4 ways you can improve your health, well-being and life today that does not involve nutrition or exercise 😯
What what, no extreme diet or crazy gym routine? I truly believe these three things are as important as all of the changes we can make to our nutrition and health.
Try and be open-minded with all of the suggestions. It is super daunting trying anything new! It can be so far out of our comfort zone that we just cant imagine doing it. Just think, what have I got to lose from giving something a go? Try it for 2 weeks and see how you feel. What have you got to gain? The potential to change your life.
These tips are not as easy as taking a supplement, they are not sexy, nor a quick fix, and will not help overnight. They all require practice and dedication. But I promise you each one is hugely beneficial and can have a massive impact on your life, health and well-being.
'Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can' Arthur Ashe
Small steps each day
This first one is kind of a two. They both work in harmony of each other.
1. Mindfulness and Gratitude. We can't really appreciate everything in life without being truly present and in the moment.
What is gratitude? What is mindfulness? Without writing a bible (here is a link to a few awesome articles and YouTube videos where you can find out more information)
Steps to becoming more mindful (highly recommend)
How often do you take moments in the day to reflect and remember how incredible your life is?
It is often hard when we are so busy with our lives to take a step back, it becomes even more difficult when we feel we lack something in our lives. We can't find a job, our relationships suck, we don't like how we look, everyone seems to be doing well (through the small lens of social media) or we are not pursuing our passions.
It is easy to forget that things could be so much worse. Unfortunately, it usually takes a major life crisis for most people to reflect and realise how incredible their life is. When a loved one passes, we get injured or sick or maybe a person close to us is diagnosed with a serious illness. We take time to reflect and realise how good life was before we had this earthquake. Would it not be incredible if we could have this sense of appreciation, gratitude and mindfulness before the disaster? To truly appreciate living in the right now instead of retrospect?
Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful. You don’t need all you want to be happy, you only need to appreciate what you have. -Michael Josephson
Becoming more mindful can allow you to be more in tune with your instincts. Allowing you to realise what's important in life, what things make you happy, what things make you sad, what behaviours make you feel good, what food makes you feel good, who makes you feel warm and makes you laugh, who brings joy and what relationships bring negativity and bad energy into your life.
How to practice both?
2. Journaling
It can be as simple as 3 bullet points in the notes section of your phone, to journaling in a diary or downloading an app. There is something about writing down and visualising the words that brings our ideas to life.
Every morning I write down a wee paragraph of the things in my life I am grateful for. Each day can vary from the ability to live so freely, to have the opportunity to work, run, have incredible relationships, choose how I spend my day, to choose who I interact with. To feeling truly grateful for specific experiences like meeting someone new or feeling truly inspired by something. Whatever it is I try to make sure I focus on positivity. Life is about perspective. Our full day can be changed by what we choose to tell our self. Reflecting on and writing down the things we are grateful for sets you up for a day of compassion, abundance and appreciation. Even if everything that day doesn't go as planned, you can take a step back and become present, realising you have health and people in your that love you unconditionally.
This is a difficult practice. I could tell you all about my struggles the last few weeks having running injury niggles so close to the race. I have had a real battle trying to stay positive. However, I do know that when I do focus on positives my life is so much better.
If you don't have the time write or just think it's not going to work. Just start the morning thinking about the things you are grateful for. Set alarms in your phone to remind yourself.
Become aware of the situations throughout the day where you feel anxious or annoyed. Where you react out of frustration rather than empathy and kindness. Everyone has faced situations where they wished they acted differently. Where they maybe reacted negativity out of immediate frustration or made a decision and instantly regretted it. Becoming aware and more mindful of our actions, allows us to react to situations with control. Coming from a place of understanding, taking a step back and asking yourself why do feel annoyed? Why do I want to eat the entire house? Is it because this happened? Will this make me truly feel better? Is this me? Or am I just reacting without thinking
3. Breathing
It sounds hippy, woo woo I know.I remember growing up hearing that taking big deep breaths allowed you to feel calm, reduced feelings of frustration or anger and generally made you feel better. I thought this was just what people told you because they did not really know how you were feeling or how to make it any better.
Turns out monks, Buddhists, certain religions, hippies and gurus were right. For generations, they have all shared and taken part in different deep breathing practices. Which are now being used across the world. From enhancing focus within the army and navy seals to improving endurance performance and enhancing mental focus, mood and overall quality of life.
Can you think of the last time you took 10 deep breaths? I mean 10 full, deep breaths that make you feel a bit dizzy but awesome at the same time.
On average, most of us breath 23,040 times a day. Most of the time our breaths are shallow and light, unless we are exercising or running to catch the bus.
The scientific data is now showing a range of psychological and physiological improvements from different breathing practices. Ranging from improved mood, self-awareness, to immune system adaptations and improved endurance performance.📷
Where to begin?
Start with 10 big deep breaths. Just now. Go. How do you feel? Weirdly awesome?
Once you start feeling the benefits from 5/10 deep breaths a day you give these practices a try:
Box breathing (technique used by navy seals, Cross-fitters, athletes, businessmen, for mental clarity, focus and all sorts of psychological and psychological improvements)
Each practice, alongside a range of others can help with so many of our daily stresses and crazy hectic lives.
4.Sleep - (click on the link, really interesting article)
After 2 years of nightshift, uni, youth clubs and running my sleep pattern was destroyed. I was constantly getting niggles from running, feeling tired and finding it difficult to stay focused at uni.
Over the last year, I have come to the conclusion that sleep could be one of the most underrated and under used performance enhancer. Getting a goodnight sleep can literally change your life.
We all know that not having enough sleep makes us moody, lethargic and less willing to do things through the day.
The latest scientific research is now showing that adequate sleep allows the body to function on a higher level and contributes to:
-Weight-loss -Regulating appetite -Improving relationships -Improving mood -Improving sexual function -Regulating the immune system -Promotes recovery of cells -Aids in muscle growth (combined with resistance training) -Allows the body to regenerate and flush out toxins
In contrast, the research is also showing that inadequate amounts of sleep contributes to poor decision making, increased appetite (meaning when we are tired we are more likely to overeat and pick unhealthy food) and poorer health outcomes long-term. With some studies finding a correlation (a link) between poor sleep patterns over a person's life span and increased risk of disease such as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer as well as obesity and mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression.
How to improve sleep? Some people reading this may react in a similar way as I did. I have no time to sleep more or I just can't fall asleep early.
Some of the biggest changes I made were
-Turning off my phone at night. There is something so empowering about closing off from the constant world of social media before bed.
-Reading. Yeah massive dweeb I know. But I can't tell you how much it has helped me fall asleep.
-Making my bedroom completely black and cold. Super cool article explaining the benefits <
Summary
I have been trying to do all of these things for about a year now and noticed crazy results. It was super tough at the beginning. Everyday was a struggle to motivate myself to keep doing it. Seeing no real changes. After a few weeks I felt so much better! Journaling daily has without a doubt had the most impact. It has allowed me to appreciate and consider everything in my life. It really puts things into perceptive. Just writing down what we do everyday, give us a sense of how truly luck we are. It also made me dig deep in to my emotions, reflecting on the challenges I have faced and how I feel about myself. Through this I realised how tough I can be on myself. Although its not a miracle cure for improving self-esteem or your life. It has really allowed me to focus on what is important and generally made me feel like me again.
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