Making small, simple changes to your home and daily routine can have a major impact on your family’s collective health.

1. Eat dinner together

A simple commitment to gathering together around the dinner table can make a huge impact on the health of kids and grown-ups alike. Regular family meals lower the rates of obesity and eating disorders in children and teens. This habit also hosts emotional and social benefits like better communication, enhanced vocabulary in children, and stronger feelings of resilience and self-confidence.

2. Don’t Serve Food After 8 PM

Speaking of dinner, we do know how challenging it can be to do it on time, especially if you’re a working parent. Unfortunately, eating late can have a negative impact on weight. To keep your family trim, cook meal components like brown rice, proteins and veggies over the weekend so you can mix and match them during the week.

3. Zero in on ingredients

If it’s a pretty simple list, filled almost entirely with words you recognize and can pronounce, then that’s the green light to feed it to your family. But if it’s a list a mile long, made up of lots of chemical-sounding words that you’re not even sure are really food, back on the shelf it goes.

4. Get outside

A little fresh-air therapy is good for everyone’s physical and mental state. Bring on the body’s natural production of Vitamin D through exposure to sunlight.

5. Prioritize sleep—for everyone

Many parents prioritize making sure their kiddos get enough sleep. But too often, parents forget that they need it too. Remember that being sleep-deprived is associated with a host of physical and emotional troubles in adults.

6. Keep everyone hydrated

So many ailments—ranging from headaches to constipation to muscle soreness and more—can be solved or at least improved by drinking enough water. So start carting that water bottle along everywhere you go and make sure your children aren’t getting dehydrated either.

7. Exercise 20 minutes a day

Keeping your daily workout goal short and convenient. As little as 20 minutes is enough each day.  Some ideas: skip rope in your driveway, and alternate with crunches and push-ups; do 20 minutes of a workout video; walk in your neighborhood.

8. Celebrate your history

Sharing details from your family tree will help your kids feel like they belong to something greater than themselves and make them feel more grounded. If your kids don’t have the opportunity to talk to their grandparents, look through old photo albums with them and share family memories, stories, and adventures.

9. Rediscover marital bliss

Simple ways you can do: kiss hello and good-bye, thank each other for performing even routine household chores, look up and smile whenever your spouse enters the room, be loyal and let the little things go.

10. Go for natural and organic products

It’s more than just a fad. With natural and organic products, you get the assurance that you need. You don’t have to worry about toxins that you have never heard of and can’t pronounce, and what they might do to the whole family. Instead, these organic products have ingredients that have been researched to be 100% safe. Head over to the Zafra shop to discover incredible products that will help make this year a happier and healthier time for your family!