Milspouses Meet Your New Year’s Goals with These Health and Wellness Tips
Self-care in the New Year: it's not always something we associate with health and wellness.
We tend to associate self-care with massages, scented candles, or a glass of wine. But many people greet January with goals, ambition, and objectives. And whether your goals are to work out more and clean up your diet, level up your business, be more patient with your kids, or snag a promotion, you're going to need to take care of yourself, and that means looking after your health.
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Meeting your New Year's goals is a long-term project and–as with anything long-term–it's important to pace yourself. That means you're going to need stamina.
We're not doctors, but we have some simple, easy-to-follow suggestions that you'll be able to use, whatever your 2021 goals. Here are some health and wellness tips that can help you in the coming year!
Get Enough (Good) Sleep
When you're sick, the doctor's advice is always to get plenty of rest. Well, guess what? That advice is true even if you're not battling the sniffles.
It's easy to get wrapped up in a project, a Netflix binge, or a good book and lose track of time. What about checking Instagram before bed and then realizing a half-hour (or more) has passed?
Commit to improving your sleep hygiene this year if you want to improve your quality of sleep. Clean up your bedtime habits: turn off the screens, determine your optimal bedtime to get the recommended 7 to 9 hours of sleep, and keep your wake-up time consistent.
Develop a Routine
Then, take a look at your morning routine. Do you tumble out of bed and go from there? Or do you have a plan?
Putting the same things you do every day, week, and month on autopilot can help remove a great deal of mental stress and anxiety from your day. Make a list of the things you need (or want) to do every day to determine where you can build or enhance your routine.
Don't feel like you need to overhaul everything all at once. For example, if you start with setting a consistent bedtime and a regular wake-up time, once you begin to notice the changes, assess what tweaks you can make from there. If you notice you're waking up earlier, maybe you can make mornings when you workout, meditate, or answer emails.
Consider incorporating into your routine things you had to save up for weekends: 15-20 minutes of cleaning per day, for example.
Hydrate
This one is popular in the military community, and for good reason. A healthy individual needs 30 to 50 ounces of fluids daily. Water is the best way to hydrate, but other fluids can do the job, as well.
Dehydration can make you fatigued, affect your concentration, and in general, prevent you from feeling your best. Get a cute water bottle, slap some motivational stickers on there, and make it your constant accessory throughout the day!
Check In With Your People
It's hard to go it alone when you're going after your goals. Make sure you have a trusted friend or group of friends to be your sounding board as you work to make your dreams a reality.
Whatever your situation looks like in the New Year, be sure to tap into your support network. Human connection is vital to health and wellbeing.
Be Kind To Yourself
Listen to the way you talk to and about yourself, and make sure those words are loving. Because to paraphrase the immortal words of RuPaul: if you don't love yourself, how can you love anybody else?
We don't know what Murphy's going to throw at us in 2021, but we'll be much better prepared to take it on with a good night's sleep and a water bottle!
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Goals are hard. For many of us, 2020 was hard. So treat yourself the way you'd treat your best friend, and when you get discouraged, follow the advice you'd give them.
You're going to make mistakes in pursuit of your goals–that's almost guaranteed. Whatever you're doing to make 2021 your year, be patient and kind to yourself.