Slow-cooked meals, Netflix marathons, and limited sunlight equal fewer reasons to get in shape during winter. If you’re like us, then embracing healthy habits can be challenging, especially during the cooler months.

However, July presents us with opportunities to re-evaluate some of our habits, and collectively take action. The most common action is the eliminating of booze from our lives, however there are other healthy habits we we can add into our routine too.

Here are some healthy habits to get your body and mind in to shape this month:

Meditation

In 2020, 77% of workers in Aus and NZ experienced burnout, the average workers overtime increased from 236 hours to 436 hours, 21% of workers felt greater expectation by their bosses to be available.

Recent research published this year has found that mindfulness exercises, such as meditation may reduce anxiety, depression and stress making it a gold mine for your mental health. Given the rate of mental health problems has doubled over the past 12 months, meditation may be just want we need to get ourselves back on track again.

While most people will wait until they are completely burnt out before they even consider doing something good for their mental health, and even then they will often put it off to Christmas or their holiday time, why not start it now. You dont need to wait until a holiday to start feeling refreshed again

Taking 15-20 minutes per day to learn to meditation is a great habit to get into. If it was good enough for the late Steve Jobs, it is good enough for you.

Embrace a healthy diet

This might sound like an obvious suggestion, but when it comes to diet, everyone is different so it’s finding out what diet best suits you is the hard part. Sure there’s the foundational advice around making sure you’re eating enough veggies, fruit and whole foods, but exploring a little deeper can really make a big difference.

For example, if you consume dairy regularly I would recommend trialing a period of time without consuming it and notice how you feel. Same goes with high gluten foods. A lot of us have some level of intolerance to either lactose or gluten but our bodies have just learnt to deal with it. It’s doesn’t even need to be a long period of time to trial this too. Just a couple of days without consuming these types of foods will tell you a lot. You’ll know whether you have some type of intolerance quite quickly. You’ll feel it.

Surf

Running water has been shown to produce negative ions which help us relax. That’s why having a water feature in offices can make the environment a more calming one for workers. Now pair this running water with nature and a bit of exercise and you have the perfect recipe to help you feel better.

Surfing is a great full body exercise that also takes us out of our home, away from our phone and out in nature. It is the ultimate place to be and a great sport to try. Even in winter, I suggest getting out there are giving it a go. Best of all, it should burn enough energy to help you get a better nights sleep.

Kombucha

Regardless of whether you are giving up alcohol or not, kombucha is an amazing drink to add to your diet. I have been drinking Nexba almost every day since the year began and I have seen a huge difference in how I am feeling and in my energy levels. I like this brand as it is sugar free whereas a lot of others are not.

Nexba’s kombucha has a minimum of 500 million probiotics in each drink. Most probiotics can be a little delicate and often don’t survive the journey to your gut alive, however Nexba uses a special strain of smart probiotics, Bacillus Coagulans, that are the most effective at making it to your gut intact. In fact, they’re so robust you don’t even have to keep them in the fridge! They’re encased in a hardy, protein-like shell which means that they can make the journey from supermarket shelf to your microbiome alive.

Ensuring you have good gut health helps with your mind and your mood and that is why eating better and consuming more products that are good for me is a priority for me in 2021.

Sleep

If you should be prioritising anything, it is sleep. Easy said then done though when it comes to sleep, as there’s no instant soultion to getting more of it. It’s a combition of multiple healthy habits that will lead to a better nights sleep. All of the other tips suggested in this article will  certainly help. One essential tip that iI haven’t mentioned here though is temprature. Lower the tempature in your sleeping environment has made one of the biggest differences to the quality of my sleep.

 I always thought the warmer, more snug you were when sleeping, the better. Turns out, I was completely wrong. Research done at the University of South Australia found that certain forms of insomnia occur with poor body temperature regulation. A colder room actually helps your body cool down enough to reach a level of deeper, restorative sleep. An easy tip to help with this to try aviod putting that extra blanket on the bed when you go to sleep. Put it next to the bed instead. Then if you wake up becuase you’re too cold, you can easily grab it and pull it over you. 

About the author

Luke McLeod is the founder of virtual meditation studio Soul Alive. He is also a Good Gut Feels ambassador for Nexba

Need more inspiration?

This Weekend is a lifestyle guide for sustainably-minded folk — covering sustainable living tips, travel, dining, brands, wellness, and more. Our platform promotes living a sustainable lifestyle without compromising the things that matter most.