Habits

Habits are a very important part of our lives. They can do much to make life pleasant and less stressful. Or they can do the opposite.

What is a habit?  It is something that we do regularly, without a lot of planning or effort. Life is usually a repetition of many things. We eat, work and sleep, with many variations. There can be many kinds of habits.

Some of the most important ones relate to food, exercise, and our mental outlook The manner and amount of food which we eat is a habit. And a very important one for health. It is easy to keep on eating when the food is good and in front of us. It is especially easy to do so when we eat out. In order to justify the charges restaurants tend to serve big meals. That provides an incentive for us to eat big meals, since we must pay for them. We want to get our money’s worth. So we shovel it in and down it goes. Our stomachs get stretched out to where they can accommodate the extra food. They get to where we do not feel fed until we have filled their expanded capacity.

So filling them beyond our needs becomes a habit, at home and eating out. According to reports, this has resulted in a large percentage of our citizens carrying more pounds than is healthy.. This overweight is at least partly caused by a habit, perhaps unconsciously acquired..

Changing the habit requires conscious and persistent effort. While eating more than we need is not addictive in the same sense that tobacco is, nevertheless, changing it can require attention and some determination..

But once it is changed, and the stomach size shrunk down to be comfortable and satisfied with smaller meals, eating less can become a habit and be more healthful. Complicating this process is the delay in the stomach’s communication with the brain. It is said that the stomach does not tell the brain it has had enough until a half hour after it has had enough  So eating slowly can be a healthy habit.

Exercise -The need for exercise has been getting more and more coverage in the health news There are some jobs that automatically provide the exercise. The family farm used to insure that the family members got exercise. Now the family farms have pretty well disappeared. So we have health clubs with exercise machines. And we have joggers and walkers, Yoga, and aerobics. But one does not have to get into any special group or buy equipment.

It is primarily a decision to get exercise and then the will to follow through. One can exercise on a bed, in a living room, or any place where the arms and legs can be moved. Maybe a pair of dumbbells will help, but there are plenty of ways to exercise .A building which has stairs is a good place.  Going up and down stairs is a quick way to run up your pulse rate. Otherwise just plain calisthenics can do the job. Or walking is great, a mile or two a day when you can. The habit of regular exercise can aid your good health and add years to your life.

Feelings and outlook- Do we see the good or the bad, are we optimistic or pessimistic. That can also be a habit and one that has an effect on good health.

How and what we eat is just one of many habits. How we dress, what we buy, how we spend out money, and keep track of our finances are others. Some people have hard times with credit cards. They find it too easy to buy and buy and put it on credit cards.

The credit car people love that. They don’t even want you to pay the balance when it comes due at the end of the month. What they want is for you to build up a big balance and then pay their high interest rate on it. That is great for credit card companies. But it is mighty expensive and wasteful way for you to manage your finances. If you are carrying a big balance , it is like reducing your income by a fifth or a sixth.

Sometimes one may need to use a credit card to tide over or help in an emergency, but to maintain a large balance can be a very unhealthy habit for your financial security and future.

Being happy or miserable can also depend a lot on our mental habits. The rich are not necessarily more happy than the poor. It is an attitude, and outlook, a sense of what is important. Food, shelter, a loving family, something meaningful to do are all important. Beyond a point, money can bring problems and worries,

Whether we see the bright side, the good things we enjoy and the hope for the future, or the bad things, the down side of our lives, can become habits.  A positive outlook can help us stay healthy and to enjoy life. A negative outlook which sees mainly the down side of our situations, works against our good health. Our feelings and emotions, do things to our body chemistry. Good feelings help good chemistry. Bad feelings, anger resentment, hate can cause bad chemistry. Admittedly our emotions are not always easy to control. But our general outlook and approach to life is something that we can control, something that can become a habit. If you can cultivate a PMA, a positive mental attitude it can do a lot to help keep you healthy and energetic.

Seeing the good side can help get the habit of praising and commending others. That is good for you and good for others. Praise builds, makes for good feelings. Criticism, on the other hand, tears down and discourages. So get the habit of saying good things to and about people. It is good for you and good for them.

So examine your day, your life and the things which you do. Are your habits contributing to your enjoyment of life, to your relationships with others, to your own good health? If not, working to change them could pay big dividends.