Bad Habits Of Your 20s That Will Haunt You In Your 40s - Page 15

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Do you abuse your youth without even knowing it? It can go beyond binge drinking and skipping your nightly moisturizer. There are some things you’re doing right now that may not be showing consequences yet, but when they do, they’ll hit you with a vengeance. Your body will withstand a lot when you’re young without complaining, but it remembers what you put it through when you’re older. And since all of your organs—from your heart to your skin—need to work twice as hard to be healthy as you age, they can’t afford to have you tire them out in your twenties and thirties. So, you have to ask yourself, is slacking off on this, or indulging in that, really worth the price you’ll pay later in life? It hardly is. Here are 20 unhealthy habits of today that will haunt you tomorrow.

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Holding in your anger

You may not want to be a “drama queen.” Maybe you don’t want to stir up issues in your relationship. You don’t want to fight with your mom. But holding in your anger can cause digestive issues, sleep issues, blood pressure issues and more. So, if someone pissed you off, tell them. Let them take on the stress since they caused the problem.

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Having a limiting diet

You want that perfect crop-top body in your 20s, so you eat nothing but broccoli and chicken every single day. But that’s not sustainable, and when the day comes that you do need to expand your diet, you may have given yourself some food allergies.

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Taking exercise too seriously

As a part of the crop-top plan, you may force yourself to do an hour on the elliptical each day or hit your spin class every morning. And, the truth is, you hate all of this. If you burn yourself out on exercise young, and associate working out with stress and negativity, it will be hard to get back into it when you really need it later in life.

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Failing to floss

The intensive dental procedures needed to undo years of zero flossing can cost thousands of dollars. Yes—thousands of dollars. Meanwhile, a month’s worth of floss costs, what, $3?

Skipping your regular dentist appointments

Even if you floss daily, you cannot do what your dentist can do. You need your dentist’s skills and tools to remove the plaque and buildup that you miss throughout the year. Skipping your dentist appointment to save money now can mean procedures that cost tens of thousands of dollars later. And you were hoping to put a down payment on a house.

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Drinking daily

You may not see it right away, but drinking daily dehydrates your body and causes wrinkles. There is almost no amount of water that can make up for the dehydration caused by daily alcohol.

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Wearing tall heels

High heels push your butt out, pull your chest forward and elongate the legs. While all of this looks amazing, it feels terrible on your joints and spine and can cause long-term problems.

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Wearing shoes with bad soles

Not every foot needs the same sole, which is why it makes no sense that most of us buy our shoes at stores that mass-produce them. Depending on your foot and the activities you regularly do, you could benefit from several types of insoles that will prevent problems later in life.

Eating microwavable meals

Eating microwavable meals hurts you in two ways: 1) It deprives you of nutrients since the foods have been dehydrated, frozen and blasted in a microwave and 2) It makes you incompetent in the kitchen. You don’t want to be 40 and have no clue how to boil rice.

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Using social media at bedtime

If you’re a millennial, you almost definitely look at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or all of the above right before sleep. But studies have found that looking at such sites before bed can greatly interfere with one’s sleep, and not getting enough sleep can cause many other health issues.

Skimping on sleep

Just because you can run on 5 hours of sleep a night when you’re 20 doesn’t mean you should. Your body knows you haven’t slept enough, even if your brain doesn’t, and it will make you pay later in other ways.

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Working too hard

Having a healthy social life is important for fighting off depression. Fighting off depression is important for fighting off health issues. Working too hard doesn’t help fight any of that.

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Wearing cheap sunglasses

The cute, trendy sunglasses are $5. You don’t want to splurge on the $50 pair because you always misplace your glasses. But the expensive ones are probably expensive because they actually protect your eyes from the wrinkle-causing, vision-damaging sun.

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Taking sleeping pills

Don’t look for the quick fix when it comes to sleep issues. Get to the root of the problem—determine why you can’t sleep and fix it. Take up meditation, or try natural supplements. You don’t want to become dependent on sleep medications.

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Having an irregular meal schedule

Just because you can go 16 hours without food doesn’t mean you should. If you want your metabolism to treat you well when you’re older, you need to treat it well now. Strengthen it while you still can.

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Skipping your gyno appointments

When something changes in your vaginal or reproductive health, it can change fast. Skipping just one pap smear could mean that totally harmless precancerous cells become cancerous ones—but your doctor could have prevented that if he’d seen you in time.

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Treating your friends (Or the Internet) like your doctor

Your friends do not know why your stomach hurts in the morning or why your head throbs after certain foods. The Internet doesn’t know either. Don’t treat either of these resources like dependable medical resources, or the consequences could be devastating.

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Running

For goodness sake, don’t run daily. It’s extremely hard on your joints. It can make you lose several inches of height when you get older because of the stress on your back. And it probably exposes you to too much sunlight.

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Sitting at a computer too much

Don’t worry about how goofy they look and order a standing desk, now. Sitting for most of the day, every day, can cause back and neck pain, digestive issues and more.