Adopting healthy habits in your 20’s significantly impacts how long you stay healthy into middle age, but it may be hard for you to take the time to focus on your own health while you are busy with the stresses of your career, relationships, and finances.
While you might not be concerned with aging or declining health yet, studies have shown that the habits and lifestyles we have in our early life has direct consequences on how well we age.
Here are 20 simple strategies to maintain good health in your 20’s and beyond.
• Wear Sunscreen Everyday
Take care of your skin while you’re young and wrinkle free. Use a good sunscreen everyday, even on cloudy days to prevent sun damage such as wrinkles and sun spots. Look for ones with ingredients like zinc and titanium dioxide, and avoid sunscreens with hormone disrupting chemicals such as oxybenzone, octinoxate, and avobenzone.
• Sleep Well
In your early 20’s, you may have been partying a lot in college and studying for exams all night. Now that you’re a working professional, or hoping to become one, you need to learn good sleep hygiene. Exhausting yourself will not serve you in the long run. Prioritize getting plenty of sleep and maintain good sleep habits now. Make your room dark, cool, and quiet in order to get the best quality sleep possible. Aim for 7-9 hours a night.
• Hydrate Before You Caffeinate
When you wake up in the morning, do yourself a favor and chug a bunch of water before anything else. It flushes out your system, rehydrates your organs after sleeping, and helps wake you up. Before drinking a diuretic such as coffee or tea, drink plenty of regular water.
• Manage Stress
Stress is an unavoidable part of life. Whatever you’re dealing with, there’s going to be some challenges along the way. Managing stress in a healthy way is a good lifestyle practice to learn early on. The stress will never go away, but you can learn how to cope properly and become more resilient to future stressors.
• Prioritize Your Mental Health
Mental health is a huge part of our overall well-being. Do not ignore signs of mental health issues. Getting help is a sign of strength. You do not have to be at rock bottom to ask for support.
• Write Down Your Goals
Writing down your goals ensures you’re that much more likely to achieve them. Picturing your goals on paper helps to make action steps towards the short term goals and intentions. Mapping out your bigger goals into short term goals and the smaller steps is a great tool to achieve success in your life.
• Get Organized
Organizing the important things early on in life is a great way to minimize chaos and stress later. Make an excel sheet full of your passwords, automate any bills, keep track of your spending, and get a great planner. Using a planner to keep track of appointments, work, and social activities is essential to staying on top of things.
• Have A Plan But Be Flexible
Being organized and writing all of your appointments and important to do lists is awesome, but you have to account for days when life gets in the way. Having a general plan is great, but be flexible and be able to pivot or change direction when things don’t go as planned.
• Don’t Fall For Fad Diets
There is a lot of misleading and bad information out there about food, weight loss, and diets. Do not listen to them. 1,200 is not enough food for anyone. Do not cut out food groups, place morality on foods, or feel guilty for enjoying your food.
• Nourish Not Punish
In addition to not participating in dieting, learn how to buy and cook healthy meals. Eat to nourish yourself. You need to eat to feel your best. Choose foods that are fresh and nutritious, but also choose the foods that make your soul happy.
Healthy with Chelsea 