Top 5 Ways to Prioritize Your Health
Well, here we are at the END of the first month of 2023 already!!! Where does the time go?! (I say this as I have a newborn, so I literally have ZERO concept of time these days!)
I put out a social media post earlier this month about my main suggestions for prioritizing your health in the new year that extend beyond resolutions - because frankly, I don’t agree with New Year’s resolutions - but I wanted my tips to have a permanent spot here on my website!
Why don’t I agree with New Year’s resolutions? Honestly, because I think people put too much pressure on themselves regarding them. You can make positive changes to your life throughout the year, not just when the big numbers on the calendar change. That’s what I love helping people with: making positive changes to their health and lifestyle all year long! So whenever you’re reading this, know that you can implement these suggestions and it’s never too late!!!
Without further ado, here are my five tips that have transformed my health and the health of my clients:
1. Decrease your toxic load.
I made this one number one because I truly think it’s the number one most important thing you can do to improve your health. We are surrounded by so many environmental toxins these days that wreak havoc on our health, and especially on our hormones (which control so many functions in the body). Decreasing toxins can look like: switching up your cleaning and household products for cleaner brands (I have some of these brands listed on my Recommendations page), reducing or eliminating your plastic use, cleaning out your personal care products (and remembering that less is more), and improving your food and water quality. If this is an overwhelming task for you, please reach out, because I love helping people clean up their products!
2. Cook your meals.
This may sound simple, but cook your meals at home. Yes, it’s fun to eat out, and you absolutely can still do that on occasion, but that should not take up the majority of your meals throughout the week. Why? Because when we eat out, we have so little control over what we are putting into our body, and most places we eat out at, do not hold their ingredient quality or sourcing to a high standard. Restaurant meals are loaded with inflammatory seed oils and non-organic ingredients that are harmful for our health, especially when consumed in excess over a long period of time. Not to mention, eating out is EXPENSIVE and you can save so much more money at home, even with using higher quality ingredients. This is something I help my clients navigate. When you cook your own meals, my biggest suggestions to keep costs low and quality high are: source local and in-season foods for optimal freshness, shop at farmers markets and get to know where your food is coming from and how it’s treated (for animals), and buy organic when you can in order to avoid the chemicals sprayed on conventional crops that harm your gut health. When you can’t buy organic, at least prioritize buying organic for the Dirty Dozen - foods that are most heavily sprayed: strawberries, spinach, nectarines, apples, grapes, peaches, cherries, peas, tomatoes, celery, potatoes, and bell peppers. Keeping all of these things in mind when cooking your meals at home will ensure that the nutrient quality of your food is at a level that is health promoting.
3. Increase your time in nature.
Nature is restorative to our souls. Humans are not meant to spend their days sitting or behind computer screens. There are so many ways you can incorporate more time in nature into your daily routines. You can walk outside, go for a hike, explore with your kids, play in the dirt (which helps build a healthy microbiome!), or just expose your skin to some sunshine (the sun is not the enemy it has been made out to be, but that’s a story for a different time). All of these things helps to regulate your circadian rhythm and improve your sleep, which further promotes a healthy lifestyle since sleep is so restorative. If you’re feeling really adventurous, you can participate in the 1000 Hours Outside challenge that walks families through how to spend 1000 hours each year outdoors and comes with activities to help you determine what to do with your time outside.
4. Get daily movement.
This is similar to #3, but with an emphasis on movement, not just on being outdoors (but movement outdoors is the best of both worlds!). Like I said, humans were not meant to be sedentary. Our modern world has done a number on our health just by causing us to prioritize so many other things over movement. Never underestimate the power of a walk - no matter how short. Walking loosens up our muscles and joints and gets our blood and lymph flowing. If you do have a career that requires you to be more sedentary, find ways to work in pockets of movement throughout your day - sit on a yoga ball instead of a chair, set a timer to move in some way every hour (lunges, squats, push-ups, whatever you prefer), etc. Another thing to prioritize in this area of health is your posture and breathing patterns. Take note of how hunched over you are when sitting, or how far forward your head posture is when looking at your computer screen… make a conscious effort to roll your shoulders back and stack your head on top of your neck and spine (raising your computer screen to eye level can help tremendously with this), and your ribs on top of your pelvis. When it comes to breathing, stop the shallow breaths that don’t extend deeper than your chest. You know, the ones that make your neck and midback tight because you’re not expanding your abdominal cavity? Instead, work on expanding your breath 360 degrees around your whole body (not just belly breathing because that creates pressure on organs that don’t need added pressure), expand your ribs and midback, breathe down into your pelvic floor, and really take time to focus on doing this throughout the day so it becomes more of a habit than something you need to focus on. Breathing in this way will help activate your vagus nerve which will turn your fight/flight response off and your rest/digest response on - which benefits every other area of wellness (digestive, emotional, physical, etc.)!
5. Continue to learn.
Seriously, never stop learning. Wherever you find excellence, you find continuous learning. Fall in love with learning. Read books, invest in trainings and certification courses, and continually challenge your thinking. I heard a saying recently that I love: try a little harder to be a little better. We are all always capable of growth, but we need to be open to it; we need to be open to questioning things we thought we knew, we need to be open to other viewpoints, and we need to know WHY we believe what we believe. When you feel “triggered” by something, I challenge you to use that emotion to look deeper into yourself - why are you so offended or hurt or annoyed by something someone else said or did? They are not responsible for your thoughts, feelings, or actions; only you are. So take those moments as an opportunity to dig deeper into yourself and determine which areas of YOU need some TLC and healing for your emotional health. Two other things in our modern day that could benefit from your continued learning and evolving knowledge are understanding natural remedies for treating various health ailments, and going off of prescription medications if possible. Your body doesn’t recognize pharmaceuticals, and as much as that industry of medicine has been “transformative”, it has also caused a plethora of issues. Learn about root causes, herbs, oils, homeopathy, and other forms of health and medicine closer to nature. Your body will process these remedies more efficiently and you will more likely be able to address the route cause of an issue and heal yourself faster than if you relied on prescription medications. I especially recommend working with a trusted healthcare professional to help you go off of birth control if you are still taking hormonal birth control - my reasons for that are far too expansive for just this post, but I will address that in a future blog post! But on the topic of learning, in the meantime, you could research why birth control is harmful for yourself ;)
That’s all I’ve got for my main health suggestions for improving your mental, physical, and emotional health; suggestions that have transformed my own life, as well as the lives of others that I’ve worked with! I hope this information was helpful for you :) Please comment or reach out to me if you’d like to discuss any part of this post further or work together on any of these areas - I’m here for you in your health journey!
