Over the years, I have observed countless reasons for why people struggle to implement healthy mental, physical and spiritual habits. Amongst those reasons, I most commonly see people avoiding healthy habits just because they cannot seem to conceptualize the immediate need for them. They are currently healthy according to lab values, moderately overworked (but they need money), in troublesome relationships (but who isn’t, right?), etc. What could go wrong?
I have spent the last 5 years working as a pharmacist in the retail setting. Counseling is part of my job and because I am also an Ayurvedic wellness counselor, I make sure to pack my counseling with plenty of juicy lifestyle tips to help patients avoid going down the “drug rabbit hole”. A lot of my advice gets disregarded because the patients I am speaking to simply feel little urge to invest time into a healthier way of life. I am confident this is a result of our society not having done a good job beating into our heads that there are beautiful and deeply satisfying ways of taking care of your mental, physical and spiritual health so that you can feel 50 when you’re 70! Or in another way, people have not been scared into the realization that their future may consist of anxieties, helplessness, physical limitations, prescription drugs, and side effects.
Healthy habits do take will power and they do take some well spent mindfulness and time. All things worthwhile do! Prior to COVID-19, I could barely convince people to switch over to drinking warm water (for its superior absorptive properties), something I view as relatively mild of a commitment. Then COVID-19 hits, and people are fearing for their lives, making them commit to much more drastic changes like not leaving the house, wearing oxygen-depriving facial coverings, consuming vitamin C like it’s their life source and not to mention how open everyone is to my “warm water hydrates you better” claim. So what this shows me is people are very capable of committing DRASTIC changes, they just most often have to be motivated by a really scary, life-threatening circumstance. That doesn’t rest well with me.
Please don’t wait to be scared into healthy habits by a scary reality hitting you in the face. Take control all on your own because you want to live a beautiful, satisfying, capable, and harmonious life. It is NEVER too late to start. I promise.
To end, I would like to share a juicy tip with you!
** Pay less attention to nutritional values like carbohydrates, fats, protein, etc. and more to the QUALITY of your food. By that I mean not only the ingredients, but also the actual physical qualities. (E.g. Your skin feels dry and cold in the winter and fall time so you should focus on consuming warm and moist foods to counteract.) Try it out!
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