Healthy Habits
It takes just 21 days to form a habit, good or bad. This page and the links within it as well as the information in the Healthy Habits section of my blog will help give you the knowledge you need to start making and breaking those habits that will impact the life in your lifestyle.
The internet is a great resource as can be the media and your friends, but there is also a lot of misinformation being passed around or passed off as good information. One habit I highly recommend is asking questions of experts and professionals, and always questioning the source of the information. Whether your questions pertain to health, economics, legal issues or politics and policy, there are many good people out there hoping to answer your questions and help you, so ask!
Bike and Walk to Better Wellness
Depending on your weight, walking or biking for 10-15 minutes alone can burn from 100-200 calories! Take your bike to work, bike to and back from school with your children in the morning, or park your car that little bit further from home or work. If one pound of fat equals 3500 calories, do the math! Talk to you trusted exercise medicine specialist and start on the right foot with a nice brisk 10 minute walk today!
Fruit and Fibre Fantastic
Fibre is one of the dietary elements North Americans are severely lacking in and our consumption of delicious and nutritious fruits and vegetables is also poor. By aiming to meet the 5-10 a day challenge for servings of fruits and vegetables you not only fuel your body with vitamins minerals and energy, you also get a good portion of fibre to help your digestive tract make the most of the fuel you put into it!
Find Balance
Whether you are a walker, a runner, a weightlifter or a couch potato you need to add balance into your equation. If you sit all day, stand and move often in all those ways and directions you are not as you restrict and shape your body while you sit. If you go hard in the gym at sport, or just at life, find the time to go slow. Breath, stretch, relax, meditate, try yoga or T'ai Chi. Find balance, inside and out.
Floss
Dental health is essential to overall health and making a habit of adding a floss each night before your brush has been linked to decreasing cardiovascular events! Make a good 'c' shape and cup each side of each tooth and get rid of that plaque! There are all kinds of different floss sizes and tools, find out which works best for you and the environment!
Make Lists... and check them more than twice!
Choose a genre of health or success books and you will find making to-do and goal lists as a must in nearly all of them. Find a few minutes each day, preferably in the morning, to make a list of the action items for the day and to review your goal list. Short or long term, fun or serious, your mind is a powerful tool for guiding your actions and successes towards checking off those lists and reaching those goals!
Write
Whether in a journal, an email, a diet or workout log or in a letter to a friend writing is an amazing tool for getting your mind into the game. Writing, especially publicly, makes you accountable to your words as well as allowing you to keep track of your progress to celebrate your victories, big and small... plus you might even enjoy it!
Laugh
The evidence is everywhere and the results are happily, a laughing matter. The old saying "laughter is the best medicine" seems to be bearing fruit so make time each day, be it with a book, a friend, a show or a youtube foray, to laugh and let yourself laugh. You'll thank yourself for it and maybe even laugh at yourself for it and then it becomes the gift that keeps on giving!
Exercise
Funny that this was not higher up on my list, but there is no doubt that routine exercise can impact your health in more ways than we already know. From limiting the effects of chronic disease like diabetes to helping prevent it and other leading causes of death like cancer and coronary heart disease, exercise does everything from improving sexual functioning to increasing bone density and limiting the effects of ageing on the brain... so get up for an hour a day!
Research
If there is a topic of interest to you take it upon yourself to learn what you can and bring what you have learned to your health team members. There is always new information and with your mind involved in the process, focused into a practice with the help of your health team you can play a huge part in the development of an optimal personal health. There is a plethora of great information out there, but use it wisely and realistically!
Schedule
If there is anything I am learning as I move forward with trying to live the healthy and vital life I want it is the value of scheduling. Be it time for your body, mind and soul, time for friends, reading, loving or anything else under the sun from life goals to daily tasks, write it down and budget it some time. Time waits for no one and if you're not making sure you use it towards your goals, its gone before you new it was there.
Breathe
What do you need to do to live? Eat, drink and breath. We are bombarded with so much information and what to eat and drink that we delegate the last part to 'nature' to take care of. However, our more or less constant state of stress has left us to breathe as though we are in a fight or flight mode and as a result we are unable to truly benefit from this simple and wonderful act. Stop. Sit tall, relax your shoulders and try to use your diaphragm to expand your lungs down into your abdomen. Pause and let the air escape out and use your abdominal muscles to push that air out. Repeat this and more for a few minutes and see if you feel your blood pressure decrease, heart rate slow and energy increase!
Visualize
If you can see it and feel it, you can be it. The power of the mind- through creating thoughts, emotions and actions- is beyond measure. However, we do know that everything it does has a chemical and energetic bi-product and that these bi-products are the first steps towards creating reality. With each thought, emotion and action you prime your cells to receive more of the same and all they seek to do is become more efficient at managing that new reality/homeostasis. In short, Dream. See and feel all of your dreams as often and tangibly as you can and seek ways to bring them into reality with 100% of your effort. Today's reality was someone else's dream.
Learn
There is no limit to the human potential unless you perceive it. Seek avenues to grow and expand your perceptions and assumptions daily and share the journey with friends and peers. Always ask why... at least 5 times and if you're not satisfied with the answer keep digging and revel in the ability to live, learn and love.
For more, check out the Healthy Habits section of my blog!