What is a habit/thing/technique that most people would benefit from, in your experience/observation? What are some habits that would be best avoided too?
Thought about it, snce it's near New Year's.
In my opinion, exercising/training/stretching atleast once a week would be a good thing for most people.
Keep a journal. Every day just jot down how you're feeling and what's on your mind, what you plan to do/did. Its amazing how helpful this has been for me.
Don't drink alcohol. It's not good for you in any amount.
Many here have already recommended reading and, particularly, reading philosophy. That's a great way to practice critical thinking and to practice thinking outside of our comfortable or familiar ways. I'd add not to skip reading about logical fallacies and cognitive biases.
Many good things come from being a little cautious with apparent knowledge. To keep a reasonable doubt is also to keep our curiosity going, to keep asking questions, to imagine different ways, to discover new things, to avoid stagnant beliefs, etc. Critical thinking makes us not only less gullible but also flexible. This is valuable to understand everything, including one another, and perhaps in doing so, giving us better relationships and better societies.
Reading books on daily basis. It's a qualitatively different experience from reading websites or consuming other form of media. If you have trouble getting into reading, I recommend picking a particular time and place, then reading at least a few pages every day. Eventually, it will turn into a habit and you'll be reading for longer periods. Another thing I recommend is finding books on topics you're interested in, be it fiction or non fiction, and don't feel bad about abandoning books if you find you're not enjoying it.
Just go for a walk. Calling it exercise scares people into thinking about running, cycling or the gym but for the last month or two i just make it my mission to go for a long-ish walk once a day. Nothing strenuous, some days I walk a couple of kilometres to the nearest big supermarket to pick up some stuff, or i'll get something delivered to a post locker thing or I'll just go for a nice walk around the nearby park and bring my neglected camera with me to take pics of some birdies.
You would be surprised how many calories it adds up to and how much better your well-being can get from some sunlight and fresh air.
Make a list of all the tasks you want to do for the day, every day. This is so important for me if I don't do this I just never get anything done.
Also always plan to do something productive every day even if you just feel like relaxing. You will feel so much better relaxing if you know you've done something your proud of.
Learning how to say no, how to do it politely and how to do it firmly. I'm better at the latter but being able to do either is a goddamn superpower, it's incredible how many Americans cannot regardless of their situation, title, age, wealth, etc.
So many people don't care about how their behaviors affect others. They are loud on the public transport, interrupt others when they talk, act like they are better because they got good looks, and a bunch of other things.
I really think people would get along better if all of us were more down to earth and listening and relaxing.
Learn stuff, don't eat processed foods and get exercise - gardening and foraging are good places to start for most people. Stay far away from negative, manipulative and lying people.
Learn to eat healthy, in good portions, not too much, not too little and fast once in a while.
It's a pain when you're younger but gets easier with age because you start losing or degrading your sense of taste (like all your other senses) anyway.
If you get that habit early in life, you'll keep it forever. And if you take care of your system early in life, your older self will thank you for it. Otherwise if you abuse yourself, and you do end up living a long life, you'll be miserable for the last decade or two of your life and probably won't know your name or where you're from.
Waking up at the same time every day, no matter if it's a weekend or a weekday and no matter if you stayed up too late and won't be getting full 8 hours of sleep.
As obvious as this might sound, this has really helped me to regulate my sleep schedule, something I've really been struggling with for pretty much my entire life.
Biased take but you can’t remove meditation and mindfulness from its traditions specific goals. I get they have side benefits but therapy acting like they invested god through spreading it is just watering down what could help so many people
Eating magic mushrooms. Did you know they are not addictive, and tolerance levels are quickly built up. If you try to trip on shrooms daily they won’t have much effects after 2-3 times and takes almost two weeks for your tolerance to go back down.
Probably best to avoid eating poisonous mushrooms. 🍄🍄🟫
Memorizing long sequences of numbers and conveying mnemonics for them (e.g. 512 becomes EAB, 3.1415... becomes C.ADAE...). Technology allowed humans to forgot how to memorize, for example, phone numbers. This is not good for long-term memory.
Open a Roth IRA and make max contributions to it every year. Most Americans will not be fortunate enough to rely on a pension upon retirement and that employer sponsored 401k will not be enough. They are throwing us to the wolves once they can no longer extract value from our bodies so start preparing now. The sooner the better.