Here on the blog, we talk a lot about health and wellness. That’s because I believe that good health truly starts from the inside. There is so much happening within us that filters to the surface and is seen on the outside. What you eat, the amount of exercise you do in a day, how many hours of sleep you get at night, all of it starts from the inside and eventually bubbles to the surface.
Essentially how you care for yourself on the inside is reflected on the outside for others to see. Which means that anyone who knows anything about health can almost always tell when you’re not doing enough of something to keep yourself in good health. Which if we’re being honest can be extremely uncomfortable at times. So, if we’re not doing all that we can to nurture the inside, how could we ever expect the outside to shine as bright as it could?
It’s the one question that I spent years trying to find the answer to. Chances are if you’re reading this right now you’ve been down this road before too. The funny thing is that there really is no right answer to this question. In fact, it’s simple logic that comes with knowledge and experience. If you want the outside to shine as bright as it possibly can, then you have to nurture the inside.
See what I did there?
We spend way too much time overthinking how to be healthy. I get it, there’s a lot of information out there, most of which is valuable information to better our health, but the reality is that it’s too much to take in at a time. Not to mention that everything you read is not going to be what’s right for you. Bettering your health is an experimental process because your body is not going to respond to everything the way someone else’s body will.
If you really want to better your health you have to be open to experimenting with activities and lifestyle chances that work best for you. What if I told you that getting started on this journey was a lot easier than you may think? That’s where this post comes in. Believe it or not it is. While everything is not going to work best for everyone, there are some things that absolutely work well for everyone across the board.
While I am absolutely no health expert, I have found that becoming a healthier person is a lot easier than you may think. In fact, it’s so easy that with the right guidance even a baby can do it. Continue reading to see what I mean.
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Move your body
Honestly the easiest thing you can do to become a healthier person is to move your body consistently. I know the first thing that comes to everybody’s mind when you hear the phrase “move your body” is exercise. Yes, exercise is great but that’s not the only way you can get your body moving. Before I share with you some other ways you can get up and get active, let me just say that I am a huge supporter of exercising daily. This is a great way to reach or maintain your ideal weight, build and tone your muscles, clear your mind, and even help yourself get better sleep at night.
Exercising is a very natural remedy for better help and it is by far the easiest thing you can do daily. I always encourage the women that I work with to get in at the very least 15 minutes of exercise a day, and it doesn’t even have to be something that’s going to make you sweat. Anything that is going to help you move your body is the goal here.
Outside of exercise there are tons of ways you can move your body. You can go for a walk, ride your bike, do some yoga, walk around the mall, clean your house, walk your dog, or even take your kids to the park. Anything that is going to require you to get up and move, I say go for it.
It doesn’t have to be time consuming either. Again, the sweet spot I like to aim for is 15 minutes. However, the more enjoyable you find the activity the longer you are likely to engage in it. So, when getting up and moving your body try to do something that won’t make it seem like a chore to complete, but rather something fun to do. Doing this daily is the one of the easiest ways to start your journey to being a healthier person.
Center yourself
Ah yes, the secret to remaining balanced. When most people think of health they automatically go straight to physical appearances and eating habits. While these things do play a part in our health the truth is they are only a small portion of our health. The physical portion, which means that often times you can’t just assume you know what’s really happening on the inside.
Instead, understand that there are three other important areas of our health that needs to be addressed as well. Becoming a healthier person requires you to also ensure that you are properly caring for your mental, emotional, and spiritual health as well. This is a huge part of holistic wellness and the key to remaining balanced.
While there are many different activities that you can and should do to ensure you are nurturing each of these health areas, one way to quickly check in with the status of these areas is by centering yourself. What does it mean to center yourself? To check in with yourself and reset your mind and spirit. Usually, we find ourselves needing to re-center when we feel overwhelmed. Which is great and most definitely and effective self-care technique, but it can also be a tricky one to navigate if you don’t know how to center yourself.
This may seem like a weird concept and I can understand why. There is no right or wrong way to do this, but perhaps the easiest and most effective way is to take a few minutes to engage in meditation. When trying to center yourself the main goal is to quiet your mind and distractions from the outside so that you can check in with yourself.
I like to use the body scan technique, where I mentally scan my body from head to toe paying attention to any areas where I may feel tensed, uncomfortable, or simply uneasy. Taking a few deeps breaths is another great way to center yourself. When you take the time to check in with yourself and acknowledge areas of your health that could use a little bit more TLC, you’ll quickly find yourself on the path to becoming your healthiest self. It’s so much more than just the physical. You also have to care for your mental, emotional, and spiritual parts of your health as well.
Also acknowledge that caring for all areas of your health is going to look and feel different for everyone. So again, there is an experimental process that has to unfold, but once you find what works best for you, the rest is just commitment and dedication to making it a part of your lifestyle. Practice centering yourself so that you can build a more trusting relationship with yourself to ensure all areas of your health are well taken care of.
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Get your beauty sleep
Plain and simple, get your sleep at night. For the best results from the hard work, you put into bettering your health it is recommended that you get anywhere from 6-8 hours of sleep. As someone who has struggled greatly with being an insomniac for most of her life, I completely understand how hard it can be to get the bare minimum number of hours of sleep at night.
But like most everything in this life there is a solution.
If sleeping at night is something that you struggle with try creating a bedtime routine that will help you relax yourself at night. This routine should be something that calms you and really signifies that it is the end of the day for you. So, whether that’s washing your face, taking a bath, doing some journaling, or reading before bed, add activities to your routine that will require little to no effort to complete.
Like when implementing most new things into our lives this will take some time getting accustomed to. You have to train yourself to engage in a nightly repetition before it just becomes a natural routine for you. However, once you get pass that big hurdle it’s easier to stick to the routine nightly.
After all, they do say that beauty starts from within. So, in order to feel and look our best we need to ensure we getting enough sleep so that we can do specific activities during the day to help keep that type of energy present in our lives.
The importance of sleep for better health is not talked about often, but you’d be surprised what it can do for your overall health. This is yet another simple and easy thing to do to be a healthier person. If you haven’t jumped on this train yet then now is the time. Get your bedtime routine in place so that you can finally start seeing positive results in your health now.
Flex your brain
Brain health is so important. Failing to exercise your brain daily can make it harder to be present, aware, and fully engaged on a day-to-day basis. This is because we may find it hard to concentrate for long periods of time, we may feel extremely fatigued, and find it hard to be creative.
Yes, some symptoms such as these can also be the cause of dehydration but it’s also a part of our brain health. When we don’t activate our brain, we fail to keep it healthy. You may be thinking that in order to do some of the simplest things such as eating, reading this blog post, or even having a conversation with some requires your brain to be active. You’re not wrong but that’s not the kind of activation I’m referring to.
You have to really put in the effort to nurture your brain. This Means challenging it to learn new things, and expand its knowledge on things you already know. This can be accomplished by learning a new skill, reading every day or night, or doing fun word games once a week. Any activity that is really going to flex your brain to be focused and take in new information is the main goal here.
Unfortunately, that means watching movies all day is not going to make the cut. The easiest way to start up a daily routine like this is to make a list of things you would enjoy doing that would require you to challenge yourself to think critically and effectively. So, open up your treasure chest of your favorite past time activities, and open yourself to exploring new ones, and practice challenging your brain at the very least once a week.
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Protect your energy
Finally protect your energy. To nip this one in bud, be very mindful of how you use your energy, who you share it with, and the kind of energy you expose yourself to. So much of our health is greatly impacted by the many different kinds of energies that exist in this world. If you’re not aware of your energy and that of others, then it can be hard to understand the way in which energy work may be impacting your health.
Energy impacts our health in many different ways. Perhaps the most recognizable way is through our mental health. If you encounter negative energy and you absorb that negative energy, your mind will begin to adjust to that negative energy. The longer you wallow in it the greater the chances are of that energy filtering throughout other areas of your health.
Before you know it, you may be unusually sad, more aggressive than necessary, have a negative mindset, poor eating habits, poor sleep, withdraw socially, and decrease your physical activity. These are just a few things negative energy can do to your health.
The best way to ensure that you are putting out and absorbing positive energy is to be mindful of your own energy. Protect it. Don’t just share with it anyone for any reason. Be mindful of how you use your energy. Don’t just share it with others but also give some to yourself. And always replenish it at the end of every day (see the beauty sleep section of this post).
These are just a few simple things that you can do to become a healthier person. What’s great about all these activities is that they all positively impact all areas of your health. Some give more love to one specific area of health than others, but none the less they all work together to promote better health.
Which will you be trying first? What do you currently do to be a healthier person that wasn’t included on this list? Share one thing with me in the comments below!
-Xo
Kimora