The Efficient Wellness Routine Guide for Busy People

The Efficient Wellness Routine Guide for Busy People

Putting together your ideal wellness routine is all about forming healthy habits in tune with a schedule that best benefits your life and goals. Habits drive everything, from what products we buy to how we interact with our loved ones. The key point of efficiency is to make the most of our time. And we’re not just talking about clearing those tasks off your work desk. We’re talking about the time you schedule to yourself to move, work, and feel better in the long run.

The more we advance with our goals, the more long-term they become, and we expect more from ourselves. Nonetheless, the studies are in, and if we want to be good at anything, from fitness to cooking healthy and inspired meals, we need to dedicate time to practice and training.

The Importance of Routines and How they Help Your Busy Life

Choosing the healthy option isn’t easy. You’ve probably heard, time and again, that humans are ‘creatures of habit.’ There is a lot of truth behind this idiom, since when it comes to decision-making we generally prefer routine over novelty. However, our brains do not automatically discriminate between the good and bad habits.

This means that routines and schedules are the glue that binds our good habits together and eliminate activities that waste time or set us back from our goals. Routines are ways to structure your day so that you spend more time doing all the things that you want to do, and less time procrastinating.

On top of that, making a routine of something difficult allows you to normalize it in your schedule. Repetition will always make your tasks easier, whether it’s that dreaded leg day at the gym or meal prepping your lunches for the week.

Creating new routines also help us remain mindful of how we are spending our time. Often when we have an existing habit, it becomes automatic and we don’t always notice ourselves doing it. If you are trying to improve your morning routine or cultivate new habits, one of the first steps to eliminating wasteful activities is to be tracking where your time is going.

How to Start Adding Better Habits Into Existing Routines

Small reminders can keep you present and help cue new habits that you want to develop. These reminders could be anything from a sticky note on the fridge reminding you to have some fruit with your morning toast, to the use of a habit tracking application on your smartphone.

One way to successfully implement new parts into your automatic routine is to base your tasks on a time or a context cue. Time is the easiest to track, since you can set alarms to perform certain actions at certain times. For example, you might set an alarm at 7:45 am to go on a 20-minute jog.

However, time cues tend to be less flexible than context cues, which are better for performing actions that are contingent on other parts of your routine. This means that you cue yourself to do a task, before or after you do an already established habit. For example, if you have trouble remembering to floss regularly, you could tie a new flossing routine to your already established routine of brushing your teeth.

The Benefits of a Healthy Routine

Healthy routines are built on goals, which help you direct your life toward more ideal situations of your choosing. Without routines, goals, particularly those that benefit us in the long term, are much more difficult to accomplish. You can create routines tailored for any goal, from better sleep patterns, to better eating habits, and a more consistent exercise routine.

The goals are to create automatic processes, or habits, that cause us to fall back on healthy choices for ourselves without having to think about it. Once we have established a positive wellness routine, we won’t have to make the hard decisions about how to be healthy, it will seem to come naturally.

Additionally, routines can help you track your progress toward more subtle goals. For example, a goal such as weight loss is easy to quantify and track. However, toning and muscle building goals are more difficult to observe in the short term. Routines can help you stay on track and even find a way to record and reward yourself for more subtle goal progress.

Top Nine Mistakes People Make When Creating Routines

1. Being Inconsistent

Consistency is the most important predictor of whether you develop a strong routine or fall off the bandwagon. Consistency in our actions is one of the ways that we wire our brains to form habits. In fact, the same neural messengers that create automatic habits also regulate appetite, memory, and moods.

The part of our brain that controls habits and conscious decision-making (the basal ganglia) will side with habits, unless it’s incentivized to change its ways. Since we are so resistant to change, the only way to create a stable wellness routine is by consistently establishing good habits and weeding out the bad.

2. Not Rewarding Yourself or Rewarding Yourself Too Much

Achievement and reward are the powerful drivers of establishing a routine. When we feel a sense of achievement, our brain releases dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter that makes us feel good. Since your brain perceived benefit from the activity, it will want you to do the activity again, thus helping you to form a habit.

Rewarding yourself in this way is simple but depends on what motivates you personally. You need to find some way to acknowledge your success, without using another destructive habit. For example, it’s destructive to reward yourself for a gym visit with ice cream every time, as appealing as that may sound. It’s more constructive to find a reward that doesn’t set you back on your goals.

To-do lists are a common method people use to manage their personal chaos in a way that reduces stress levels. When you check off an item, it will trigger a dopamine response, and you will likely feel a sense of accomplishment. Certain types of people respond best to gamifying their routine.

You’ll know that you’ve managed to form a habit when you require fewer rewards for doing it. Incentives will be less important for motivation as healthier choices become automatic.

3. Letting Decision Fatigue and Stress Dictate Your Habits

Stress and distractions not only decrease our motivation, but they also cause us to resort to our most basic, least taxing, and likely unhealthy habits. Days of strenuous decision-making requires a lot of work from our executive brainpower. When we are tired of making decisions, we fall back on our habits.

In other words, stress increases our reliance on habits, whether good or bad, while simultaneously making them more difficult to change. Our habitual reaction to stress might be to get our breathing in check and do some yoga. However, we often find ourselves engaging destructive, unhealthy, or pleasure-seeking habits after a long day.

This is sometimes called decision fatigue. After a long day of making decisions, we may feel overwhelmed and make bad choices, such as eating unhealthy or indulgent foods. A combination of awareness and forming better automatic habits can help you to alter these patterns.

4. Constructing Meaningless Routines

It’s important to know why you’re doing something. If you want to wake up earlier, it’s good to have a reason or achievement behind it to strengthen your resolve. For example, waking up earlier could help to increase your productivity.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a reason for your routines, you will be more likely to undermine them. We only have so much time in the day, so construct routines that are meaningful for you and your goals.

5. Letting time encroach on your activities

Whatever you’re doing, focus and willpower are both important for achieving your goals. This means you can’t begrudge the time that you spend on your activities.

Instead, it’s best to give each activity your full focus, and don’t feel bad about taking that time, whether it’s time to cook a healthy meal, time to go to the gym, or simply time to shut the door, meditate and get yourself in a healthier headspace.

6. Talking to Others About Your Routine or Not Talking About it Enough

Sharing your goal or routine with each other can be helpful or destructive to the goal, depending on the person and the way that you choose to share it. This study found that it’s best not to talk too much about your goals, since sharing them with each other can give you a premature sense of accomplishment, making it less likely that you’ll complete your goal.

On the other hand, telling someone about your goals can be a good way of holding yourself accountable. Many people are more incentivized by the fear of letting someone else down. Many people have been able to develop transformative routines by putting themselves in the public eye to remain accountable, such as documenting their progress on social media or by blogging.

7. Being Overly Critical About Your Progress

Moods can be habitual too. Overly critical or discouraging moods can demotivate you and set you back from developing your routine. Instead, speak positively to yourself about your ability to make changes.

Sometimes too much criticism can manifest from expecting too much of yourself too soon, so pay attention to your expectations, mitigate them where necessary, and acknowledge what success you do have.

In fact, too much criticism can increase the negative effects of ego depletion. Ego depletion is when a person’s ability to regulate themselves becomes eroded over time, due to not exercising their willpower. Essentially, when we fail to say no to ourselves, we decrease our ability to make those hard choices. At the same time, frequently telling ourselves how badly we’re doing, causes unnecessary stress levels to our ability to exercise our willpower.

8. Incorporating Too Much Too Soon

It takes time to establish a routine. While routines will make us more efficient in the long run, the process can be slow to start with. This is because we have to learn something thoroughly before we can become truly efficient at it.

Most routines become difficult and unmanageable when we try to incorporate too much too soon. This can create stress which leads us to fall back on our established hobbies. Or, sometimes, it works only in the short-term as a vacation from our everyday life but is untenable with a long-term schedule.

Begin developing your routines with only a few changes. Prioritize activities that will form the base of your routine. These will be things that you can organize the rest of your wellness routine around, such as standardized waking and bedtimes, a basic gym schedule, using a planner, or cooking dinner five times a week. Then, when you’re more comfortable with those changes, you can add more and expand. At this point, you might add in morning meditation or journaling, a weekend yoga class, and more long-term meal prep.

9. Denying Enjoyable Activities

Thinking that your routine is denying you something that you enjoy is one of the quickest ways to break it. Routines need to add something to your life in a way that fulfills you. Telling yourself that you’re being denied something will make you want it more.

Instead, reframe everything as a purposeful choice. Rather than caving into the unhealthier option, tell yourself that you have decided to do something different, and remind yourself of your motivations. This way you can see the substitutes as just as rewarding as the thing you are craving.

How to Improve Your Morning Routine

• Wake Up to Your First Alarm. Snoozing your alarm may seem like a comfy option in the morning to seize some last minutes of sleep, but this can actually be a destructive waste of time. This is because once the alarm goes off, your sleep cycle has already been interrupted. Your best option is to wake up to your alarm, which will add some precious minutes to your day. If you have trouble waking on time, try stretching first thing in the morning, particularly your spine, to get your circulation flowing.
• Start Your Day with Calm. Remember that our moods are automatic brain functions developed based on routine as well. If you usually wake up and immediately feel a sense of stress and frustration about your tasks, you need a routine that helps you relax from the stress levels. Try setting yourself a cue to relax and practice meditation or mindful breathing. One powerful way to start your day with calm is to not check your phone until a set time or whenever you eat breakfast.
• Wake Up with a Purpose. Know what you want to do ahead of time, so you can start your day with purpose. Use the night before to prepare the specifics, such as what you’re going to eat, what exercise you’re going to do, or what book or newspaper you’ll read.
• Add Some Lemon into Your Morning Water. Water should be the first thing that you drink when you wake up. Adding lemon to it gives your body an added bonus that boosts energy levels and nutrient absorption in the stomach. It also adds a nice flavor to get you to drink down that cup of water first thing.
• Wear a Wristwatch to Keep Track of Time. An actual wristwatch (there are many stylish digital watch options available) will save you from wasting time and risking distractions and bad habits when clicking on your smartphone to see the time. Staying focused while checking the time is as easy as looking down at your wrist.
• Don’t Multitask. Attempting to multitask could be decreasing your efficiency. Most of the time, when we think we’re multitasking, we are rapidly switching between the two different tasks without allowing ourselves to focus. You might be able to listen to a podcast when you’re meal prepping, cooking, or exercising, but when you need to do tasks that have a more cognitive load, such as creating a task list, reading, or writing, that same podcast will make you less effective at doing either task.

Important Parts of Every Routine

One of the best ways to put together your ideal morning routine is to make a list and consider all the activities that you do each week. Look for areas where you feel that your time is wasted or activities that you don’t enjoy or feel good about. Then, start activities that you would like to do more or make part of your daily routine. This is the best way to make sure that the routine you design fits well into your own lifestyle and personal development needs.

Exercise

We all know the importance of exercise, particularly for those of us with more sedentary jobs. However, the real question is what’s the most efficient way to raise our heart rate daily and when to do it.

For most people, exercise will fit best into a morning routine. Exercising in the morning gives an additional boost to your metabolism and mental acuity. One of the best things about exercising in the morning is how you can dedicate time to it without the risk that other tasks will override it later in the day.

Others will find exercising to be most effective as a nighttime routine, allowing them more restful sleep at night. And for some of the busier folks, exercise can be squeezed into the daytime, with a yoga break from the office or a jog around the track wearing a weighted vest.

Best Exercises to Start Your Morning

Since your time in the morning is limited, it’s best to find exercises that will give you the most benefit for the time you put into them.

• Take a Walk – While walking isn’t high intensity, it has a lot of benefits in the morning, including offering you a calm space to clear your head or making time for you to walk your dog. In order to get real exercise gains out of walking, you will need to walk at a pace that challenges your cardiovascular system. One good thing about walking is that it can get your heart pumping without making you too tired before your workday.
• Go for a Jog or Run – Many people enjoy running in the morning to relieve early signs of stress levels, get the blood pumping, and burn calories so that you can enjoy the rest of your day. This is also a great activity to help get you outside if you normally find yourself spending a lot of time indoors.
• Do a High-Intensity Interval Routine – If you want to do a full workout in the morning HIIT is one of the best ways to maximize your time. Most HIIT workouts last thirty minutes, making them the perfect fit into a morning schedule. Additionally, these workouts often require minimal equipment, relying primarily on calisthenics, so you can do them at home.

 To get started with planning a morning HIIT routine, incorporate some of the following:

• Lunges
• Walkout Planks
• Power Push-Ups
• Jump Squats
• Leg Lifts
• Crunches
• Mountain Climbers

Yoga (or Acoryoga)

Yoga or acroyoga (which is just yoga with a partner) engages the body’s flexibility, strength, control, and breathing practices at the same time. It can be practiced at any time of the day and requires only as much space as you need to roll out a mat. While sun salutations are traditional to wake the body in the morning, more strength-based power yoga or vinyasa flows can fit into almost any interval of time.

This practice is also beneficial in its ability to incorporate stretching and flexibility into a routine, which many gym-goers sorely need. Doing yoga for thirty minutes to an hour in the evening after work is an amazing way to shake off work stress and start new before heading home for your evening routines.

Meditation

Meditation is extremely beneficial for a daily routine since it is able to help you balance your state of mind to alleviate stress and anxiety while also increasing your productivity and creativity. Meditation doesn’t always mean sitting in place or practicing silence. This is one tradition, but meditative practices can take other forms.

The most important part of meditation for your mental health is that it allows you to enter a state of flow or awareness only for your focus activity.

Beneficial creative practices such as journaling offer a powerful meditative influence. In fact, meditating on gratitude, such as that encouraged by the recent use of gratitude journals, has shown tremendous benefits for positive mental health.

It doesn’t have to be all words, however. Many practices prefer to meditate with images or by developing mental scenes, atmosphere or feeling to influence the mind. This also allows for drawing and each other components of the visual arts as meditative practices.

We also can’t forget listening to and playing music as a powerful way to engage with our inner life and enter a state of flow. Someone who routinely practices a musical instrument for fifteen minutes a morning can achieve a similar sense of clarity to that felt by runners who jog to clear their mind in the morning.

Healthy Diet

Routines that prioritize a healthy diet often begin with cooking for yourself more frequently, instead of ordering takeout or eating prepared foods. However, we tend to associate cooking healthy food as requiring more time than our other healthy routines. To cook for ourselves, we need ingredients, so we must go shopping. To know what to get at the store, we need to know what we plan to make, which means spending time meal planning. Then there’s the cooking, which can be time-consuming.

While this is all true, creating a routine can help greatly to cut down on time waste. With your routine, you will fall into a style of meal prep and food choices that make things easier for you in the long run. Once you have a few key dishes under your belt the rest will come quickly. In the end, spending ten minutes one day a week to plan can save you from making unhealthy choices and wasting more time throughout the week.

When you’re relying on your own cooking and trying to stick to a schedule, things are bound to go awry some of the time. Your fresh ingredients might spoil or an emergency might pop up that keeps you from cooking fresh food that night. In this case, it’s important to keep yourself stocked with a reserve of your own healthy and homemade freezer meals sealed with your own vacuum sealer. While processed freezer foods from the store are likely to contain added sodium, trans fats, and other preservatives, freezing your own food allows you to keep a backup of nutritious and convenient meals. 

If you’re running short on time, you don’t have to spend a whole day making food for the freezer. Instead, whenever you prepare something that would make a good frozen meal, such as a vegetable casserole, baked spaghetti, or a hearty soup, make it a double batch. This will only add a little time to your already planned meal prep, and it will give you a whole meal to keep in the freezer for emergencies.

Smoothies

Smoothies offer a quick morning option that can incorporate any vitamin, mineral, or level of protein you need in the form of fruits, chia seeds, nuts, non-dairy milk, protein and collagen powders, and even caffeine agents, such as green tea or coffee.

To create your most time-efficient smoothie routine, prep small containers with fruit and leafy greens portioned each day in the freezer, so all you have to do is drop the fruit into the blender. Keep your powders, supplements, and dry ingredients in tidy containers, so you don’t have to make a mess every time you reach for the protein powder, cocoa, or matcha. Additionally, opt for a blender that works quickly and cleans up easy so you won’t have to babysit it while it does its job.

Easy 15 Minute All-day Meals

• Overnight Oats – This oatmeal is meal prepped by adding oats, nuts, and healthy add-ins to oatmeal and milk overnight and storing it in the fridge. In the morning it will be ready to eat.

• Cauliflower Fried Rice – Grate cauliflower into a pan. Add diced up veggies and a protein of your choice. Crack an egg into it and continue to fry until cooked and tender.

• Southwestern-Style Omelet with Avocados – Add in all the veggies you want, including green peppers and onions. Then top with sliced avocados and all-natural salsa without added sugar.

• Smoked Salmon Wrap with Spinach and Garlic Dijon – Mix garlic powder into dijon until you reach the desired flavor. Wrap salmon and spinach, add capers and onions as desired.

• Hummus and Veggie Wrap – Make hummus in a blender and wrap it with fresh raw or roasted vegetables.

A Short Guide on What to Eat During the Day to Maximize Your Energy

One of the most important ways to keep up your energy level is to drink water throughout the day (filtered water if possible). Additionally, you can add herbal teas to your tea cabinet, including ginger tea which is an anti-inflammatory boost to the immune system and circulation.

Energy Options for Lunch:

• Hard-boiled eggs can offer enough protein to give your body energy for days. On top of that, we generally find them to be satisfying so we don’t leave hungry.

• Greek yogurt cup offers protein and can be paired with cinnamon, fruit, or granola.

• Raw fruit, including an apple or banana, offers energy and fiber while helping us to feel satisfied. 

• Spinach Salad. One of the healthiest leafy greens, spinach’s iron content will allow your cells to become more efficient in producing energy.

• Almond Butter this treat is packed with protein, potassium, and healthy fats. It goes well on all sorts of raw snacks or in your morning smoothie. 

• Pistachios and walnuts are full of proteins and healthy fats and offer a great small snack option.

• Dark chocolate has caffeine and mood-enhancing stimulants that can perk you up during the afternoon slump, just keep your eye on the sugar content.

• Warm Vegetable Bowl with Quinoa or Sweet Potatoes. Add together steamed or roasted vegetables with cooked quinoa or sweet potatoes for a healthy starch. Top it with your favorite protein, such as grilled chicken or salmon, and an avocado for added healthy fats to keep you going all day.

• Grilled Chicken Wrap. Combine your salad and entree into one hearty meal by putting together an easy to eat on the go grilled chicken wrap. Make sure to add in greens and dress it with your favorite salad dressing. Or, if you need more energy for a long work day, make it into a burrito with beans, brown rice, and avocado to keep you satisfied and functioning all day long.

Energy Options for Dinner

• Brown rice offers one of the most nutritious options for your carbs. It’s a whole grain to give you longer-lasting energy.
• Sweet potatoes offer more sustained energy than other potato varieties. Additionally, they help to curb a sugar craving.
• Shrimp is lean and high in protein, and it can be added onto most meals, including a salad, spaghetti, fajitas, or shrimp tacos.
• Fatty fish offer protein and fatty acids that help our brainpower. Try a tuna steak with a side of asparagus, or lemon salmon with a delicious caesar salad.
• Quinoa is a seed that offers high levels of protein and slowly absorbed carbohydrates to provide long-term energy.
• Pan-fried bananas can satisfy a craving for something sweet. Roll banana pieces in cinnamon and stevia. Then fry them in a non-stick pan.

Career

When it comes to your career, routines should be tailored around helping you achieve your goals. However, this may not always be so clear cut. For instance, you may not always be working toward a direct promotion.

Sometimes your career-based routines will be focused on developing a new skill or improving your skills and talents. You might make a plan to read a work-based article or newsletter once a week, or listen to a work-oriented podcast during your commute.

Other career-based routines might include limiting distractions, such as checking your email only a few times a day at routine times. You can also increase your workday productivity by positioning yourself away from distractions and working in places where you won’t be disturbed by others. 

One way to make the most of the time you spend on your career is to make a week-long routine that shapes your week.

In this wider pattern, you would dedicate each day to certain tasks. This might include special days for review, ideation, marketing, and meetings. Themed days will help you stay focused on your task even if you do get interrupted.

Planning Your Day

The best way to improve your efficiency in and out of the workplace is to organize your tasks. Some people thrive by setting times of the day next to their tasks, while others prioritize their lists, using color coding, tagging, and organizing.

There are many applications available to help organize large task loads. For some people, it can be better to use a pen and paper list, which tends to be less distracting than engaging with technology.

While it’s common in the workplace to answer emails first thing in the morning, many productivity specialists have found that this leads to a waste of time and a slow start on more focus-driven work.

If you find that answering emails slows you down, try reserving non-urgent emails for a designated time in the middle of the day. Instead, prioritize more difficult or deeper focus tasks earlier in the morning.

Setting Daily Goals

Goals help to keep us focused on what we want to do, what kind of life we want, and how we want to grow and progress. Setting at least three goals each day is the best way to take steps toward your bigger life goals.

Remember that when you set your daily goals it’s important to break them down into manageable chunks. This is the key to make progress toward deadlines at work, and it’s also the key for larger more long term goals, such as developing a skill.

Spending Time with the People You Love

Creating a routine of spending time with the people you love is a powerfully rewarding use of your time. This routine might encompass anything from having a dedicated game night (this could be anything from board games to a game of darts) with your family to a dedicated date night each week with your partner.

To plan this routine, consider what activities help you connect with each other. Consider your romantic partner, family members, kids, and friends. Routines can be as simple as talking to someone about their day, making a family meal, taking a weekend bike ride, or having an outing once a week to see a close friend.

One way to form strong relationships while you strengthen your goals and motivation is to become a resource for others. This will help you form a community that shares your interests and will hold you accountable to your goals. Helping each other make a positive change can inspire and reignite our own motivation, while holding us accountable as we form healthier routines.

Routine Tips from 10 Top Inspirational Blogs to Follow

1. Tina Haupert of Carrots n Cake recommends putting family time first, before checking her phone. Check out her quick and healthy morning meal recommendation of overnight oats.
2. Brittany Mullins of Eating Bird Food grounds herself each morning by tidying the bed before writing in a 5-minute journal first thing in the morning.
3. Shelby of Little Coffee Fox also starts her morning with journaling in what she calls her morning pages. She uses a planner method to remain productive throughout the day.
4. Marketing influencer and digital lifestyle strategist Jeff Bullas uses a five-minute gratitude application each morning. He recommends two hours of deep work in the morning before checking technology.
5. Holistic wellness influencer Aerial Lynn is a morning person who makes time in her morning routine for delicious and nutritious meals in the morning.
6. Lifestyle blogger Mattie James manages her morning routine of devotion, journaling, reading, and outlining her day, all before she wakes up her children and gets the rest of the day going. She advocates prepping everything you need the night before.
7. Some entrepreneurs thrive off of checking their phones in the morning and organizing their day accordingly, including K.G. Graham of COSIGN Magazine, who checks his emails, notifications, and social media applications in the morning in order to start creating his to-do list for the day.
8. Jason Gutierrez of The Monk Life goes to his office an hour early, where he focuses and writes on his own time as part of his personal growth goals. He emphasizes that your morning routine should be tailored to you and what you find to be most important.
9. Rachael DeVaux of Rachaels Good Eats likes to use her morning exercise to add some adventure and variety to her day. She switches it up between the gym, a staircase, or a home circuit.
10. Jason Loebig of Live Better reminds us that morning routines are our way of setting a purpose for our days and using our will to take control of our emotions and experiences. Above all, he recommends that you, “Find what works for you, not for someone else.”

The Ideal Morning Routine

Your morning routine helps to set the tone for the rest of your day. Rather than wasting this time, it’s important to use it to give your day direction.

For example, if you want a relaxed morning of stretching and meditation, plan yourself the time for it. If, on the other hand, you want to start moving right away, then you certainly should.

Remember, the key to a good morning routine is learning and doing what helps you get your day started, because a good start will help you work productively toward your goals all day.

• Make your bed and tidy the living space (5 min).
• Drink your first glass of water.
• Stretch and Exercise (20-60 min).
• Grooming (30 min) – Take a shower, shave and brush your teeth and make yourself feel fresh and look your best.
• Eat healthy breakfast (15 min) or try out intermittent fasting and put off eating until around 1 pm each day.
• Enjoy a cup of coffee with the news (15-20 min).
• Write down your day’s goals (5-10 min).

The Ideal Daily Routine

The ideal daily routine is something you personally can stick to despite the curveballs thrown by work, family life, and your own whim. If you have trouble sticking to a routine, use a habit tracker to better understand what you do throughout the day.

• Clean your workspace before beginning your workday for the best productivity (10 min).
• Drink water all day long.
• Work on your hardest tasks first (1+ hour).
• Check and respond to emails or handle other minor administrative tasks (1 hour).
• Take a lunch breaks and leave your desk (1 hour). Schedule a walk in your lunch breaks to get some air and stretch your legs, or go for a thirty-minute workout.
• Work on more creative things as you start to feel your ability to make decisions wane.

The Ideal Evening Routine

Your evening routine should prioritize your goals and spending time with your family. This is a time when we often slip up with our diets, so stay strong with your meal planning routine. Additionally, downtime is an important key to mental health, so don’t discount the fact that you need downtime.

Set yourself a sleep alarm for the evening. Developing a consistent sleep pattern is crucial to mental and physical health.

Working out hard will get you fit, as long as you give your body downtime to heal and regenerate. Without a consistent sleep schedule putting a toll on your body could cause stress reactions, rather than the strengthening and the positive physical benefits that you’re working so hard for.

Additionally, switch your phone to zero notifications at night so that you can get some rest without worrying about the next day’s plans.

• Exercise (60 minutes) – For those who like to take their time and exercise in the evening. Try to keep your exercise to the early evening. This will allow your body to recover throughout the later evening and promote good sleep patterns. Exercising right before bed, however, can spark your metabolism and give you a burst of unwanted energy that makes it difficult to get to sleep.
• Cook and eat a healthy dinner. (30-90 minutes).
• Spend time with your family or spend time on a hobby you enjoy. (1+ hour)
• Prepare for tomorrow (15-60 minutes) – You might pick out clothes to wear, making sure you have what you need for healthy breakfast, pack a work lunch, tidy the house, and set the coffeemaker for the morning.
• Read at night before bed (30+ min) – Reading is an amazingly healthy way to wind down and keep learning at the same time. Opt for a paper book to save your eyes if you’re reading late at night.

Conclusion

Forging your own wellness routine is all about knowing what goals you want to reach and finding the best way to remain consistent with your routines. Increased efficiency while doing our tasks will not only give us the time to get more done, but it will also help us feel a strong sense of accomplishment. Nonetheless, our best advice for you is to know what you want, strategize the best way to get there, and don’t let any setbacks get to you.