12 Good Habits We Can Easily Learn From Animals

Animals are unassuming and do exactly what they were designed to do. Despite our superiority in every way, we humans have a lot to learn from animals.

Here are 12 good habits we can learn from the animals that exemplify them.

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Good habits from animals

Here are some animal habits that humans can adopt for a better quality of life. These habits include good habits for physical, mental, and emotional health.

Quality sleep

Cats, in addition to being fiercely independent, are also known to enjoy sleeping. This is a natural instinct for them to conserve energy for their next hunt for food.

For humans, getting enough rest through sleep can do wonders for our overall well-being. One immediate benefit is that it elevates your mood. You don’t feel cranky or sluggish the next day if you get a good night’s sleep.

Furthermore, getting enough sleep improves your overall physical health. These include, among other things, strengthening your immune system, lowering your risk of developing heart disease and diabetes, reducing stress. And also, assist you in losing weight.

With these benefits of quality sleep, it is important that we take our cue from cats. And develop a good sleeping habit.

Exercise

While cats are into sleeping, dogs on the other hand are more on the active side. They like to run around and explore their surroundings. Allowing dogs to go outside, move around, and explore makes them happy and is good for their health.

And, like dogs, humans also require regular physical activity.

Physical activity, whether light physical movements or Crossfit-level exercise, greatly improves your flexibility and muscle strength. Similarly, exercise improves your endurance and energy, improves your mood, and can help you to have better sleep.

Staying hydrated

According to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln website, cows need 3 to 30 gallons of water per day depending on age, body weight, and air temperature.

Now that’s a lot of water for proper hydration. But, since you’re not a cow, your body will not require 3 GALLONS a day. All that your body need is about 2 LITERS to function at its optimal level.

In case you’re wondering, here are some of the more important reasons why you need water to stay hydrated:

• Regulates body temperature,
• Functions as a carrier of nutrients and oxygen to the cells,
• Helps in digestion,
• Normalizes blood pressure,
• Stabilizes heartbeat,
• Flushes bacteria from the bladder, and
• Regulates the balance of electrolytes.

Empathy

Elephants have a commanding physical presence and exude calm and confidence in their actions. They have a very kind and spiritual demeanor and are known to have the human proclivity to comfort a friend.

The elephant’s ability to empathize is a habit that we can easily learn and practice.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It enables us to relate and, as a result, respond appropriately to a situation.

Definitely, the practice of empathy has numerous advantages. To name a few:

• Improves your understanding and acceptance of others.
• Helps with your persuasion skills.
• Boosts your self-esteem.
• Improves social connection.
• And, improves your network connection.

Compassion

Dolphins are famous for their agility and playful nature. They are also known to exhibit altruism and other human-like behaviors.

A study, published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology found that dolphins exhibit traits similar to humans. These characteristics are summed up as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

The agreeableness of dolphins is one trait that humans should adopt as a habit. This characteristic can also refer to being kind, affectionate, and helpful. Or, to put it another way, compassion.

Compassion is the feeling of sympathy and concern for others with the willingness to help.

Developing compassion as a habit has its many advantages that include:

• increased tolerance.
• a new perspective
• increased happiness
• improved social connections
• improved overall health
• being able to empathize more deeply
• attracting more compassion

Dependability

Lions, aside from being known as noble and courageous animals are also dependable and predictable. With a lion, you always know where you stand.

Thus, the one habit we can easily adapt from lions is dependability.

Without a doubt, dependability is an excellent habit to develop. When you are dependable, you say what you mean and follow through with your promises. Also, you take on challenges, accept responsibilities, and own up to your mistakes.

Admittedly, it would take time, dedication, and consistency to develop the habit of dependability. But, here are some ways you can do to start.

• Be on time and well-prepared.
• Respond to inquiries or requests as soon as possible.
• Mistakes cannot be avoided. However, make sure to fix them quickly.
• Know your commitments and your deadline.
• Be patient and kind to yourself. Recognize that self-improvement takes time.

Curiosity

The giraffe is the tallest of all mammals. And their prominent long neck provides protection because it allows them to see if there is a danger in the distance.

Giraffes are also graceful and dainty creatures who move with confidence and grace. Similarly, they exhibit human-like curiosity.

Thus, if there is one good habit to develop from giraffe characteristics, it’s their curiosity.

Curiosity is an excellent habit to cultivate because it allows you to thrive in unfamiliar situations. Furthermore, it helps you come up with new ideas, possibilities, and opportunities.

So, developing curiosity will provide you with a more fulfilling and productive life.

Productivity

Ants work extremely hard and spend the majority of their time gathering food, defending, cleaning, and caring for their young.

So, without a doubt, ants are incredibly productive throughout their lives. And this is something that we humans can easily learn from ants and apply in our daily lives.

Consequently, productivity as a habit has many benefits. The following are a few examples:

• Satisfaction from completion of a task.
• Happiness. Because of completing a task.
• Drive to continue.
• Focus and clarity.
• Control of what you do.

And here are some steps you can take to develop a productive habit.

• Use time blocks. This method schedules the specific time period to do an important task.
• Get rid of distractions. Surely, you can turn off your phone.
• Declutter your workspace. This definitely helps your mind focus on the task at hand.
• Stop multitasking. It does not help with productivity. In fact, multitasking only serves to drain your precious mental energy.
• Schedule breaks in your workday.
• Similarly, maintain a healthy lifestyle.
• Devise a reward system for your productivity. Make it especially enticing to make your productivity habit stick.

Adaptability

Coyotes are among the most adaptable animals on the planet. They can thrive almost anywhere: grasslands, forests, mountains, deserts, and even within major cities.

Adaptability is a skill that humans should definitely develop in order to grow and thrive when there are changes or new environments.

And in a constantly changing world, here are a few key pointers to help you improve your adaptability in the workplace and in life:

• keep your mind open to new ideas, information, or opportunities that may arise from other people, events, or situations.
• Always strive to improve and learn something new.
• Take time to think and reflect. It allows you to become more aware and in tune with changes, take deliberate actions. And be more creative with ideas and information.

Good communication

Whales, with their sleek and streamlined bodies easily moving through the water, are intelligent aquatic mammals.

Aside from intelligence, research on whales discovered that they communicate and socialize with each other by making a variety of noises.

And if whales have figured out how to effectively communicate with one another. It is therefore a simple concept for humans to do the same.

Practicing the habit of good communication can provide you with the following benefits:

• Build trust,
• Prevent or resolve a problem,
• Provide clarity and direction,
• Improve productivity,
• Improve social network.

Confidence

Tigers are confident, powerful animals that are aware of their beauty and grace. Tigers appear to be always on the move. When they find something interesting, they tend to focus on it until they achieve their goal.

It is a good idea to learn and develop all of these tiger’s superlative characteristic traits. But if you have to choose one, your best bet is that of developing the habit of confidence.

Confidence is your trust and belief in your abilities.

Fortunately, confidence is a soft skill that you can learn and practice. Also, having a strong sense of self-worth gives you the following advantages:

• Less fear and anxiety.
• Increased resilience.
• Better health.
• Improved relationships.
• Better decision-making

Diligence

Beavers are territorial crepuscular creatures best known for their dam-building abilities. And it is in this ability, to tirelessly chew on wood. And painstakingly pile it on to build natural dams, that they can be credited with diligence.

An attribute that we humans can easily adopt as a habit in our daily lives.

Diligence is the behavior of being hardworking, paying attention to detail, and persisting despite difficulty or delay. It is a trait required in all aspects of life because it is a necessary ingredient for success.

It not only helps you achieve your goals, but it also makes people take note of you. In addition, you can benefit from the many advantages of diligence, such as:

• Commitment to your career, relationships, faith, ventures, or ideas.
• Ability to quickly adapt to changing situations, revise techniques, or seek solutions.
• Being able to learn from and improve on mistakes.
• Increased confidence as a result of experience.
• Character improvement.
• Being accountable for your actions.
• Developing the ability to initiate projects or ideas with a clear goal in mind from start to finish.

Summary

To summarize, animals have distinct characteristics and behaviors that humans can easily adapt to and make a habit of.

Although we are already aware of these concepts and behaviors, seeing them demonstrated by animals can be a fantastic eye-opener for us to develop and improve on them.

Here are some animal behaviors that we can easily learn and apply in our daily lives:

• Quality sleep,
• Exercise,
• Staying hydrated,
• Empathy,
• Compassion,
• Dependability,
• Curiosity,
• Productivity,
• Adaptability,
• Good communication,
• Confidence, and
• Diligence.

Please share your thoughts or ideas about 12 Good Habits We Can Easily Learn From Animals in the comments below. And if you liked this article, you might be interested as well in these articles:

Why Good Habits Beat Motivation
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9 Simple Habits You Can Learn From Vampires
9 Effective Habits For A Happy Life
Building Good Habits For Your To Be
How To Break 9 Bad Habits That Keep You Down
7 Tips On How To Develop A Persistent Habit

Outside references:

5 Fundamental Animal Habits That Humans Could Learn From
12 healthy habits from animals you need to emulate
The 16 Personality Types as Animals
Water Requirement for Beef Cattle
How Much Water Should You Drink
Dolphins have personality traits very similar to humans, study finds