When willpower is not the key: Building good habits for a healthier lifestyle

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Why are some people enjoying a healthy lifestyle while others struggle? We tend to attribute healthy living to willpower and feel bad about ourselves when we fail – especially when looking at people who seem to succeed easily (looking at you, social media).

But here’s the secret: The foundation for a healthy lifestyle is not willpower – it’s good habits. By definition, habits are behaviors that have been repeated so often they occur automatically and without conscious thought, making them difficult to interrupt, such as brushing your teeth every day. So once you are used to a healthy habit, you will go through it every day without giving it much thought.

There’s just one catch: You have to convince your brain first. The human brain will fight good habits if they require an effort and do not lead to instant gratification, for example a workout when you are tired. That’s why lying down on the sofa is so much more attractive than an evening walk after a long day: You know that exercise is good for metabolic health, helps to destress and supports digestion, but relaxing on the couch right away is so much more satisfying! You have to make an active decision to do the right thing and you need willpower to do it. Unfortunately, the more exhausted you are, the harder the decision gets – and the couch will win again.

Training your brain

You need to train (and occasionally trick) your brain into forming healthy habits which you will follow without giving it much thought. Here are some tips for establishing healthy, sustainable habits:

Go step by step: Adopt one healthy habit after another instead of trying to overhaul your whole lifestyle overnight.

Be specific: Set specific, measurable goals for what you want to achieve and make sure they are realistic and attainable. “Eating a healthy diet” is too unspecific – but “adding protein to every meal” is both measurable and manageable.

Create New Cues: Introduce cues or reminders that encourage positive behavior so you don’t forget about the habit you want to adopt. This could be a visual cue, a reminder on your phone or whatever you can think of. If you want to read more instead of watching TV, you could put the book next to the remote, for example.

Use habit stacking: Adopting a new habit is a lot easier if you tack it onto an existing one! If you want to exercise more, you could link daily habits to quick micro-workouts, like doing a few push-ups after you brushed your teeth, for example.

Set up a reward system: Reward yourself when you meet your goals to reinforce positive behavior. But make sure that the reward doesn’t contradict what you want to achieve! Watching your favorite TV show after a workout (and only then!) is of course better that rewarding yourself with candy

Let’s see how this works!

Let’s go through an example: You feel that you don’t drink enough water throughout the day. Insufficient hydration can lead to headaches, low energy levels, digestive issues and other problems, so this is an important habit for your overall health.

Set a specific goal: Determine how much water you need to drink throughout the day to feel optimally hydrated. Depending on age, the body of an adult needs between 30 and 40 ml of water per kilogram of body weight per day.

Create new cues: Many people forget to drink throughout the day! Put water bottles where you can see them (for example your desk at work) or download a reminder app on your phone.

Habit stacking: Have a glass of water right before your morning coffee (or Unimate!).

Reward yourself: What about an extra Unimate in the afternoon? Just saying 😉

Get on the Feel Great journey towards a healthier lifestyle

It’s the small efforts that add up to support your overall health. Forming consistent habits that help you get the most from your efforts can help you out even more. Unicity’s Feel Great system was designed to help you reach your health goals without requiring you to completely change your lifestyle. By combining two high-quality products with intermittent fasting, you can feel better than you’ve felt in years, and support healthy metabolic health, too. Visit ufeelgreat.com to learn more.