Everyday Habits for Better Wellbeing: Small Changes That Add Up

Ask what keeps people well over a lifetime and the honest answer is a little dull. It is not a supplement, a gadget or a thirty-day challenge. It is a handful of ordinary things, done on most days, for years.

Public-health bodies in different countries agree on what those things are to a striking degree. This guide sets out the six that appear again and again in their guidance, what each one involves, and how to begin in a way that lasts.

The habits that carry the most weight

1. Move a little, most days

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that adults do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity, along with muscle-strengthening activity on two or more days. Brisk walking counts. So does cycling, dancing, swimming and heavy gardening.

The most useful line in the WHO guidance is a shorter one: any amount of physical activity is better than none. Globally, around a third of adults do not reach the recommended level, and for them the biggest gain comes from the first few minutes, not the last.

Our guide to the benefits of regular physical activity explains what that movement does for you.

2. Eat mostly whole foods, with plenty of plants

The WHO describes a healthy diet using four ideas: it is adequate, balanced, moderate and diverse. In practice that means building meals around vegetables, fruit, whole grains and pulses, and keeping foods high in free sugars, salt and unhealthy fats as occasional extras.

Two figures are worth remembering. Everyone over the age of 10 is advised to eat at least 400 grams of fruit and vegetables a day, which is where "five a day" comes from. And free sugars should make up less than 10% of daily energy.

For a fuller picture, see Understanding balanced nutrition.

3. Protect your sleep

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), adults aged 18 to 60 need 7 or more hours of sleep a night. Enough good-quality sleep is linked to better mood, attention and memory, and to a lower risk of conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure.

The habit that helps most is a boring one: going to bed and getting up at the same time every day. Sleep hygiene explained covers the rest.

4. Stay connected to other people

Relationships are not an optional extra. The CDC notes that social connection can help reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia, depression and anxiety, and that people with stronger social bonds are more likely to live longer, healthier lives.

"Connect with other people" is also the first of the NHS's five steps to mental wellbeing. It does not require a large circle of friends. A regular phone call, a shared meal or a standing weekly arrangement is the kind of thing that counts. We look at the evidence in Why social connection matters for your health.

5. Do not smoke

If you smoke, stopping is one of the most important things you can do for your health, whatever your age and however long you have smoked. This is one area where willpower alone tends to fail and support makes a real difference. A doctor, pharmacist or local stop-smoking service can explain the options, including medicines and nicotine replacement.

6. Go easy on alcohol

No level of drinking is completely safe. In the United Kingdom, the guidance is not to drink more than 14 units a week on a regular basis, and to spread any drinking over three or more days rather than saving it up. A unit is smaller than most people assume: a large glass of wine contains about three.

If you choose to drink, keeping several alcohol-free days each week is a simple way to stay within that limit.

Why small beats ambitious

Most attempts to change a habit fail for a predictable reason. The plan is designed for the motivated person who makes it, not for the tired person who has to carry it out on a wet Thursday.

Research on habit formation helps to explain why modest plans work better. In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, volunteers chose a simple daily behaviour, such as drinking a glass of water with breakfast, and recorded how automatic it felt. On average it took 66 days for the behaviour to become automatic, and the range was wide: from 18 days to 254.

Two findings from that study are reassuring. Simple behaviours became habits faster than demanding ones. And missing a single day did not noticeably set people back.

In other words, repetition matters more than intensity, and an imperfect record is still a record.

How to make a habit stick

Make it small enough to be slightly embarrassing. A ten-minute walk, one extra portion of vegetables, lights out fifteen minutes earlier. The aim in the first weeks is to become someone who does the thing, not to do a lot of it.

Attach it to something you already do. Existing routines are reliable cues. "After I make my morning tea, I fill a water bottle" works better than "I will drink more water".

Make the right choice the easy one. Put fruit where you can see it. Leave walking shoes by the door. Charge your phone outside the bedroom. Small changes to your surroundings do more than resolutions.

Decide in advance what a bad day looks like. Have a minimum version for days when everything goes wrong: five minutes instead of thirty, a frozen vegetable instead of a cooked-from-scratch meal. Doing the minimum keeps the habit alive.

Keep score lightly. A tick on a calendar is enough. Elaborate tracking tends to become a chore of its own.

Start with one

Trying to change everything at once is the most reliable way to change nothing. Pick the one habit on this list that seems easiest for you right now, not the one you feel you ought to tackle first, and give it two months before adding another.

A reasonable first step for each:

The long view

None of these habits will transform your life in a week. That is rather the point. They are the background conditions of a healthy life, and they work by accumulation.

A useful test for any change is this: could you still be doing it in a year? If the answer is no, make it smaller. If the answer is yes, you have probably found the right place to begin.