​Healthy Habits to Start Your Day Off Right

If you're striving to live a healthier life, starting the day off right can make the difference in achieving your goals for the day. It's not always easy to live a healthy life, but if you incorporate changes gradually, you'll affect your lifestyle in positive ways. Starting your day with healthy practices helps establish a healthy mindset for the rest of the day.

Implementing these healthy habits in the morning will invigorate you all day:

1. Get plenty of sleep the night before. Experts advise 7 to 8 hours of sleep nightly for your health.

• It's widely known that caffeine can cause sleep disturbances. If you're having trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, consider stopping your use of caffeine. Switching to decaffeinated beverages, for example, might improve your sleep.
• If you get a good night's sleep, you'll be ready to get out of bed at a reasonable time. For best results, arise at the same time each morning and retire at the same time each night.

2. Establish a routine to take care of your skin. Clean your face with facial soap or cleanser, apply a toner or astringent, and finish with your facial moisturizer.

• Apply lotion to the rest of your body in the mornings as well. Many free radicals in the environment assault your skin throughout the day. Providing a protective layer of lotion over your skin every morning is an excellent healthy habit.

3. Drink plenty of liquids as a healthy start to your day. Hydrating your body and skin for the day is a habit that will pay off in many ways. It helps your body and mind all the way down to the cellular level for peak performance.

4. Have a good breakfast. The possibilities for a healthy breakfast are varied:

• Fat-free yogurt with blueberries and strawberries with a bit of granola
• Oatmeal with bananas and skim milk
• A boiled egg with a slice of toast and some fruit

5. Remember your vitamin! If your doctor recommends a vitamin supplement, after breakfast in the morning is usually an opportune time to take it. Taking your vitamin ensures you're doing what you can to get adequate vitamins and minerals.

6. Consider taking a morning walk either before or after breakfast. Exercising in the morning brings vitality to your day.

• In addition, psychologically, you'll feel pleased with yourself because you accomplished something, and feeling good about yourself contributes to good mental health. When you start your day feeling so positively, the rest of the day is less stressful.

7. Write a short list of tasks you hope to accomplish. Being organized is another healthy way to start your day. Make it a ritual to sit down for a few minutes in your morning to gather your thoughts and make a plan for the day.

8. Take care of your teeth in the morning. So important to healthy living, brushing your teeth thoroughly is integral to good health and a great start to your day.

​If you're trying to live a healthier life, you would do well to incorporate these habits into your mornings. Making changes in your lifestyle are best when introduced gradually. Keep your health goals foremost in your mind and these healthy habits will automatically have you starting your days with a smile

Data bombards you. We have more data than we ever did due to the internet and storage technologies such as the cloud. It’s great to slice the data every which way you can think of and create nice-looking reports that impress your managers. However, when it comes to decision making, you have to get to the point of making the decision. You’ll need to stop your data gathering and analysis and use what you have to decide. 

Computers give you the ability to divide your data in a way that makes sense for you or your company. But, some people will spend hours deriving report after report, and none of them will get them any further in coming to a decision. They believe they need to see ten years of data instead of five. They need to see the impact of sales on each region, even though they are responsible only for one or two.  

Data is an important component in the decision-making process. It can let you know who are your customers, how much they have bought, and it can even tell you who your customers aren’t. Information is also important to make confident decisions. Without the information, you could be shooting in the dark, and that is as bad as having too much information. Probably worse. 

To help you overcome the situation of analysis paralysis or paralysis by analysis as many will refer to it, speak to your boss or the people who are going to be impacted by the data and your decisions. Ask them what they need from the data, and structure the reports around that information. Don’t include any other data in the report. If you can’t defend the position based on the data they asked for, it doesn’t belong in the report. 

Don’t be a hero when it comes to analysis. You may be tempted to show a different level of data to that required as it may show better insight. But, if it isn’t within the scope of your decision, save it for future analysis. It is okay to let managers know that further analysis is possible. They may even extend the deadline and the scope of the project due to this extra information.

​What’s more likely to happen, however, is they will increase the scope while keeping the deadline the same. In essence, you have just given yourself more work to do by letting them know about this extra data. ​