Humans are creatures of habit. A study conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Wrangler found 81% of Americans claim to be stuck in a routine. While living a routine-oriented lifestyle may not be considered a bad thing, the overwhelming majority of Americans fail to incorporate a healthy lifestyle into their daily routine. According to a study from the Mayo Clinic, only 2.7% of Americans live a healthy lifestyle.
A slight change in your daily activities to include a wellness routine can go a long way. While each person’s body operates differently, we’ll examine the key components of wellness and discuss how to create and maintain a daily routine for a healthy body and mind.
What is Wellness?
Before you start building out a wellness routine, it’s important to understand that wellness is a broad concept, and there are various facets of wellness to achieve a healthy lifestyle. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) notes there are eight dimensions of wellness. Those dimensions include:
- Physical: Nutrition, exercise and health care are all things that fall into the physical wellness category.
- Emotional: The ability to express and adjust emotions, cope with life’s stressors and overall enjoying life. The main areas that fall into the emotional wellness dimension consist of feelings, self-care and stress.
- Occupational: Participating in activities that provide meaning and purpose. This includes work relationships, a work-life balance and accomplishments.
- Intellectual: Keeping the brain active and always willing to listen to a different perspective on an issue and considering it. This dimension includes personal interests, education, brain exercise and conversation.
- Financial: The ability to feel comfortable with your current financial situation with income, debt and savings.
- Social: Maintaining healthy relationships with friends, family and your community.
- Environmental: Your ability to feel and be safe. This dimension includes finding environments that stimulate and support your well-being.
- Spiritual: Another broad concept, but spiritual wellness symbolizes your personal beliefs and values that have meaning, purpose and a sense of peace.
While there are eight dimensions of wellness, many of these dimensions can be interconnected and build on each other. However, in this article, we’ll mainly focus on physical and emotional wellness to get you on the path to creating a wellness routine.
Morning Wellness Routine
To build up your physical and emotional wellness, we recommend starting by establishing a morning wellness routine. Here are some activities you can try to get your day off on the right foot.
Stretching Before Getting Out of Bed
After lying in bed and sleeping for eight hours, your body needs to readjust to activity. According to Dr. Beth Frates, per Harvard Health Publishing, stretching before you get out of bed can improve blood flow and circulation. Additionally, she mentioned it could help turn on the parasympathetic system, which can help set the tone for a stress-free morning and day.
Meditation
Meditation in the morning can help your emotional well-being, assist with reducing stress and some research suggests it may help individuals manage anxiety.
Some of the benefits include:
- Limiting negative emotions
- Focusing on the present moment
- Increasing imagination and creativity
Implementing meditation into your morning wellness routine doesn’t have to be intricate, but a few minutes a day can reduce stress and positively affect your overall emotional health. Research from 2016 found individuals who meditate regularly had fewer flare-ups of stress receptors than those who didn’t meditate.
CBD may be a good option for those looking for additional support if you’re still dealing with occasional stress and anxiety. Even though stress and anxiety are considered separate conditions, the body manages them similarly.
To help with stress, you should look for CBD products that provide a sense of calming and relaxation.
Drink More Water
This may seem like an obvious tip, but one of the major keys to good health and wellness is to ensure you are staying hydrated throughout the day. Some medical experts believe drinking lemon water in the morning can provide the following benefits:
- A healthy dose of vitamin C
- Help prevent kidney stones
- Assists with weight-loss
- Helps with digestion
- Provides a potassium boost
While each person’s body is different, the Mayo Clinic suggests drinking at least eight glasses of water a day to maintain a healthy lifestyle. However, that number can change depending on your level of activity.
Eat Breakfast
We all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
Unfortunately, many Americans skip this meal altogether. According to a study conducted by the NPD Group, 31 million Americans skip breakfast each day.
While having something for breakfast is typically better than not having anything at all, the key to living a healthy lifestyle is to eat something with nutritional value. For example, a balance of whole grains, lean proteins, fruits and vegetables will supply your body with enough energy until lunch.
The Mayo Clinic provides some ideas for healthy breakfast options that you can incorporate into your busy schedule. Some of the options include:
- Cooked oatmeal with almonds or dried cranberries
- A smoothie mixed with an assortment of fruits, plain yogurt and a spoonful of wheat germ
- A tortilla with whole wheat bread, vegetables, salsa and low-fat shredded cheese
Midday Wellness Routine
After the hustle-and-bustle of the morning, you should continue to address your wellness throughout the day. Here are some tips we recommend to keep your healthy daily routine going.
Refuel Your Body
Skipping lunch is not recommended and can be harmful to your wellness routine. No matter how hectic the day may get, you must refuel your body and mind. Depending on when you started your day, the energy provided by your breakfast will start to wear off.
The Mayo Clinic offers some healthy lunch options that can be whipped up in minutes. Here are some of the best ideas:
- Chicken salad: Start with pre-washed greens and add shredded rotisserie chicken, sliced tomatoes, a dash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
- Roast beef sandwich: Toast a whole-wheat bun and add heated roast-beef slices. Feel free to low-fat cheese and your choice of vegetables.
- Tuna sub: Toast a whole-wheat bun, add tuna and top it off with a dab of mayonnaise and some vegetables.
Stay Active
If you're one of the millions of Americans who spend their day sitting at a desk, it’s important to your health and wellness to get up and move around—even if it’s for a few minutes.
During your lunch break, take a few minutes to get some fresh air and walk around. Additionally, this can be a good time to head over to the break room and refill your water bottle.
Evening Wellness Routine
Once the workday is complete, you may have obligations such as picking up your kids from school, or you may be tempted to go home and watch TV. Using this time to work on your physical wellness can go a long way to achieving your wellness goals.
Exercising for at least an hour has a variety of benefits to your physical wellness. Some of those benefits include:
- Maintaining a healthy body weight
- Improving mental health and mood
- Improving your sleep
- Strengthening your bones and muscles
While it’s understandable that fitting in an hour of exercise per day may not be feasible for everyone, here are some tips that can help you include exercise as part of your daily routine:
- Change up your daily activities: Adjusting your daily activities to make them more active can help. For example, instead of parking close to your office building, try parking further away to get a few extra steps in.
- Find a workout partner: Exercising becomes more enjoyable and motivational when you have someone on the journey with you. Additionally, you can plan activities that involve moving around, such as hiking or a bike ride.
- Stay motivated: Keep track of your progress and set goals—once you’ve reached your goals, set up more and keep it going.
When your workout is complete, it’s important for your physical wellness to rest and recover.
On top of recovery food and drinks, CBD may help with the recovery process. Studies have shown that anti-inflammatory activity found in cannabidiol (one of the active compounds found in hemp) may positively affect muscle soreness. Learn more about how CBD may help your post-workout recovery process.
Nightly Wellness Routine
Once the sun has gone down, it’s time for you and your body to unwind after a long day. Here are some self-care strategies to use as a part of your healthy night routine.
Get a Good Night’s Sleep
Sleeping well may be the most important part of establishing and maintaining a wellness routine. If you don’t get a good night’s sleep, almost everything mentioned in this article will falter.
While some days may be harder than others, experts recommend a solid seven to eight hours of sleep per night to reach maximum efficiency the next day. Some things you can do to get the most out of your sleep include:
- Limit electronic devices: phones, TVs, and laptops emit a blue light that can harm our sleep patterns. According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, blue light is essential for our health during the day, but overexposure, especially during the night, can have adverse effects. Those effects include delaying the time it takes to fall asleep, reducing REM sleep and reducing morning alertness.
- Avoid exercise and large meals within a few hours of your bedtime.
- Keep the temperature cool in your bedroom. The Sleep Foundation recommends keeping the air around 65 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal sleep.
If you’ve tried everything but still feel like you’re not achieving the best sleep possible, you may want to try out CBD designed for sleep.
A recent study looked at the effects of CBD on anxiety and sleep. The results showed sleep scores improved within the first month for 67% of the participants. According to experts, CBN (cannabinol), even though the research is still preliminary, may be useful as a sleep aid.
Learn How to Achieve Maximum Wellness
Creating a wellness routine is the easy part, but sticking with it is challenging. Following these tips can help you achieve a healthy lifestyle. If you consider CBD as extra support of wellness, check out the Sky Wellness blog for in-depth information on CBD and the potential health benefits.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer. All opinions expressed in this blog post are the author's own and do not reflect the view of Sky Wellness or its brands/affiliates.
