At least three unhealthy habits prevent fat loss. Engaging in them is a valuable opportunity that could have helped lose unhealthy fat. Healthy fat loss goes deeper than the occasional workout or Fitbit, and overcoming some bad habits can help you on your path to better health.
Ignoring Intuitive Signals
The wearable technology company Jawbone collected data on sleep from tens of thousands of college students in 2016. Most students weren’t getting enough sleep, especially on weekends, which influenced their circadian rhythms.
Because we are distracted by time-consuming visual stimuli, we tend to lose touch with our personal intuition. Intuition starts with awareness, which grows through a conscious decision to reflect and interact with the environment.
Ways to become more intuitive include:
- Go outside, enjoy the outdoors, and get some sunshine.
- Don’t eat meals in front of a screen. Whenever possible, eat with others. If you struggle with issues like heartburn or indigestion, look at when, where, and how you’re eating your meals. At mealtimes, breathe slowly, chew thoroughly, and take time out for yourself.
- Focus on your food, savoring and appreciating the flavors, textures, and colors on your palate. Take note of your digestion during and after meals.
- Don’t separate the environment from physical and psychological symptoms. Stress can be actual or perceived.
Unmanaged Stress
Statistics can be misleading, but it’s human nature to strive for progress, improve ourselves, and feel like our lives are meaningful. However, statistics can fuel incessant insufficiency, often breeding inadequacy.
Driven by data, graphs, and endless Excel sheets, it’s easy to get caught up in a sympathetic, emotional rollercoaster ride, but stress is chronically debilitating and should be mitigated whenever possible.
Stress serves a purpose. The body changes its chemical and cellular makeup to survive, using allostatic load to shift homeostasis. Stress is necessary, and without it, we would become weak and fragile.
Ways to manage stress include:
- Practice mindfulness, starting with 10 minutes a day, preferably as soon as you wake up or just before bed. Websites can guide you through the process, and you could set a timer if necessary.
- Make a conscious effort to relax for 10 minutes and pay attention to your body without any distractions.
- Leave your phone: Try to get a 30-45-minute daily walk without it and pay attention to your surroundings. There are many sights, sounds, smells, terrain, textures, colors, and experiences to be had.
- Train, but remember that too much of a good thing isn’t good. Training desensitizing input progressively, helping athletes perform at optimal potential without fatigue. The higher the level of performance, the harder it becomes to get neutral—known as functional overreaching.
Circadian Rhythm Disorders
There is so much more to good sleep than simply going to bed and waking up 8 hours later. The human body has a biological clock running in the background, giving internal systems structural integrity and rhythm.
Primarily driven by the influence of light, the body secretes two main hormones- melatonin and cortisol, depending on the time of day and the intensity and wavelength of light.
People who work under fluorescent lights during the day or overwhelm themselves with the blue light of an electronic screen at night escalate their circadian rhythms, sometimes leading to autonomic dysregulation, impaired tissue turnover, altered immune system responses, and many other issues.
This leads to an endless sympathetic cycle that’s difficult to break.
To mitigate altered circadian rhythms:
- Get sunlight for at least 20-30 minutes daily, as early as possible.
- As tolerance improves (and you get tanned), increase the duration slowly.
- Buy blue blockers: These glasses filter blue light rays with lenses specifically designed to reduce the amount of blue light reaching the eye. A recent study showed that blue blockers can increase melatonin secretion by almost 60% in two weeks, but they should be worn for 3-5 hours every night.
- Avoid social media (the new late-night television) in the evening. A study of Social Media use among young US adults indicates that using social media 30 minutes before bed is associated with disturbed sleep.
Each habit intertwines with and builds the others synergistically, but they are only as effective as you let them be.
Professional Health and Fitness Coach. Encouraging and inspiring busy working people to take time out for themselves through fitness and general health and wellness.
