Poor health comes from bad habits. Habits are "learned" behavior and as such can be UNLEARNED! It isn't as difficult as you might think and maintaining better health practices soon becomes a way of life.
For example, do you start the day with a cup of tea or coffee (Or heaven forfend - a cigarette!)? You probably feel you just can't get started without it? Actually, you can. It is just a habit you have developed and you can change it for another, it may take a little time to get used to but it will work.
Instead of tea or coffee take a cup of hot water. It helps to clear the system for the day and also helps to clear your tongue and taste buds. Milk even in small amounts in tea or coffee ferment in the mouth giving rise to that horrible coated feeling if not to bad breath.
If the first thing you reach for is a cigarette, do something different to usual. Have your shower first, or do some light stretches. Clean your teeth and wash out your mouth with mouthwash - then make yourself wait 15 minutes after the craving starts to actually light up. 15 minutes isn't so long but it changes the pattern. Use a mouthwash more than once if you need to. It changes the taste in your mouth and helps alleviate the cravings.
If you want to kick the smoke habit altogether, the following week - make yourself wait 30 minutes before lighting up - the week after that wait 45 minutes - the week after that 1 hour. And what do you know? You're well on your way to quitting altogether.
Use this throughout the day - wait after each meal when you would normally light up, wait after the craving starts, wait after coffee break and so on. Build up the time you leave before each cigarette over a few weeks.
Remind yourself often, you will not only be healthier, you'll be wealthier too. Calculate how much you spend on cigarettes every day then multiply it by 365 and put the figure on your fridge door.
And the reason I feel smug enough to tell you all this is because this is how I managed to stop smoking 20 a day, ten years ago.
Clearing your mouth with toothpaste and mouthwash is an essential part of this programme and the good news is it is just as effective against food cravings. Change the taste in your mouth and you change the craving. You feel fresher too and instead of that cream cake you thought about you will find you would probably prefer fruit - it will taste better. Change a bad habit to a good habit - easy.
Well maybe not easy but a definite improvement.
Look at your life and write down other bad habits you have developed.
One of mine was that I always poured myself a glass of wine the minute I got home from work. Just a habit, but it meant if I started drinking early I had more during the evening than was good for me. That might be OK once in a while but not every night. So I had to change the habit - of coming in the door and going for the wineglass. I started by taking the long way home after work.
Just walking an extra few yards around the block before I went it - a five-minute walk, that's all. It interrupted the pattern enough so that when I did go into the house I wasn't compelled to open a bottle of wine. Now I tend to do some Tai Chi or some gardening, not because I feel I must, but because I want to and it makes me relax after the day more effectively than the glass or two of wine did.
Last word - if you "slip" it doesn't matter - tomorrow is another brand new day when you have the opportunity to try again. You have the choice of making it enjoyable or making it a chore - which do you think is more lasting?
