How to Create Healthy Habits in 21 Days
Author: Carol Merlo
My mother Ann is my best role model. At 83 years of age, she does water aerobics 3 times a week, plays bridge and does crossword puzzles. She is one of the most positive people I have ever known! She has been exercising her entire life, eats a diet high in fruits and vegetables, and takes high quality supplements. What's her secret? In my efforts to find a way to establish and maintain healthy habits so I can look and feel like my mother, I discovered a few articles that helped me understand what I needed to do. First I had to learn which things were the most important and most likely for me to actually do.
- A study in the Archives of Internal Medicine 2001 showed that Healthy Habits including vegetarianism and regular exercise and virtually non-existent rates of smoking might add years to life span.
- A study from Science Daily (Jan. 9, 2008) showed that people who adopt four healthy behaviors — not smoking; taking exercise; moderate alcohol intake; and eating five servings of fruit and vegetables a day — live on average an additional fourteen years of life compared with people who adopt none of these behaviors.
- A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) showed that obesity is "socially contagious." That means that people tend to follow suit when their friends and family become obese or lose weight.In fact, obesity spreads among friends and family with close social ties, even if they live 500 miles away from each other.
Dr. Maxwell Maltz wrote the bestseller Psycho-Cyberneticsin the 1960′s. Originally a Plastic Surgeon, Maltz noticed that it took 21 days for amputees to cease feeling phantom sensations in the amputated limb. From further observations, he found it took 21 days to create a new habit. Since then, the '21 Day Habit Theory' has become an accepted part of self-help programs.
HERE'S WHY IT TAKES 21 DAYS:
Brain circuits take engrams (memory traces), and produce neuroconnections and neuropathways only if they are bombarded for 21 days in a row. This means that our brain does not accept ‘new' data for a change of habit unless it is repeated each day for 21 days (without missing a day)."If you miss a day, just keep going until you've been doing the new behavior for 21 days in a row. Just by drinking more water, eating super foods, exercising more, and taking high quality supplements you will be able to stave off the ravages of time and enjoy a sense of well-being as you age. By joining my health community, you can be part of team of people who know that they won't change without each other's support. Now you can start keeping track of the Super Foods you eat, and the other behaviors it takes to create and maintain habits that will create a lifetime of health and wellness.
