10 Simple Habits for a Healthier Lifestyle

1. Make water your usual drink

Canada’s food guide recommends making water your drink of choice. It hydrates without adding calories, sugars or sodium. Keeping a reusable bottle nearby is a simple way to remember. More on staying hydrated.

2. Build meals around the food guide plate

A helpful visual: fill about half your plate with vegetables and fruits, a quarter with whole grain foods and a quarter with protein foods. It doesn’t need to be exact at every meal. A beginner’s guide to balanced eating.

3. Cook at home a little more often

Cooking more often is one of Canada’s healthy eating recommendations. It gives you more control over ingredients like sodium, sugars and saturated fat. Start with one or two extra home-cooked meals a week.

4. Move a little more, sit a little less

The Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines encourage adults to break up long periods of sitting and to add movement throughout the day. Short walks, taking the stairs or standing up during calls all count. Some activity is better than none.

5. Add some strength activity

The guidelines recommend muscle-strengthening activities for major muscle groups at least twice a week. Body-weight exercises, carrying groceries or gardening can be part of this.

6. Keep a regular sleep schedule

Going to bed and waking up at about the same time each day — even on weekends — is one of the simplest sleep habits to try. Everyday strategies for better sleep.

7. Set limits on recreational screen time

For adults, the guidelines suggest no more than three hours of recreational screen time a day. Turning off screens a while before bed may also help you wind down.

8. Slow down at meals

Health Canada encourages being mindful of your eating habits: taking time to eat and noticing when you’re hungry and when you’re full. Eating with others, when you can, is also part of the food guide’s advice.

9. Stay connected

Spending time with family, friends or your community is one of the ways Health Canada suggests caring for your mental health. A short phone call or walk with a friend counts.

10. Start small and track it

Choose one habit, attach it to something you already do (for example, a glass of water with breakfast), and tick it off each day. Our weekly wellness checklist can help. Research suggests habits take time to become automatic, and the time varies a lot between people. How to build healthy habits.

References and further reading

1. Health Canada. Healthy eating recommendations. Canada’s food guide. www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-guide/explore/healthy-eating-recommendations.html
2. Health Canada. Make water your drink of choice. Canada’s food guide. www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-guide/explore/healthy-eating-recommendations/make-water-drink-choice.html
3. Health Canada. Use Canada’s food guide plate to make any meal (video). www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/video/food-nutrition/plate-make-any-meal.html
4. Health Canada. Be mindful of your eating habits. Canada’s food guide. www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-guide/explore/healthy-eating-recommendations/be-mindful-eating-habits.html
5. Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology. Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Adults aged 18–64 years. csepguidelines.ca/guidelines/adults-18-64/
6. Health Canada. Taking care of your mental health (described video). www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/video/taking-care-mental-health-described-video.html
7. Lally P, van Jaarsveld CHM, Potts HWW, Wardle J. How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2010;40(6):998–1009. doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674

Links were checked on 28 October 2026. External sites may change their content.