As thrilling as the beginning of summer is, the end of summer can be a drag. By this time of year, the humidity is cloying, the hot temperatures are annoying, and the buzzing summertime bugs are downright infuriating. During the dog days of summer, plenty of activities you usually find exhilarating feel impossible ? which is precisely why this time of year is an excellent to swap out bad habits.
The following five activities are bad habits that just donโt feel good by the end of summer, and this guide will help you develop good habits that will help you feel vibrant year-round.
Surfing Social Media
For some reason, when you arenโt doing much, it seems like a good idea to keep up with what everyone else is doing. After all, it might help you generate something to do or connect with someone who already has a plan for the day. Typically, though, before you know it, you have been scrolling through your News Feed for 45 minutes; your eyes burn, your finger has a weird callus, and you still arenโt doing much.
Before summer ends, you can break this habit by refusing to pick up your phone when you have the urge to check social media. If the habit is too severe, you can sign out of your accounts, remove the apps from your devices, or (if the situation is dire) delete your accounts entirely.
Eating Sugar
Summer is the season of sweets: ice cream, cotton candy, fresh fruit pies, and more. Unfortunately, more and more research is finding that sugar is perhaps the worst substance you can put into your body. Not only does sugar degrade your teeth (like your parents and dentist always said it would) but it damages your internal organs like drugs and hard liquor, causing problems like fatty liver disease, heart disease, and diabetes ? even if you arenโt overweight or obese. Additionally, sugar causes a number of irritating health problems, like prematurely aged skin, increased stress, and lower cognition.
Kicking sugar is as hard as quitting some of the most addictive drugs, but it is possible to at least lessen the amount of sweet stuff in your diet. You can try to replace your sugary desserts with whole fruit, but avoiding the sweet sensation cold-turkey also works for some.
Smoking
It starts with a cigar to celebrate the start of warm weather, and then you begin poaching cigarettes in every social situation to save money. Soon, your tobacco smoking habit is in full-swing, all thanks to summertime. Some people find smoking tobacco in summer to be refreshing, but it is important to remember that your cigarette habit isnโt healthy and is quite expensive.
Therefore, to kick off celebrations for the end of summer and begin your savings, put aside your tobacco cigarettes and switch to e-cigarettes, which will allow you to save money while still getting your nicotine fix. Plus your friends wonโt make a face when you go to smoke in front of them anymore.
Drinking Booze
Cocktails were made for summertime, and you probably spent more than a couple days in June, July, and August knocking back Bloody Marys in the morning, Margaritas in the afternoon, and Moscow Mules at night. Unfortunately, it is difficult to sustain summertime levels of drinking year-round, and the dog days are the perfect time to start curbing your consumption.
Through the centuries, people have imagined hundreds of ways to rein in runaway drinking, so you have plenty of strategies to sample. You might prohibit yourself from imbibing on certain days, like weekdays, or set a limit for glasses of booze per day. If you struggle to transition to a more reasonable drinking habit, you might need to seek professional help. Plus, reducing your drinking is another way to save; alcohol isnโt cheap.
Lazing Around
You wake up around noon, you spend the day mowing through TV series on Netflix or Amazon Prime, you gorge yourself on junk food, and you fall asleep sometime after midnight. Unless someone else forcibly removes you from your couch, you donโt get up much. This is typical summertime behavior, but come fall, it has to stop.
Being lazy is a habit just like any of those listed above, which means it is definitely possible to kick. Unfortunately, ending your cycle of laziness might be the most painful experience of them all. The best remedy is to get up, get out, and get moving ? which usually means heading to the gym on a regular basis and working your atrophied muscles hard. Once you are reliably active, the desire to be lazy fades away.
You can still enjoy summer fashion for a few more weeks, but it’s time to