Having a daily routine is one of the most important aspects of leading a healthy life. Incorporating small habits and rituals into your everyday activities can help you stay organized, focused, and driven to achieve your goals.
Getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, and eating nutritious meals: these are all key ingredients for becoming the best version of yourself! But we don’t all have the same needs. In this article, I’ll describe how to make a simple checklist to make sure you hit the most important points in a daily routine. We’ll explore options for making sure you incorporate movement, mindfulness, sleep, nourishment, and self-expression.
No routine is right for everyone, but we can explore options to find what’s right for us. At the end of each section, we list a few sample items that you might try to see what works for you. It’s not important to do any of them in particular. Tailor them to fit your life and your goals to make your daily checklist help you set healthy habits.
Get Moving
Movement is any activity that connects the body and the mind, bringing us into mindfulness. Whether we are stretching, walking, or running, any activity where we are using our body can be beneficial. In addition to providing physical activity, it can help us clear our minds and refocus on what matters most.
While yoga classes tend to be the activity most commonly associated with movement, you don’t necessarily need to take a class to get the benefits of movement – just get moving in whatever way works for you. Not only will your body thank you, but your mind also will too. Your mind and body are linked closely: what you do for one will help the other. Connecting your mind and body centers you and helps you stay grounded.
A lot of people are afraid that they’re too out of shape and can’t get into exercise. That’s okay. The point isn’t that you have to be an athlete, but that you take a little time each day to connect with your body and feel present in your skin. When we do this, we ground ourselves in reality and in ourselves. We escape the frantic nature of reality and just focus on our own bodies for a minute.
Slowing down and remembering to take care of our bodies is important to not get swept away in the hustle and bustle of modern life. Small substitutions work well here. The Mayo Clinic advises walking during phone calls, taking the stairs, or standing at your desk. It’s not about big changes, it’s about small tweaks to keep your body engaged.
Some items you could try:
✅ Do 10 minutes of yoga in the evening
✅ Take a 15-minute walk
✅ Take the stairs when you can
Get Mindful
Mindfulness is a powerful tool for achieving inner peace, better focus, and more balance in life. Through meditation and deep breathing exercises, we can cultivate greater awareness of the present moment and create space to gain insight into our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. By actively engaging with mindfulness meditation regularly, we can learn to be fully present with ourselves and our surroundings.
As a result, life becomes more purposeful and meaningful as we develop an inner connection towards living authentically. We don’t have to become gurus who meditate for hours on end. Many people find starting meditation hard. So take it slow. Meditate for 5 minutes, or 3 minutes. Or better yet, just take a minute out of your day to focus on your breathing. You want to notice the texture of each inhale and exhale.
If not breathing exercises, get out in nature and center yourself there. Everyone has different specific needs. No matter if you’re a monk or a beginner, just taking a second out for yourself to breathe is so important for dealing with stress. The APA notes that mindfulness boosts our cognition, our physical health, and our mental health. Finding the best mindfulness practices for you can pay huge dividends.
You might put:
✅ Breathing exercises in the morning and evening
✅ Meditate for 3 minutes
✅ Spend 10 minutes outside in nature
Get Rest
Sleep is an integral part of physical and mental health. A routine that includes adequate sleep for adults, children, and adolescents will help them to be healthy in body and mind. Establishing routine sleep times is key for both adults and children – developing good habits early can go a long way toward better sleep hygiene throughout life.
Additionally, it’s important to relax before bedtime by avoiding screens with light-emitting devices such as computers, televisions, and cell phones one or two hours before bedtime to improve your sleep quality. Everyone is different here, so see how you like to relax in the evening. You might take a hot bath, or read a book. Maybe you prefer sleeping with a fan, or with white noise. You could listen to relaxing music, or do some breathing routines.
There’s no “right” sleep routine for everyone. We want to build a routine that works for your individual self. Everyone’s body and mind are different; it wouldn’t make sense if we all relaxed the same way. Rather, find what helps you sleep and set yourself up for success with your nighttime routine.
For everyone, “as best you can, try to make sleep a priority,” Brown says. “Sleep is not a throwaway thing—it’s a biological necessity.” –The National Institute of Health
You could try:
✅No screens one hour before bed
✅Go to bed at 10 pm (or whatever time you pick)
✅Get at least 7 hours of sleep
Nourish Yourself
Nourishment is a key element to sustaining health and maximizing life’s potential. In a fast-paced world, it’s hard to make healthy choices. If you’re working 9-5 or more, you can’t take the time to make all healthy, homemade meals if you’re just starting out. Rather, just make smaller changes. Eat an apple instead of a bag of chips, for example. Small changes lead to long-term benefits. The American Heart Association has some ideas to help out.
The point isn’t that we all start eating perfectly right away. Rather, we should incorporate mindfulness into our eating habits. It’s easy to burn yourself out when you aren’t paying attention. When we don’t give our bodies and minds their proper respect and appreciation, we run the risk of injuring ourselves and living in disharmony.
It’s said so much that it almost isn’t worth saying, but it still is: keep yourself hydrated. Hydration affects everything we do. Again, we don’t want to set a number. Everyone’s different, and we get a lot of hydration from our food and other drinks besides water, too. But hydration is a basic, foundational part of health. When we aren’t hydrated, everything else gets harder, too.
None of us are perfect, and we’ll all make bad choices with food. We don’t want to be joyless and only dedicated to one thing; it’s okay to splurge sometimes! What we must remember is to be mindful of what we’re consuming to make small changes to make our habits just a little bit better each day.
Consider:
✅Drink more water
✅Substitute one sugary snack for fruit
✅Eat your meals mindfully
Express Yourself
Expression is an important part of life and can often go unappreciated. Whether it’s journaling your thoughts, creating a piece of art, playing music, dancing, or simply laughing with friends, it is our personal unique expressions that bring joy to the heart.
Journals serve as a window into our inner selves that we may not share with others. Art comes in all shapes and sizes, but no matter what form you’re in when you create a work of art it will uniquely tell your story and allow people a glimpse into who you are. Music has an incredible ability to bring us together, yet also provide us with an escape from the outside world. Dance helps communicate feeling that we can sometimes have trouble putting into words.
Laughter helps connect us to others through shared joyous moments which can bring strength and peace in times of difficulty. Expressing yourself to other people helps strengthen social bonds and improve your mood. We don’t often get a chance to express ourselves in our busy lives. It can be easy to forget to take the time out to talk to a friend and make a connection.
That’s why it’s important to make sure you let out these emotions, instead of bottling them up. It’s very easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life and forget that we are social animals. We need time to express ourselves and share in the company of others. Just a little time to express yourself and feel your emotions can go a long way.
Expression is important for physical, mental, and emotional well-being so don’t forget to take time for yourself!
Expressing yourself through artistic and creative activities is like a prescription for your mental health. Turning to creativity has been proven in extensive research to relieve both stress and anxiety. Creativity also helps lessen the shame, anger, and depression felt by those who have experienced trauma. –Barbara Field at Verywell Mind
Try incorporating:
✅Journal before bed
✅Take a break and listen to music
✅Call a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while
Moving, mindfulness, sleeping soundly, nourishing our bodies, and expressing ourselves – these five essential elements to optimal health should be embraced fully. Each of us holds the power to make positive changes that can drastically improve the quality of our lives in both the short term and the long-term.
Remember, sometimes just taking a few moments each day to check in on your physical and mental well-being can make all the difference. Small changes are key to big payoffs. We emphasize substitution over big changes. Remember, we want to make our good habits easy. It’s about building up that momentum.
Every small improvement is like adding a little snow to a snowball. At first, there’s not much there, but as we work at it, our snowball gets bigger and more powerful. Eventually, it gets big enough to start rolling on its own. Habits become subconscious. This is when we can add even more improvement, and then really get rolling.
So don’t let life pass you by! Be mindful of how you move, sleep well each night, fuel your body correctly, and don’t forget to express yourself through creative outlets – it’s how we find joy in life. Making and using your own daily routines checklist will change how you approach your overall health for years to come. Remember the snowball: small changes, big rewards.
If you want to dive deeper into the best daily routines for a healthy life, then watch Wesley’s interview with Mike Dee, where Wesley and Mike talk about taking risks, changing your habits, and making sure that your routines work for you.