You Have To Master These Healthy Habits By 25 If You Want To Be A Real "Adult"
As much as I personally refuse to acknowledge this, turning 25 is apparently a milestone for adulthood. By 25, you're expected to be mature enough to survive out in the real world, to not only be making money, but saving money, and you're generally expected to be a more put-together human than you were at, say, 22. If this sounds as terrifying to you as it does to me (I'm five months away from 25, but who's counting?), don't have a full-blown, toddler-level temper tantrum about not wanting to grow up just yet. There are some healthy habits for adults that are easier to master than you might think, and incorporating them into your life will make you feel like you're moving forward, even if, on the inside, you feel like you have absolutely no clue what you're doing.
Look, it's never going to be easy to grow up, and yes, it's even harder when you realize your bathroom has to be scrubbed weekly or else it will turn into the upside down from Stranger Things. The point is, there's no turning back. The best thing you can do is continue to move forward and hope to make small positive changes as you go.
Here are seven healthy habits to adopt as you near that pivotal quarter-century age, even if you have nothing else in your life figured out.
01Flossing
Floss twice a day. It's such a simple, easy task to add to your life, and yet it feels so monumental to actually remember to do it after brushing.
Your childhood dentist will thank you for it — because, let's be real, you probably still go to your childhood dentist.
02Waking Up At The First Alarm
Stop pressing snooze. Seriously, it's only hurting you. This may be a lesson that's actually a decade in the making, but if you can manage to wake up on the first alarm, you'll realize how silly it was that you were regularly snoozing a minimum of five times before getting out of bed. Besides, how amazing is it going to feel once you have an extra 40 minutes in your day?
03Making Your Bed
"If you make your bed every morning," Admiral William McRaven advised in the above video, "you will have accomplished the first task of the day."
His point is simple yet powerful: success begets success. Starting out your day by accomplishing a small task is the best way to inspire a chain of events throughout your day. So, just do it, guys. Make the freaking bed.
04Maintain A Good Sleep Schedule
Remember those days in school when you pulled all-nighters fueled by Fritos and Diet Cokes? Yeah, those may have been fun at the time (honestly, probably not), but they wreak havoc on your mind and body and should definitely not still be a habit of yours by the time you turn 25.
In fact, your new habit should be to strive for eight hours of sleep as often as possible throughout the week. Sleep debt is a real thing. Stop trying to get all your sleep back during the weekend, and start striving to get a healthy night's sleep every night.
05Stop Skipping Breakfast
I shall say it again: Stop. Skipping. Breakfast.
I know it's the most tired cliche in the world, but breakfast really is the most important meal of the day.
Personally, I honestly can't understand why anyone would pass up starting their day with mouth-watering bacon and eggs. But on a serious note, eating breakfast kickstarts your metabolism and prepares your body for a full day of work. Without it, it's basically like you're trying to start a car with no gas in it.
06Actually Give Meditation A Shot, And Do It Regularly
Meditation and self-reflection is a stellar way to survive the constant chaos and never-ending deluge of information from social media. When you feel like your head is spinning from scanning through so many depressing headlines and so many negative news feeds, take a second to meditate.
I personally love Headspace, a subscription app that provides meditation sessions ranging in time and topic.
07Take The Lint Out Of The Dryer
I know this one sounds a little random and ridiculous, but seriously, take the lint of out of your dryer, and do it often.
Taking lint out of your dryer is a perfect example of a small task that will improve your quality of life if you can remember to do it regularly. A buildup of lint can ruin the quality your clothes, and perhaps more importantly, it can even start a fire, so yeah, don't f*ck around on that.
