Whether you’ve been spending more time at home with your children, been in isolation or just want to improve the health of your family, we have some simple ideas to help with healthy habits at home.
If you’ve started working from home, home-schooling your children or the latest pandemic has made you want to kick-start the health of your family, there are a few things you can do. Looking after the health and wellbeing of yourself and your family members is crucial to having a better life. So, what can you do to improve healthy habits at home? There are a number of things you can do to improve the environment at home.
Make “being active” a fun activity
One of the first things you will need to do is set an example in the household. Depending on your family, the very thought of exercise and being active may lead to mumbles and groans. But, it doesn’t have to be that way.
Instead, start to make exercise a fun activity for the whole family. You may need to start on your new routine alone until the rest of your family begin to get curious and want to join in with you. Once they start to get interested in the activities you’re doing, you can start to include them in your routine.
Of course, there may be family members who just can’t stand exercise. For those people, being active is more of a way of reducing a sedentary lifestyle more than anything. You will need to find an activity they will enjoy that is both fun and keeps them active. It could be as simple as going to the local swimming pool for a swim, heading to the beach for a walk or going to the skate park for the afternoon. See if they mention anything they like such as bike rides or using a scooter. Once you do these activities on a regular basis, they might even be surprised at the fact that they do enjoy some form of physical activity.
Prepare healthy meals at home
When it comes to weight loss or maintaining a healthy weight, most of the work is done in the kitchen. As some people say, “you can’t outrun your fork”.
To help your family stay healthy, they need the nutrition that comes from freshly cooked meals. This may be a challenge to some families, especially those that have relied on fast takeaway options in the past. To ensure your meals are healthy and balanced, you will likely need to cook the meals from scratch. That way, you can ensure all ingredients in the meal are healthy and fresh.
If you are personally preparing meals at home, you will know exactly what is in each meal. Although this may take extra time and effort, there are ways that you can minimise the time spent on cooking your meals.
With careful planning, you can cook a large batch of meals at the start of the week that can either be kept in the fridge or freezer. You can then easily re-heat these meals throughout the week to give to your family. You can also opt for meal preparation such as meals using a slow cooker. These meals can be prepared in the cooker throughout the morning or day and ready to eat when it comes to dinner time.
Encourage stress management
Stress is a normal and natural occurrence in many people’s lives. It is when stress isn’t properly managed that it can manifest into something more. Better stress management at home can help your whole family to feel better each day. Looking after yourself and dealing with stress doesn’t just come down to talking about it with family members (although that can help, too!).
There are some other stress management techniques that can be done at home to help improve stress levels for every family member. Completing exercises such as yoga and meditation can be hugely beneficial to relieving stress and feeling better. Even the task of deep, slow breathing can be a huge help to those who are feeling overwhelmed by stress.
Meditation and yoga are both relatively simple activities that can be done by various ages and can be done from the comfort of your own home. There are a number of resources to help you complete these exercises. You can use a Youtube video online or there are quite a few different apps now available on smartphones that can guide you through your exercises.
With these simple and easy changes to your routine at home, you’ll be able to encourage better, healthier habits that everyone will enjoy. Your home is the best starting point for addressing health concerns. With a healthy environment at home, your family members will have better skills and coping mechanisms for anything that comes their way.