My favorite EASY life-changing habits [March 2023]
Most of what I’m here to show you is that prioritizing your health and wellness doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, one thing I’ve learned from my favorite podcaster Liz Moody is that the second “wellness” doesn’t feel GOOD, it ceases being wellness (and you should ditch it). I have a million examples of this—here are some recent ones that I’ve left behind:
- Trying to workout in the middle of my work day
- Not buying bread for the house
- Meditating every morning
That said, there are sooo many habits I’ve incorporated into my routine that have changed my life in small & big ways, and the vast majority of them are inexpensive or completely free. Here are 5 of my favs.
1. Hydrate with electrolytes.
[ALMOST FREE OR ~$20/MONTH]
This is one of those wellness hacks that will make you feel better like, immediately. We all know electrolytes are important for our hydration and how our bodies function overall, and when I started being more intentional with how I was consuming them, I immediately felt like I was hydrating properly (and drinking enough water without just peeing it all out). We’re particularly dehydrated when we wake up, so starting your day with a glass of electrolyte-enhanced water is a great way to go. I love LMNT because it doesn’t have any added sugar (Gatorade or products like LiquidIV are sugar-laden crap, I’m sorry to say it) and I’ll usually drink half of one in the morning or before a workout, or use an entire on on travel days. A cheaper way to do this is to add a pinch of sea salt and some lemon to your morning glass of water.
Even with my electrolytes, I still aim to drink between 8-12 glasses of water a day, ideally in the first 10 hours after waking up so I’m not peeing all night (this is actually a science-backed timeframe that I learned from the Huberman Lab Podcast.)
2. Get outside first thing in the morning
[FREE]
Setting my circadian rhythm has been the most underrated and completely free wellness hack out there. Basically, getting the sun in your eyes as close to waking up as possible is one of the easiest ways to improve your energy during the day and your quality of sleep at night. It’s important that you do not wear sunglasses to get the benefit of this (don’t worry — we’re not pulling a Trump-staring-directly-at-the-eclipse LOL… the idea here isn’t to look directly into the sun, just to get sunlight into your unfiltered eyeballs). If there are clouds you’ll still get the benefits, but the recommendation is that you need closer to 30 minutes rather than only 5 or 10 minutes when the sky is clear.
For me, I’ve worked this into my routine in one of two ways:
- On mornings when I work out at home, right after the workout I sit outside on my balcony for 5-10 minutes (yes, even when it’s freezing outside… I just bundle up).
- On the mornings where I don’t workout, I go outside for a walk right after having my morning coffee but before doing anything else.
Going for a walk allows you to kill 2 birds with one stone, but to set your circadian rhythm the most important part is just being outside sans sunglasses. There are lots of ways to incorporate this into your routine:
- Make your morning workout or run an outdoor one.
- Eat your breakfast or have your coffee outside.
- Right when you wake up, make a to-go coffee or stop at a café and walk around the block.
- Walk or bike to work.
- If the weather is bad, stand in the doorway for a bit while you listen to a podcast or check your phone.
I am diligent about this in my daily life because it’s another one of those things that you see the benefit of immediately—like, even if you’re not immediately sure how it will affect your sleep, getting outside first thing makes me feel better about the day ahead. I’m even MORE passionate about this when I’m traveling and trying to beat jetlag. When we recently landed in Sydney for a friend’s wedding, after 24 hours of travel and very little sleep, it was 8:30am Australia time. We spent the whole day outside, skipped the nap, managed to survive until about 9pm and proceeded to sleep through the night. While I know our excitement and adrenaline were at play here, I also fully attribute this easy transition to us being outside in the sun all day, readjusting our messed up circadian rhythms to Sydney’s time zone.
3. Scrape your tongue
[$9.99]
This ancient Ayurvedic practice is finally taking the western world by storm and I am here for it. I honestly can’t live without my tongue scraper and once you try it you won’t be able to live without it either. Basically when we sleep toxins and bacteria build up on our tongue, and a tongue scraper removes it all. For everyone who says you “scrape your tongue with your toothbrush,” I promise you it’s not the same. Anyways, the benefits (besides feeling fresh) are that it improves bad breath, improves your sense of taste which has a ripple effect on the foods you crave, and removes bacteria that could be harmful. It’s only $9.99 for 2 of them on Amazon, so even though I told you that you don’t have to listen to anything I say that doesn’t resonate, I promise you won’t regret this one.
4. Use the “one sec” app
[I think it was $14.95 / YEAR]
I used to have a BAD Instagram addiction and nothing I did seemed to kick it. I tried deleting it on the weekends, I stayed out of my personal account for months (I still need my business account for work, as it’s one of the main ways I get clients), I tried to use Apple’s screen controls, etc. etc. The one sec app has finally helped me have a more intentional relationship with Instagram (and Gmail). It prompts you to take a looong, multi-second deep breath to open whatever app that you have it set up with, and then it shows you how many times you’ve tried to open the app and it gives you the option to either continue or close it out. The barrier to entry is, quite frankly, annoying, but more importantly, it gives me the time to actually think about whether or not I want to open up.
I recommend paying for the Pro version so that you can set it up with multiple apps and enable what’s called “app switching” which just means that if you quickly switch out of the app (say to navigate to a link from someone’s IG Story) with the intention of going right back to the app, it doesn’t make you take the deep breath all over again. Set it up with whatever apps give you grief and watch your relationships to them change!
5. Simple sleep hygiene hacks
[$9.99 TOTAL]
For me, truly relaxing before bed by slowing down my brain is such an important indicator of how well I’ll sleep that night. If I work late, scroll endlessly, or even if I’m out with friends, and then proceed to not give myself anytime to “wind down,” I’ll sleep like garbage.
Obviously I’m not going to stop going out with friends, and the extreme sleep hygeine advice is completely unrealistic in telling us that we need hours of time to wind down for bed… which just isn’t realistic.
But there are SO many tiny, manageable things that I do on autopilot most nights that have helped my sleep so much. Here are a few of my non-negotiables right now.
- Dim the lights [free] → Coming full circle with an earlier hack about our circadian rhythm: it’s important not to be under bright lights as we get closer to bedtime, otherwise our bodies will literally think it’s daytime. After dinner, we turn off our overhead lights and move to softer lamps instead.
- Fall asleep to a meditation [free] → Maybe the biggest one: an Insight Timer meditation lulls me to sleep every. single. night. and I see a direct relationship between how much better I sleep. I love the (totally weird) sleep stories, or the yoga nidra for sleep meditations. And the app is totally free.
- Use an eye mask [$9.99] → This is especially important if you share a bed. Using an eye mask has not only improved my sleep but also my marriage lol, because I don’t wake up if Ryan comes to bed after me or is up scrolling in the middle of the night (tsktsk). I love this one because it doesn’t rest right up against your eyes, which I’ve heard could negatively impact your REM sleep.
