In today’s busy world, it’s easy to fall into habits that aren’t ideal for our mental or physical wellbeing. While these habits may seem harmless, the reality is, they are wreaking havoc on our bodies. Below are several seemingly innocent habits that can really harm your health. 

1. Eating Poorly

Being busy is a fact of life these days. In fact, it’s not uncommon to be so overworked that there’s hardly enough time to eat, much less sit down to a home-cooked meal. The reality of eating poorly, however, is that it has a negative effect on both your body and your mind. 

Eating a diet rich in processed foods bombards the body with high amounts of sodium, sugar, and other impurities that trigger adverse side-effects. Irritability, sluggishness, lack of concentration, and weight gain are just a few of the problems associated with a poor diet. 

To rectify this bad habit, make it a priority to eat at least one meal a day at home with the fam. Buy a good set of cookware, scour the internet for tasty recipes, and start building a healthier, happier lifestyle. You won’t regret this as the mental and physical benefits of a healthy diet are almost instantaneous.

2. Not Getting Enough Sleep

When you sleep, your body repairs and rejuvenates itself. Without enough rest, it can’t maintain its processes adequately, which leads to illness and injury. Sleep deprivation can affect your performance and impair your judgment, leaving you susceptible to accidents. 

At the even more scary end of the spectrum, chronic sleep deprivation can leave your body less able to fight illness and even contribute to high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart problems. To ward off these issues, doctors recommend a solid 7-9 hours of sleep a night. 

3. Sitting

For many of us, sitting at a desk is just part of our workday. Unfortunately, sitting for more than 3 hours a day can have a negative impact on your health. Being sedentary for too long every day can drastically decrease your life expectancy. To combat this dire side-effect of a sedentary lifestyle, make it a point to get up and get moving several times a week. 

4. Using Headphones

Listening to music is a national pastime for many people. Unfortunately, using headphones to drown out the intrusions of the world can leave you with poor hearing in the future. 

While normal conversation comes in at around 40-60 decibels, many people listen to their music through headphones at around 100 decibels or more. Continued exposure to this level of sound can cause permanent hearing loss. 

If being able to hear better in your old age matters to you, turn the volume down a notch or two when listening to music through headphones. 

5. Drinking Juice

Most people consider fruit juice to be a healthy alternative to soda, but the reality is, juice contains high amounts of added sugar. It’s almost always better to eat a piece of fruit rather than drink a glass of fruit juice as fruit loses most of its fiber content when you juice it. While the body reacts to the natural sugar in whole fruit and the added sugar in fruit juice basically the same, it’s the fiber content that makes whole fruit a better choice. 

When you’re busy, it’s easy to fall into habits that make life simpler. Many of these habits seem innocent enough but are actually doing more harm to your health than good. Take the above advice to heart to avoid the habits that are making you sick.