There’s no getting around it, we’re are creatures of habit, routines, and rituals. Our lifestyles revolve around our day-to-day operations that make us who we are and it seems like no matter how hard we try, there are some habits we just can’t break. But the truth is, there are certain daily habits we don’t even realize are ruining our health.
When you’re a twenty-something you feel invincible. We’re the generation of 24-hour gyms, perfect tans, and meal prep videos at our fingertips. And yet, little by little, we catch ourselves creating routines filled with habits that are ruining our health, sabotaging it even, and we’re completely and utterly unaware.
1. Laying in the sun “for a few minutes to warm up” before putting on sunscreen.
We’re all guilty of getting to the beach and laying down on our towel before applying any sunscreen. The minutes pass and the sun beats down on our bare bodies, ruining our skin whether we see a burn or not.
You can’t stay indoors all day long, actually your body needs vitamin D to promote bone growth. However, exposure to sunlight ages your skin, leaving you looking like an old wrinkled raisin in just a few years. Skin cancer is on the rise and thus the need to be cautious about how much time you spend in the sun and always wear some high-level sunblock to prevent yourself from these damaging experiences.
Even just a few minutes of this habit on the wrong day can set you back a couple years.
2. Skipping breakfast because you feel like you can “fast” till lunch.
We’ve all caught ourselves at work with our stomachs growling but lowkey thinking, “I don’t need to eat, I can make it till lunch” (and high key thinking we’re being healthy). But the truth is, you should never skip breakfast. It is the essential meal of the day therefore, lack of it causes general lack of energy, bad moods, poor physical and intellectual performance, and loss of concentration and memory. Besides, it dramatically ruins your endurance, performance, and emotional situation. Within the first hours of the day, the brain needs nutrients to keep on “managing” your physiological processes after you’ve not eaten anything throughout the night. If we don’t break this habit and supply our brains with energy, it will use what is reserved and struggle to make an extra effort to uphold correct functioning.
3. Giving yourself a few spritzes of perfume in the morning, during lunch, and on your way home.
While perfume breaks lousy odor, it is made from ingredients that are not good for your health, detrimental even. The majority of manufacturers uses synthetic substances because they are cheaper than natural oil and smell stronger, which is what most people prefer. However, understand that these ingredients may cause nausea, dizziness, and drowsiness ultimately ruining your groove on a good day. It’s important to pay attention to what the products that you’re using are made of, otherwise you could be compromising your health with a habit you don’t even realize you’re doing.
4. Excusing yourself from working out because you ‘did a lot today.’
No matter how busy your schedule is, how exhausted you are when you get home from work, or how many times you promise yourself to go to the gym tomorrow–– your body needs daily exercise to stay healthy. The brain benefits tremendously from working out because exercise releases endorphins, which bring a nice feeling, provide a positive attitude and boosting your overall morale. It’s extremely bad for you body and will ultimately ruin your healthy to adopt a lifestyle where you move from your car straight to desk chair all day then directly to the couch. At least spare some time to give your body what it wants and that must be a little exercise. With every push up and every mile walked you’re not only fighting obesity, but also lowering your risk of a heart attack.
5. You go HAM brushing your teeth in the morning, but don’t at night.
This is probably the toughest habit to break and also the one that’s taking the biggest hit to your health. A lot of us don’t even know what really happens if we only brush our teeth once a day, but apparently, it’s nightmarish. Although we like to form a habit of brushing our teeth on a regular basis, most people skip the nighttime brush in a hurry to go to bed. The thought that “this one time won’t hurt” often turn into two, four, and then becomes a normal habit. Failure to brush teeth allows plaque to attack the enamel, which ruins the appeal of your teeth. Along with ruining your pearly whites, it causes gum disease, which has a straight link to heart disease and other infections. So, the cure? Just brush your teeth twice a day!
6. Holding in a sneeze to be “polite.”
If you’re not guilty of this, you’re lying. We’ve all been in a library studying or at a black tie dinner party when the urge to sneeze comes on hot and heavy, so we do everything we can to make it go away. But when you stop yourself from sneezing, you disrupt the flow of blood to the brain, which compresses blood veins and tissue. This is the case because to prevent yourself from sneezing, you always pinch your nose and close your mouth causing pressure to move upwards. This is a major health problem that can result in a headache and, in some instances, damage to your vessels and result in problems as life altering as loss of hearing.
7. Sleeping with a cover over your head.
There are a million lists of what not to do while you sleep, #1 is definitely sleeping with a blanket over your head. When you sleep with your head covered, the carbon dioxide concentration increases, thus reducing oxygen intake. This could cause suffocation and harmful effects to your brain. Just like when you’re awake, when you’re sleeping you need constant, unblocked airflow to get a well rested night’s sleep. Your body craves oxygen no matter what state it’s in and when you deprive your body of it you ruin your health one breath at a time.
8. Staying up late when you know you have to wake up early (because YOLO).
Your body needs 8 hours of sleep every night to allow your brain to rest, for metabolic processes to take place with the resultant energy produced, and to renovate cellular. When you deprive yourself of sleep, you simply accelerate the death of brain cells, feel tired, and ruins mood all day. As happy as you might think you’re making yourself by staying up to finish that last episode of Friends (you know, the one you’ve already seen a million times), your body is actually craving REM sleep.
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