Habits: Harmful or Beneficial? August 7, 2016

Habits: Harmful or beneficial?

A habit is a usual way of behaving that often occurs subconsciously. Habits are actually important but can be harmful or beneficial. Up to 90% of our everyday behavior is based on habit. This makes it important to create healthy habits. Are your habits benefiting you in a positive way or are they harming you in some way? Are they contributing to your optimal health physically, mentally, and spiritually or are they interfering with your physical, mental, and spiritual health?

In an effort to be physically healthy, one must develop healthy eating habits and a habit of being active and exercising. On the other hand, one must also look at the habits that are harmful such as smoking, lack of exercise, too much alcohol consumption, eating a poor diet, or any other habit that research has proven to be destructive to our health. For example, poor eating habits developed at an early age lead to a lifetime of real health consequences. Staying active and developing a habit of exercising regularly, have proven to decrease heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and many other diseases. Are your habits leading to optimal physical health?

In an effort to become mentally healthy, one must cultivate an environment of peace. Getting into the habit of practicing meditation and creating times of silence are beneficial to good mental health. On the other hand, we must evaluate the habits that disrupt our inner peace such as participating in drama and gossip or getting carried away with our negative habitual thinking such to name a few. I have found it helpful to pause and ask myself, do my words and actions promote peace or discord. I have also found that feeling sorry for myself, or my present condition, was not only a waste of energy but also one of the worst habits that I had. A few habits that have been beneficial for my mental health are exchanging my small talk for deeper conversation, making it a point to listen to others, looking on the bright side, appreciating simple pleasures, being mindful of the good, and surrounding myself with positive happy people.

In an effort to become healthy spiritually, one must get into the habit of doing whatever it is that feeds the spiritual being. That may be different for each of us. For me, it comes from many different sources. My spirit is fed through the teaching at my church, my relationship with my spiritually aware friends, reading materials that keep me aware of the spiritual laws and their importance in my life, and lastly prayer and meditation. Find what it is that speaks to you and makes you feel connected to the one source, one creator, and one Universe. We are spiritual beings that often have human experiences. Becoming more aware of this truth has also increased my awareness of my spirit.

Optimal Health requires that we cultivate healthy habits. In order to achieve this, we must evaluate all our habits in an effort to make the necessary changes by asking ourselves the difficult questions. A self-evaluation is key. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, in physical, mental, and spiritual health, is not an act, but a habit. Wayne Dyer once said, “You leave old habits by starting out with the thought, I release the need for this in my life.” We first make our habits and then our habits make us.

I have certainly had my share of harmful habits and work daily to be more aware of the importance of creating beneficial habits in every area of my life. How have you broken some of your harmful habits? How have you created beneficial habits in your life? How have habits over-all impacted you? I would love to hear your stories. I look forward to your sharing. Thanks as always for the listening ear. See you next Sunday for my Weekly Sunday Blog.

Peace and blessings