What’s Your Guilty Pleasure?

I often talk about healthy habits, healthy eating, mindset ideas, good sleep hygiene (feeling a little hypocritical here) and other ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle. But I know everyone needs to live a little. Everyone has a little something they like to indulge in that they might be a little embarrassed to talk about. Mine is watching TV too late into the night. Now do you see why I feel like a hypocrite?

The only time the TV goes on during the day in our house is when:

• there’s a huge weather event happening or imminent
• there’s a matter of national emergency
• my grandson wants to dance to his favorite music

But come the nighttime, after my husband is asleep and I have a little solitude, I am all about the bingeing….Netflix style. My most recent eye trash was The Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce. It was utter nonsense and I couldn’t get enough of it. Another obsession I was sad to finish was Downton Abbey. I was about ten years behind the rest of the world to see how addictive this show was. When I found it, I was hooked.

I could have worse habits, I suppose. But I do need to curb the habit and get better sleep every night.

Why it’s a good idea to have a guilty pleasure

Having an indulgence once in awhile is good for you.

• It causes you to release dopamine, the feel good hormone.
• Occasional indulging can help to reduce stress
• It can help you to relax

Guilty pleasures don’t have to be expensive or extraordinary. They can be frequent or infrequent. If they are unhealthy indulgences, maybe they shouldn’t happen too frequently. Just doing something like going down the rabbit hole of social media for a little longer than you should can feel good. That is as long as you don’t pay the comparison game or go down the road of stressful posts.

I remember a couple of times I cut out of work early during busy tax filing seasons. One time two friends and I snuck out in the afternoon to the beach. Another time, a co-worker and I snuck out and went to a concert. A third time, I snuck out with two friends to catch an afternoon movie. Filing season was often very stressful and these little sneak outs were just what I needed to maintain my mental health.

Now, doing what I do, I don’t feel the need to escape. I love what I do and it doesn’t feel like work. But I still indulge in my guilty pleasure. And by the way…if you order french fries in my presence, I will consider it an invitation to “share” them with you. You’ve been warned.

As a health coach, I work with women who are facing serious health challenges like heart disease, metabolic syndrome and diabetes or who have been diagnosed as having a precursor to a serious health issue such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol or high blood sugar. I help them make food and lifestyle changes so they can get healthy, live longer and enjoy a fuller, happier, more energetic life. If you would like to have a free consultation about the health challenges you have and the improvements you would like to see in your health, click here to schedule a no strings attached call.