’s blog, we shared plenty of actionable tips to make habits stick, like starting small, tracking your progress, and rewarding yourself. But do you know how to break bad habits?
How to Break Bad Habits
The first step to breaking bad habits is to bring awareness to them. Once you know what habits you want to eliminate, then you can truly break down why or how they started, then make a plan to stop doing them.
Almost all bad habits can be linked back to boredom or stress. Think about common bad habits – biting your nails, scrolling social media, or binge-watching TV. These activities typically are the result of trying to escape boredom or a stressful event in your life.
Don’t Eliminate – Replace
When it comes to breaking bad habits, simply wanting to stop them typically isn’t very successful. If it was, most of us wouldn’t have many bad habits! Replacing bad habits is much easier and more successful than trying to quit something cold turkey. For example, if you want to stop the habit of binge-watching TV, replace it with another activity, like cooking or reading a book.
Remove Triggers
Our environments contain all sorts of triggers to elicit a behavior. These triggers can prompt both good and bad behaviors, so again, awareness is key. Identifying triggers that lead to bad habits will help you remove the trigger, thus lessening the frequency of bad habits. For example, moving the Instagram app off the homepage of your screen or deleting the app altogether will drastically reduce the bad habit of mindlessly scrolling social media.
Get Accountability
Accountability is incredibly powerful for both building good habits and breaking bad ones. Sharing what habits you are trying to break with those around you makes you stick to it more since you don’t want to get caught doing the very thing you are trying not to. Groups and challenges, like our Healthy Habits Challenge also keep you honest and allow for daily sharing and inspiration to stick to your habit goals.
Healthy Sleep for a Healthy You
You may be surprised at how much sleep affects your health on a day-to-day basis. Improving your sleep can work wonders for your mood, mental clarity, immune system, exercise performance, and even weight. Many studies have shown that those who sleep less than 7 hours per night tend to weigh more and eat more calories throughout the day.
So, don’t sleep on healthy sleeping habits! Even though it may not seem like the most glamorous aspect of wellness, creating healthy habits centered on getting high-quality sleep (and enough of it!) can be incredibly powerful for your overall health and wellbeing.
Not sure what to do to improve your sleep? We’ve got plenty of ideas below:
Examples of Healthy Sleep Habits
- Aim for 8 hours of sleep each night
- Avoid late-night snacking
- No screen time 2 hours before bed
- Practice a nightly routine
- Get to bed by 9 PM
- Keep your phone out of the bedroom
- Avoid caffeine after noon each day
Snap Meals for a Good Night’s Rest
Believe it or not, certain foods may affect your sleep quality! Very spicy or hard-to-digest foods may interfere with sleep, so we recommend the following dishes from Snap Kitchen for a good night’s rest: Creamy Chicken Stew with Rice, Turkey Meatloaf with Potato-Turnip Mash and Green Beans, or Honey Dijon Roasted Chicken with Tricolor Potatoes and Peas.
Comment below or share in our Facebook Group which sleep habits you’re incorporating into your routine. We’d love to hear from you!
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