Did you follow a new lifestyle trend last year? At the beginning of a new year, we tend to assess what we did last year and determine what we might do differently this year.
Some people may decide to take an academic course. Others make a list of books they’d like to read. Some social media influencers suggest people pick a word or phrase of the year to live by.
There are also new products, or “new and improved” products that promise to help you achieve a more balanced lifestyle. Others promise you can make healthy lifestyle changes almost magically. All most of them deliver is a disappointment. Sometimes it’s because what’s being offered is unrealistic.
Other times there’s not enough empirical evidence to know what the results will be, but the product is rushed to market anyway.
Many people’s thoughts turn to health and wellness. To diet or not. To exercise or not. To toss out the scale or not. Yet the smartest and least expensive move you can make to improve your health, and lifestyle balance is to make better choices.
Even consistently making one better choice can make all the difference in the world. One woman I know decided to eliminate sugar during the week but allowed herself sweets on the weekends. She lost ten pounds, and it never came back. No dieting. No denial. No saying goodbye to cookies forever. Those are the kinds of small decisions that can have a lasting impact.
Nevertheless, as far as wellness and healthier lifestyles, none of us are immune to wanting an easy way to make positive changes. So, we research the newest suggestions.
Sometimes we get lucky and find something that works for us. Other times we live in hope, spending a lot of money keeping it alive without experiencing any true results.
1. Celebrity-endorsed lifestyles
There is little doubt that people are fascinated with the lives of celebrities. Playing into that fascination, many celebrities have developed their own lifestyle trends. Most of the individuals offer advice to reach goals they claim can be achieved by everyone, although a closer look at what they do and what they can afford may be very different from what’s available to you.
Nevertheless, I’m not here to debunk their advice, nor am I here to support it. But all of you have been gifted with common sense, and I encourage you to use it. Most of these sites are types of affiliate or endorsement sites. The celebrities are getting paid for some of the products they support, and not all of them are good for you. A few may even trigger new habits that you’ll wish you hadn’t started.
If your goal is to improve your health or to develop a better lifestyle, you probably already know what’s right for you, or what isn’t. Before ingesting any new medication or supplement, check with your doctor.
2. Micro-dosing
Micro-dosing used to be known as self-medicating and included anything from drinking alcohol to smoking or injecting chemicals, many of which are illegal. These days micro-dosing means taking tiny doses of LSD, mushrooms, and other kinds of psychedelics to achieve subtle improvements in focus and mood.
Like other things discussed in this article, there is not a lot of scientific research outlining long-term health effects. And getting reliable data is difficult. Even if you have a connection to obtain these substances, dosage and availability are inconsistent.
Micro-dosing can be dangerous, so if you include it as part of your lifestyle, be aware of the risks. While there may be benefits to some people, like improved focus and a happier mood, others experience high levels of anxiety and discomfort. Regardless of any decision you make concerning this lifestyle path, do not replace your prescribed medications or treatments.
3. Overuse of wellness apps
We have become a nation of people who rely on apps for everything, from scheduling tasks and appointments to clocking our steps and calories. Now, we have health-related apps that individuals use in place of a doctor. Again, this is not a lifestyle trend as much as it is a method of measuring or assessing good health and good health practices.
I cannot comment on the efficacy of one health-related app over another. Nor am I going to discuss the cost and availability of healthcare overall. But I will say that there are times when an app cannot and should not replace a face-to-face appointment with a qualified healthcare provider.
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