In light of the world fear right now, I thought it would be a good opportunity to re-establish my health and well-being as a priority and set habits in place to create a healthy lifestyle. My vision for the world is that everyone has and is supported in a lifestyle that promotes optimum health.
Imagine being committed to your own health and well-being. Instead, we seem to be committed to or distracted by activities, being busy, and achievement often at the sacrifice of our health.
Don’t wait until your body has worn down from constant stress and you are experiencing a disease to love yourself enough to take care of yourself. Maybe now is a good time to prioritize the health and well-being of you, your family and our communities: not just by protecting ourselves, but by creating health promoting habits and lifestyles.
I am not a medical professional. Please follow your doctor and public health official’s recommendations.
I have learned a lot about health in my many years of illness, below is my top 10 ideas for creating a health-promoting lifestyle.
1. Get enough sleep.
We all know now that electronics before bed is a bad idea. Now is the time to prioritize good sleep by turning things off an hour before bedtime letting your mind unwind. I set a “get ready for bed” alarm at 9:15pm and a “bedtime” alarm at 9:45.
2. Eat well and stay hydrated
Recommendations for good immune function include cutting sugar, trans fats, and white flour as well as increasing fruits and vegetables and whole grains. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Make preparing food a priority in your day rather that fitting it in.
3. Meditate
Just do It. There are so many options. I practice heart coherence as taught by the Heart math institute and am a student of Dr. Joe Dispenza. Dr. Joe has a short morning and evening meditation on Apple Music. My friend has had good experience with doing a daily three minute meditation on the App Headspace. Three minutes!! You have three minutes. The App Calm is offering reduced fees right now. I hear a lot of people say “ I can’t meditate”. Sorry, but that’s baloney. Meditation may not be what you think it is, just try it.
4. Do moderate exercise
Just move. I recently read a book called “The One Minute Workout” that talked about doing as little as four minutes of hard exercise as beneficial. Yesterday, my son and I raced around the block. Done.
5. Rest and Repair
You really need to do practices that get you out of fight or flight stress mode and into rest and repair. Meditation, yoga, Thai Chi, chi gong, progressive relaxation, and conscious breathing are all practices that can shift your state of being. Please make this part of your day.
6. Love myself
I tend to stress myself out with self-criticism, high expectations, and judgements. I need to give myself a break and see myself in a positive light. Yesterday, I realized how amazing I am as I was washing my family’s gloves and hats. Look at me taking care of my family. I’m awesome!
7. Don’t Focus on Problems
When I get into ruts where I am focusing on my disease, I get sad and my symptoms get worse. When I focus on other things that bring me joy, while taking care of myself, I feel better. In the same vein, I try not to let things like traffic, line-ups, the weather, etc. bother me. Life is too short to get worked up about minor inconveniences.
8. Do creative activities- art, crafts, baking, playing, music, play
Creative activities really nourish me. It’s always what arises when I stop fighting with what is. I just have to be careful not to use it as a way to criticize myself.
9. Spend time in nature
There is something so soothing about being in nature’s rhythm. Be in nature and notice it. Feel it. Connect with it. Don’t just be in your head. Nature will slow you down and set you at ease.
10. Connect with someone
True connection comes from getting into someone’s world and truly sharing of yourself. With this pandemic, many of us are feeling vulnerable and may be reaching out for support more. My uncle made an extended family What’s App group so we could stay connected and support each other. With my immediate family, we now have the time and space to be together instead of rushing and racing around. My son likes it when I get into his world-playing lego, hide and seek or building a fort. We have had more opportunities to do that in the past few days.
None of this will work if you make it a chore. It has to come naturally through self-love. Now is the perfect time to step back and look at what your life is about. I hope this list can be a starting point for you to create a life of health and well-being. It is in extreme circumstances that we are pushed to evolve and transform.
LOVE AND PEACE
Check out my other reflections. I write about living with chronic illness, healing, the beauty of slowing down, parenting and creative projects.
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I have been living with chronic illness and exploring the healing journey for over 20 years. I offer what I have learned from that journey to you in the form of aslowerkindoflife.com.
