Many of us have a busy schedule and it’s not uncommon to hear people attributing their unhealthy habits to being too busy.
In this article, we’ll cover what you can do to stay healthy while having a busy schedule. Let’s go.
Table of Contents
1. Meal prep
I know many of you have heard of meal prep before but let’s make it clear what meal prep is.
Meal prep is essentially cooking up a week’s (or more than a week’s) worth of food and then storing it in your freezer for easy access when you need it.
When I first came across the concept in 2017, I was excited to try it out, particularly when I just started university and was in desperate need to save time.
Let’s get some disclaimer out of the way, food definitely tastes better when made fresh but if saving time and eating healthy is your priority and you aren’t too picky about how you like your food, you should definitely try meal prepping.
You can cook up a batch of healthy food and then put them in containers like the following:
Click here to buy it from Amazon.
Here is a list of food you can acquire from the store:
- Carrots
- Peas
- Salmon
- Ground beef
- Eggs
- Noodles
- Dumpling
- Rice
- Beans
All you have to do is to cook it up and divide them up into different boxes.
If you want, you can always recook them into a stew if you don’t like microwave meals.
It can still ultimately save you time in prepping the food, cutting the vegetables, seasoning, cleaning up, etc when all you have to do is to pull it out from the back of the freezer, and heat it up in a microwave (or in a pot) before enjoying a nice warm healthy meal.
Meal prep practice may also save you a lot of money in takeout and we all know how takeout isn’t the healthiest option for us. You get to save money and your health when you meal prep.
2. Buy an instant pot
An instant pot looks like the following:
You can buy it from Amazon.
All you have to do is to throw vegetables in there and wait for them to be done cooking.
You can throw raw rice in there with pieces of vegetables and meat and it’ll start cooking it for you.
Remember to add seasoning too.
This is the laziest way to “cook” and it can be done within 30 minutes.
A lot of people don’t eat healthy because they think they don’t have enough time to cook, however, you really have no excuse to order take out if you have a cooker like this.
3. Eat different kinds of fruits and vegetables
Don’t just eat a few types of fruits and vegetables.
Instead, what you should do is consume various types of fruits and vegetables to get a wide range of nutritional benefits.
Sticking to just a few can cause nutritional deficiency as you can’t get all the nutrients and minerals you need from a select few food.
Humans are designed to consume many different types of fruits and vegetables, it’s what we’ve evolved to do.
But unfortunately, to increase the amount of products produced, we have specialized to learn how to grow just a few types of fruits and vegetables really well causing humanity to lose access to other thousands of types of fruits and vegetables.
Try to make use of most of the selections of vegetables and fruits available to you at the store.
Try to eat more variety of food to obtain a range of minerals and nutrients.
4. Go out once in a while without any plan
No, your grocery outing doesn’t count.
Today, on a whim, I just went out. I didn’t have a plan. There was nothing to get. I just wanted a change of scenery and so I grabbed my purse and went out.
It was a really fun day. I really liked the bookstore I visited today among other places. And you know what? I felt great when I got home!
I think as humans we aren’t designed to be cooped up in the same place for hours or days on end.
You need to go out and explore new places.
In fact, I have decided that it is one of my favorite things to do that makes me feel alive. I for sure will be doing a lot more of that in the future and you should too!
Especially if you got a busy schedule, you need to find time for spontaneous trips without a plan. Just walk around and enjoy living in the moment.
5. Avoid buying too many snacks
Want to control what you eat? You should control what you buy in the first place.
If you only shop for groceries once a week, all you have to do is to resist the urge to put unhealthy snacks in your bag for those 2–3 hours and you’d have the rest of the week to go snack free.
You will probably regret not getting the snack when you get home. But it’s for the best if you want to eat healthy.
6. Invest in skincare products
Health is more than what you eat, it’s also the act of taking care of your appearance so you don’t look 50 when you’re 30.
We all age, it’s life but we should do our part to make sure we age gracefully and that may require us to take good care of our skin.
It can be easy to forget these things when we’re so engulfed in our busy schedules but these skincare practices are so important that you want to be doing them every day.
Imagine telling yourself that you’ll brush your teeth in a week when you’re less busy.
Exactly, you need to be doing proper skincare every day. It’s unskippable.
When you’re out, wear sunscreen.
When you’ve just finished your shower, apply moisturizer.
There’s also the famous 10-step Korean Skincare routine I really want to try. Apparently, many have seen good results.
The point is, it’s worth spending a bit of money on good skincare products that your future self will thank you later.
A lot of sun damage to our skin doesn’t show until we’re older so if you want to do the preventative measure now while you’re younger.
7. Take it slow (as long as you’re making progress, you’re good
I’m definitely guilty of this: I would rush through my day trying to get as much done as possible and I ended up feeling burned out.
By the way, read this article for signs that you may be burned out.
Breathe.
Take it slow.
You got this.
As long as you’re making progress, you’re good. You don’t have to pact your schedule too tight. Loosen it up a little. Give yourself some room to breathe and reserve time for when you inevitably get distracted.
I mean do you really think you can work from 9 am to 5 pm without any slight distraction?
I’ve been distracted plenty of times while writing this article. I’d tell myself to not check social media so much but I still do sneak some peaks here and there once in a while (But I promise I’ve been getting really disciplined about my time spent on social media).
One way to take care of yourself when you have a pact schedule is to take your time. Take it slow. Don’t rush through it.
Enjoy the moments and let yourself experience being alive without rushing from one place to the next.
I was really surprised when I found out how lightly pact other people’s days are yet they seemed so proud of themselves and thought it was a productive day.
If you’re like me, you may be giving yourself too much on the plate to do every day and it’s causing you to stress out.
You may begin to neglect other aspects of your life if you try and rush through everything.
Take it slow, it’s okay if we arrive later than planned. As long as you get there in one piece, that’s the ultimate goal. Your health is everything. We never appreciate it enough until we lose it.
8. Manage stress
Okay, is this surprising? I guess not.
One way to take care of our health is to manage stress!
Stress is the precursor for many illnesses and even cancer. If you want to live a long and pain-free life, you should try to manage the amount of stress you feel on a daily basis.
Maybe don’t pact so much into a day. Cut down on your to-do list. Breathe. It’ll be okay 🙂
By the way, if you’re struggling with managing stress, feel free to contact me. I’d love to hear your story and be a listening ear for you.
9. Sleep well and on time
You should sleep well and try to sleep on time.
Of all the things on this list, a few things are as important as this one.
Make sure you prioritize sleep.
That means:
- Getting 8 hours or more of sleep each night
- Sleep on time each night
- Sleep comfortably without disturbance
If you can, get a black-out curtain to prevent the sun from waking you up prematurely.
10. Take up some light exercise
Here’s another shocker.
Exercise.
Listen, you need to move that body around a bit. Sitting down all day isn’t good for you.
And here I am being a hypocrite preaching about exercise when I don’t do any :p (I mean I seriously don’t have enough time…).
But if you want to live long lives, you should take up some light exercise. Our bodies wear down with time. It does. So we ought to do what we should do even if we aren’t a fan of the idea.
Final thought
There are certainly a lot of things you can do to stay healthy while having a busy schedule.
Health is priceless. We still don’t have a cure for cancer yet and for anyone wondering, no, there isn’t any billionaire hiding the cure for cancer (I don’t think).
Once you lose your health, everything else you worked so hard for would be for nothing so that should point to the importance of maintaining your health even if you’ve got “no time”.
Stay healthy!
