It is easy to sabotage your own health. Without even realizing it, you could be setting yourself up for numerous health problems down the road, simply by making bad lifestyle choices. There are several ways that you could be endangering your health and shortening your lifespan. But those poor health choices can easily be changed, and it is never too late to improve your health.

1. Smoking – Smoking is a highly addictive habit that affects millions of people. The effects of smoking can lead to cancer, heart disease, and emphysema. It can also have long-term negative effects on your throat, your digestive system, your skeletal system, and your skin. And, the smoke that is released from cigarettes can cause great harm to those around you.

2. Poor diet – Both eating too much and eating the wrong types of foods can lead to long-term health problems. Eat too much (meaning having no regard for portion sizes) and you are likely to suffer from hypertension, obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease. Eating the wrong foods (meaning fast foods, high fat snacks, and highly processed foods) can also lead to obesity, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. Any of these conditions can cause stroke, heart attack, and death. Stick to natural, fresh foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains for the bulk of your diet. “Cheating” once in a while is ok, too!

3. Excessive drinking – Excessive drinking can lead to long-term liver damage, and it can affect your overall physical and mental health. Drinking and driving cannot only injure or kill you, but it can injure or kill others as well. The key to drinking alcohol is moderation, and if you have had even one drink, let someone who has not been drinking drive the car.

4. Not moving your body – Exercise is hard. It takes time. It takes commitment. But it helps you to control your weight, look great, feel strong and limber, have more energy, it lowers your blood pressure, increases your HDL cholesterol (that’s the good one!), and relieves stress. Why wouldn’t you want to do something that will give you all of those things? Walk, jog, swim, play with your kids in the backyard – do something to keep your body moving!

5. Ignoring stress – Some stress is good, it can be a motivator. Too much stress, though, can lead to a whole host of problems if it is ignored: high blood pressure, depression, severe headaches, or digestive problems. Find something that you enjoy doing and that relaxes you: exercising, meditating, gardening, and reading, anything that helps you leave your stress at the door.

6. Not sleeping enough – Not getting enough sleep affects your judgment, your reaction time, and your mood. This can put you and others in danger, and it can affect your professional and personal relationships. Try to get at least 6-8 hours of sleep each night.

7. Friends – This could be the main reason most people make bad lifestyle choices, friends have a major influence in our lifestyles. Consider a friend who likes to go out and party and drink over the weekends. This can contribute to all of the 6 bad choices as stated above. Make sure your friends support your healthy lifestyle change and are not there to sabotage it.