Month: February 2023

When our lives are very full, it can be easy to let self-care slip to the bottom of the priority list. Yet, if you don’t ‘put your own oxygen mask on first’, eventually you’re going to burn your health and energy out and then you won’t be able to show up each day to contribute in the way that you want to.

The good news is small, simple changes can make a big difference to how you experience each day. Below are some strategies to help you experience greater vitality—excerpts inspired by my Wellness Cards, a deck of 90 cards designed to educate and inspire people to take better care of themselves in practical ways.

1. Become breath aware

Notice if your breath is short, sharp and shallow in the upper chest, or if it slowly moves the belly in and out. Consciously switching to the latter—particularly extending the length of the exhalation—is one of the most effective ways that we can reduce stress hormone production. This can have a profound effect on numerous aspects of our health, including energy levels, sleep and digestion, to name just a few.

2. Care for your liver

Your liver function contributes to so many processes inside you including the storage and dissemination of nutrients, as well as detoxification. It plays a major role in how you feel, function and look each day. Focus on giving your liver more of what it loves, and less of what it doesn’t––more whole foods, particularly bitter foods like green leafy vegetables, and less alcohol and highly processed foods.

3. Expand the variety of foods you eat

A great way to help you obtain the essential nutrients your body needs is by expanding the variety of whole foods that you eat. Consuming a wider variety of plant foods in particular is a powerful way to support your gut microbiome, as diversity in how we eat translates to diversity in our microbiome.

4. Let yourself have what you already have

Even if it is right in front of you every day, and you don’t let yourself have it—which means noticing it, taking it in, allowing yourself the pleasure of it—it is never really yours. Because if you don’t ‘let yourself have’ a glorious sunrise, a cool evening breeze on your face after a hot day, an awe-inspiring view, then what else are you denying yourself? We can become so focused on the big things we want to achieve that we miss the micro-moments that are happening all the time—and all the delight in them. We can experience that joy now, if we just allow ourselves.

5. Chew your food

Chewing thoroughly helps us to slow down and experience enjoyment from our food, which can help prevent overeating, plus it’s key for stimulating stomach acid production which is essential for proper digestion. It might sound too simple to make a difference but focusing on chewing each mouthful well can often significantly improve symptoms like bloating.

6. Make water your main drink

Staying hydrated is crucial to how you think, feel and look. Your body is, on average, about 70% water and your kidneys use water to filter and clean your blood—keeping what you need and creating urine for the waste to be disposed of. If you struggle to drink enough water, try keeping a water bottle with you to prompt you to take sips regularly across the day.

7. Look for laughs

Moments of laughter can help to lighten our load, see things with fresh eyes and alleviate stress. Try creating a playlist of video clips that crack you up, or seek out or reflect on scenarios that make you laugh out loud.

8. Prioritise sleep

If you struggle with sleep, consider if this might be driven by too much caffeine or perhaps from bright light and screen use too late into the evening. Or, is your fight-or-flight response in overdrive due to perceptions of pressure and worries? Make it a priority to work out what is disrupting your sleep, as this will help you understand how to improve it.

9. Flex your ‘no’ muscle

If you frequently say ‘yes’ when you really want to say ‘no’, notice if it’s because you’re fearful of what others might think of you. Instead of judging you harshly as you worry they will, they might instead appreciate your honesty or show concern for your workload. How others perceive us is ultimately up to them. It’s important to stay true to yourself and your values.

10. Focus on health, nourishment and energy, rather than weight

This shift in focus fosters greater energy, vitality, happiness and freedom, as well as optimal health. A dieting mentality is all about restriction, and it typically distinguishes foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, which easily translates to a person perceiving they are ‘bad’ when they don’t follow the diet. Harsh self-judgement contributes significantly to someone making ongoing poor-quality food choices so to break this cycle, focus instead on nourishment and having great energy. This way, it’s all about the plethora of foods that support you to have optimal health.

Sustaining change

When it comes to health, many people declare that they are finally going to make their own health a priority and make some changes. And things usually start off so well. But, despite the best of intentions and great knowledge, it doesn’t always last and many people return to some of their less supportive habits. Have you ever wondered why?

Something that I love to explore is why we do what we do, even though we know what we know. There is so much gold in understanding what is really driving our choices because, with such insight, it becomes much easier for us to make sustainable changes that support our health. So, let’s look at a few common reasons why you might struggle to put your knowledge into practice and what you can do to help.

You haven’t reflected on your ‘why’

It’s natural for change to feel difficult or uncomfortable at first, so connecting the change you want to make with your ‘why’ is so important. Take some time to reflect on this and perhaps use a journal to capture your thoughts. Think about what you are really wanting to achieve and what this change will mean for you. How does this change link with your values? Where will you be in a year’s time if you make this change? Where will you be if you don’t? It can be helpful to revisit this during those extra challenging days.

You’re all in (or all out)

When we’re super motivated to start the year off well, it can be tempting to try to overhaul everything in our life at once. But if we’re not able to sustain it all we can often feel like we’ve failed and have to ‘start again’. Commit to one or two small changes first, and then go from there. Small, incremental changes can add up over time to make an enormous difference to our health. One exception to this though is with sugar consumption. Sustained change is more likely when we cut it out thoroughly for six weeks, before contemplating any potential minor reintroductions. 

Your benefits outweigh your drawbacks

Sometimes your benefits for staying the way you are unconsciously outweigh your drawbacks. In other words, somewhere in your brain you have more reasons not to change than you do to change. Or perhaps some reasons carry more weight than others. For example, if your health and wellbeing isn’t high enough on your priority list, you won’t truly value investing your time, energy and resources into bringing about change. So you will more easily fall back into habits that don’t support your health because other things will continue to be of a higher priority for you. Sometimes, your list of drawbacks – or the weight of those drawbacks – needs to grow.

Your measures of success aren’t supportive

When we’re making changes, we tend to want some way of tracking our progress. The problem is, if we only focus on one specific measure – a good example here is total body weight – it can be easy to think that what we’re doing isn’t working if we don’t see this one measure change in the way we were hoping right away. Yet, there could be other changes happening that indicate that what we’re doing is incredibly beneficial, such as improved energy, a clear complexion, a more even mood, clearer thinking, better digestion… the list goes on! Focus on how you are feeling and celebrate all of the wins along the way.