Five Keystone Habits

Cultivate healthy habits. Nothing else will so reliably create vitality, happiness, and longevity. What is it you really want or need to do: eat healthier, be more active, lose weight, trim your waistline, have a more positive and upbeat attitude, kick a tobacco habit, cut down on your drinking, die suddenly on your 100th birthday while making love to your significant other? When you harness the power of habit, all of these goals are attainable (though admittedly that last one is a bit of a long shot).

A keystone habit, according to Charles Duhigg, is a fundamental routine that is crucially important because it has the power to start a chain reaction, which can shift other patterns and eventually transform our lives. Keystone habits influence how we eat, think, play, work, and live. A keystone habit can trigger a process that, with time, can trans­form everything. So, pick one of these five keystone habits that is not yet in your daily routine and focus on making it a priority to do this regularly until it becomes automatic. Eventually if you can ultimately establish most or all of these five keystone habits in your day-to-day routine, your health and your life will be radically altered for the better.

Five Keystone Habits

1. Sleep seven to eight hours nightly.

2. Exercise at least 20 to 30 minutes daily.

3. Eat two colors and one healthy protein at each meal.

4. Take omega-3 and vitamin D each day.

5. Think of three blessings for which you are grateful each night before dozing off or upon awakening in the morning.

In Good Health,

James O'Keefe, MD