Simple Daily Habits for a Happier Life

Healthy daily habits aren’t always easy to instil into your routine. After all, most of us lead busy lives and finding time to tick off yet another thing on the to-do list sometimes just feels like it’s too much to ask.

Get in the Habit

Everyone likes praise, but when you work for yourself, live on your own, become an adult, praise is harder to come by. Kids get praised all the time – and they respond well to it. So, how about giving yourself a little praise every once in a while? A great way to achieve praise for yourself is to set up some good daily routine habits and stick to them.

You could do this by using a daily habit journal or you could simply use a diary and mark off each day where you stuck to your habit. If you manage to stick to your habit you’ll soon see a row of X’s crisscrossing over the page. The more X’s, the more praise and congratulations you should lavish upon yourself because you’re doing great!

Create a Little You Time

Self-care has been a major buzzword in recent years but it’s often simply meant, ‘spend a load of cash on stuff you don’t really need and actually won’t make you feel any better in the long run’.

Instead of blowing all your wages on a new item of clothing (which ok, might make you feel awesome for the few hours you first wear it), try investing some real time in yourself. Great daily habits to improve life include -

1. Meditation: try an app like Calm or Headspace and get into the habit of taking time out from your hectic schedule with a little meditation. Just ten to 15 minutes a day can help you focus, boost creativity, and de-stress. Meditating is one of the easiest daily habits for healthy life as you don’t need any special equipment, it’s free to do, and you can do it anywhere.

2. Walking: Just a quick ten-minute walk a day can help you feel more positive, boost your energy, and help you feel more alert. Want to live a happier healthier life? Get your trainers on and get out and walk.

3. Go to Sleep: if being happier in life seems like an impossibility, perhaps you need to look at your sleeping habits. Sleep is linked closely with mental health and regular poor sleep could be causing - or playing a part in - depression, anxiety and even bipolar disorder.

Mood-Boosting Food

A good diet plays a big part in how to make yourself happier in life. It can be easy to fall into a bad habit of reaching for quick, convenience foods but it’s a well-known fact that ready meals and highly-processed foods don’t help with your mental health.

If you’re looking to add some mood-boosting food to your diet in your quest for how to live a happier life, here are our top picks -

• Dark chocolate – high in flavonoids which help boost the flow of blood to your brain, lessen inflammation, and regulate mood. Plus, it tastes good. 

• Oats – Rich in iron and fibre, oats can help you maintain stable blood sugar levels, stay fuller for longer, and could help combat signs of anaemia which include tiredness, mood disorders, and low energy.

• Berries – foods rich in antioxidants like berries can help inflammation that’s connected to mood conditions like depression. Eat fresh or frozen – both are great at boosting your levels of antioxidants and phenolic compounds.

• Fatty fish – rich in Omega 3s which help your brain’s development and is thought to help with lower levels of depression.

Let there be Light

We all know that getting our daily dose of vitamin D from the sun can help keep us feel good, but did you know red light therapy has been shown to help boost your mental health too? Conditions such as SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and depression could soon be treated with red light and near-infrared light.

LED light therapy, including red light and near-infrared light, have been shown to have a positive effect on everything from skin, muscle aches, sleep quality, and even brain disorders. Add time for red light and/or near-infrared light treatment into your routine and you could reap multiple benefits.

There are heaps of ways to be happier in life, and these are just a few. If you’re looking to improve how you’re feeling, the best thing you can do is ‘start small’. Trying to add too many things into your schedule could easily leave you feeling burnt out and unable to keep up.

Keep things manageable, and track your habit to keep yourself feeling positive about your achievements.

You can do this!