Healthy Lifestyle Habits for Your Family

Eating a Meal as a Family

One of the feelings that may set in very quickly in a family is that of isolation. This is more likely to happen to members of families where both parents are working.  The parents are usually unavailable for lunch and get home too late for sharing dinner with the children. Over a period of time the entire family begins to eat their meals in isolated pockets of time. This is definitely not good for the family unit as a whole and each individual’s health within it.

Get Involved with Activities as a Family

When no one else is there for you, your family always will be. Why not take the time and make the effort to make friends with members of your family. This will only strengthen the bond you have and help you stay emotionally healthy. Pick indoor board games on summer days, or take off for a picnic or hike outdoors if the weather is good. Please don’t go to a mall and watch a movie! That involves absolutely no interaction between the family members and is a brain dead activity.

Remove the Overwhelming Presence of Technology

There are all kind of screens in our lives today from the unobstrusive television screen, to the tablet your ten year old is playing games on, the smartphone you check your notifications on, to the computer that is calling your name- there is too much technology overwhelming us each day.  To stay healthy cut back on the presence of screens which ping with notification alerts and other distracting sounds. It really is terrible for your stress levels. Make sure that you take a break from technology and reconnect with nature by going completely off the grid for a holiday.

Acknowledge and Appreciate

When a family member makes an effort to plan a family outing, activity or even a sit down meal together, make sure you let them know how much you appreciate it. There is no greater boost to the motivation to keep doing healthy activities together than when you are sure that your family will acknowledge and appreciate your efforts. Hearing you speak positively about something your spouse has planned will make the children appreciate it even more, and from then on they will also express their appreciation.

Good Company Does Make a Difference

Birds of a feather flock together, and often your friends will reflect the kind of lifestyle you lead. If you are not sure about how healthy your own family lifestyle is, take a closer look at how your friends handle family time. It will be easier for you to see where they are going wrong and then see how it applies to your family life. Remember you can always choose to make a new lifestyle that is healthier. You will find friends who enjoy the healthier activities as well.

Lead By Example

Remember children do as they see. This means that even if you sprout the virtues of healthy living, until you actually put actions behind your words, it will change nothing. The minute they see you eating fruit, exercising regularly and taking a break from technology, they will accept the healthier lifestyle much more easily. As with all things, it’s a matter of making it a habit.

Several Reasons Prevent You from Living the Life You Want

There is a major prevalence of dissatisfaction among people today. No matter what stage of life they are at, be it a student in a college, a corporate employee, a self employed entrepreneur or a housewife who takes care of the home. Everyone is struggling with issues of low self esteem that do not allow them to live the life they want to. Even when no one is physically holding them back from living their dreams and achieving new ambitions, their very thoughts hold them back from scaling new heights.

1. Self Care is not Selfish

Most of us as reluctant to take the time out to do more of ourselves. We argue we don’t have the time or resources to pamper ourselves. We lie to ourselves and to the world. Lying doesn't take us anywhere but still we lie and for some, it becomes a habit. Instead acknowledge that you can take that art, dance, music, or photography class. You can scrape the money and time required for it if you put your full attention to it. If you take care of yourself, your needs, your dreams, you are not suddenly turning into a selfish person.

2. Our schedule does not reflect our true priorities

There is an exercise that I did in a time management class which asked us to represent our day with a circle, then divide it up based on the number of hours we pursued certain activities. The first time I drew my time wheel I was amazed at the huge slots of hours that I wasting in my 12 hour functional day. How much time do you spend on trivial activities during the day that do no matter? How much time to you spend on activities that you consider your true priorities? Found the imbalance, now fix it!

3. Adrenaline has become our main choice of fuel

We can’t sit still anymore as we believe that a person who is not on the go always, is wasting time. We want to be productive even at the cost of our health and relationships. That surge of adrenaline pumping through our bodies has become our addiction. We want to feel that high when we rush from one place to the other. There is no place to slow down and think about what we actually want from life. Until you do that, you are never going to live the life you want.

4. Drained by people, places and things

Think about the energy vampires in your life. The people who want to tell you all their troubles and listen to them whining when you have better things to do. The places where nothing ever gets done on time and you have to visit them a couple of times before you make even the most rudimentary of progress. The things that need to be repaired, but you keep putting off and struggling with. All these are draining your energy and preventing you from living the life you deserve.

5. Can’t afford it

Money is a major concern for all of us in the material world that we are living in. Most of us believe that there isn’t enough money to go around and this lie actually becomes the truth of your life. Don't be a perpetual liar. It ruins everything like a low death. Be firm with yourself when you think negatively about money. Tell yourself you can afford the new purchase that you want to make. It’s all a matter of faking it till you make it. Trust me, money will flow in where none was expected!

Build a Support System that you can trust and you can live the life you dream of. Another mistake many of us make is not paying attention to spiritual well being. Just as important as it is to have a physically healthy body , it is important to have good emotional health and that is where a spiritual bent of mind makes a huge difference! Love yourself and heal the world!

Changes to Make in the New Year

The New Year is actually nothing more than a date on the calendar for most of us. When we consider that there is a separate Hindu calendar, a Parsi calendar, a solar calendar and a lunar calendar, which are followed by different sections of society, this additional New Year is nothing all that special. Unless we actually do something with the New Year that the Roman calendar is giving us.

 As with just about everything else that is a part of our lives, even the time marked by the upcoming New Year is totally under our control. How we choose to spend the days, weeks and months ahead will determine just how special or ordinary this coming year will be. This time round, why not make a commitment to become a better version of yourself and attract a more positive, fulfilling life.

Let’s Make a Workable Plan

Are you sure you want this coming year to be bigger and better than the one that just went by? Then you are going to need two things – A good, well thought out plan and the commitment to stick to this plan. The fact is that just about everyone I know makes up resolutions on the eve of New Year, and just as easily forget about all these great ideas and thoughts within a few weeks. By the end of January people even have trouble remembering the resolutions they had come up with.

As it hardly makes sense to make resolutions that we do not plan on working towards, we are not going to make any resolutions that we can’t keep. Instead we are going to come up with a solid plan to make very specific improvements to different parts of our lives. These will be tiny steps that you feel you can easily accomplish. For instance, you have wanted to lose weight but resolving to join a gym or workout program is just not working out for you. This time you will make a simple but solid plan to exercise exactly five minutes in the day.

Keep it Flexible to Build Upon

Now once you accomplish the small step you have set for yourself, and trust me you will, it is time to move on to the next tiny step. For instance along with five minutes of exercise in the day, you can add drinking a glass of green tea, or maybe eating a fruit to your daily diet. The idea is to keep the step so small that it can be easily established into your daily routine with a little forethought.

Don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t happen quite as smoothly as you would like. There are bound to be some days when you may miss a step. That doesn’t matter as much as making sure that the next day you are back to it. When you are comfortably handling these two steps for about a week, add the next step. It could be anything that you know will make a difference to your health in the long term, including a five minute guided meditation.

If at any time you feel discouraged and feel that such tiny steps are never going to make a big difference, think about the fact that even the ocean is just made up of tiny drops of water.

Affirmation – “I am ready to manifest and welcome my improved self, one tiny step at a time, into the real world.”