The Easiest Way to Live a Healthy Lifestyle
Let's apply the 80/20 rule to healthy lifestyle.
What 20% of effort will bring the maximum, i.e 80% or more beneficial results to my overall well being?
A healthy lifestyle is one where there is a balance of challenges that pushes us to grow, relaxation and leisure.
Therefore, to achieve the optimal well being, we need to work on both our mental and physical fitness.
A. Mental Health (the 20%)
Generally speaking, mental health can be divided into three sub-categories:
- Emotional Health
- Intellectual Health
- Spiritual Health
1. Emotional Health
a. Start meditating
Be it 5 minutes or 15 minutes or 1 hour long, twice daily -- it doesn't matter. Start meditating so that it becomes part of your daily ritual.
The type of meditation also doesn't matter as long as you are quieting your mind and inner chatter.
b. Exercise your idea muscles
Think what can you do for your career. What kind of businesses you can build. What kind of problems you can solve. Think and write down ideas that come to your mind.
Do not filter good ideas from bad ideas. Just focus on coming up with ideas.
2. Intellectual Health (Intelligence)
a. Play mental improvement games
Sudoku. Play chess. Solve puzzles.
b. Practice speed reading
Read a lot of books. When driving, listen to Audiobooks or Podcasts.
3. Spiritual Health
a. The Attitude Of Gratitude
Keep an optimistic perspective on life. Think of all the good things that are happening to you. Find a way to known how blessed you are.
b. Positivity
Keep a positive attitude. Think positive, talk positive and surround yourself with only positive friends.
B. Physical Health (the 20%)
1. Exercise
Workout. 30 minutes each day is the minimum. Ideally, you should do both the weights and cardio exercises.
Exercise helps the blood flow and regulation in the body. This means, exercising is also good for your brain.
2. Sleep
Sleep 8 hours. If you can manage 9 hours, get 9 hours. Sleep is directly related to your ability to come up with new creative ideas.
3. Food as Medicine
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food,” said Hippocrates. Eat well, eat healthy, fresh, local and organic if possible. Eat small portions and several times throughout your day. Once a month, take a full day complete fast except for water.
Juice your vegetables and ingest your fruits as smoothies. If you eat well and take care in this important area of your life, you will reap hundred fold results in productivity, energy and vitality.
This is the 20% that I personally follow to stay in the zone and achieve peak performance and super-productivity.
Hope this helps!