Inspiration and Motivation

Head-to-Toe Health Strategies to Do Every Day

Head-to-Toe Health Strategies to Do Every Day

Published by on October 18, 2018 | Leave a response

Taking care of your health can be difficult in our modern world. Often, it is hard to find the time you need to care for yourself, and it isn’t uncommon to find yourself putting your work ahead of your physical wellbeing. However, it is extremely important to care for yourself, even more so in a stressful world like ours. If we don’t take the time to care for our needs, both our mental and physical health can suffer. Luckily, there are a number of things you can do to take care of yourself from head to toe that can easily be incorporated into everyday life.

Take Some “Me” Time

Stress can quickly wear down your physical and mental health. Luckily, there are quite a few easy ways you can decrease your stress and improve your mental health. The simplest of these is taking a relaxing break. This can be as simple as taking an at-home spa day using homemade soothing skincare treatments and masks and giving yourself a hot rock massage. Making yourself a cup of tea and putting on some relaxing music can be just what you need after a stressful week at work. Not only will this relaxing day recharge you for the next week to come, but it will also improve your physical health by reducing your stress.

Eat Healthfully

If you’re reading this, then you must be eating throughout your day. What you’re eating, however, can differ quite a bit. For many busy people, fast food and unhealthy snacks make up most of their diet. This can have a negative effect on your overall health and can leave you vulnerable to a number of disorders and diseases. In fact, according to The Guardian, unhealthy eating has a hand in nearly one in five deaths. Eating a diet that is low in whole grains, fruits, nuts, seeds, and fish oils can put you at risk for early death and a whole host of diseases. Fast food and unhealthy snacks usually have none of these things.

Eating a poor diet can also negatively affect your mental health. Diet plays a significant role in comprehensive mental-health treatment. A poor diet can gravely affect your mood and ability to deal with stress effectively. This can lead to even more negative physical effects, especially if you live a particularly stressful life. Making healthy food choices doesn’t require much extra time and is relatively easy to incorporate into everyday life. In fact, it can be easily done by taking a few extra minutes to plan your meals ahead and pack some healthy snacks. Being mindful of what you eat is the first step to eating healthfully.

Exercise

Incorporating exercise into your everyday life has a huge number of health benefits. Physically, exercise can keep you from developing many disease and disorders. However, it has a number of mental benefits as well. In fact, exercise can improve your mood, make it easier for you to deal with your everyday stress, and keep you looking on the positive side of things. For many people, everyday business can prevent them from attempting to exercise regularly. There is a common misconception that you must set aside a specific time to exercise, but this is not altogether true. While it can be helpful to set aside a particular time each day to exercise, this is not mandatory. Many of the situations you find yourself in every day can be an opportunity to exercise. Cleaning, in fact, is worth 150 calories an hour, according to the Greatist.

It can be hard to take care of yourself if you’re busy or just don’t know where to start. But as you can see from this guide, there are many things you can incorporate into your everyday life that can improve your overall health and prevent a number of diseases.

Photo Credit: Pexels

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Practicing Self-Care: The Importance of Creating Balance with Your Fitness Routine

Practicing Self-Care: The Importance of Creating Balance with Your Fitness Routine

Published by on July 23, 2018 | Leave a response

Not everyone can say that they are following a fitness routine. It isn’t easy to keep a stringent workout regimen and stay faithful to a healthy diet. However, if you’ve found the secret formula, then you are well on your way to achieving your fitness goals.

While you should be proud of your achievements, you should also be wary of pushing yourself too hard, too fast. You’d be surprised how often burnout occurs, and for most people, the reason for their sudden drop in motivation was due to a failure of keeping balance with other wellness-boosting activities.

Self-care is a word you hear a lot these days as more and more people realize the value of tending to their physical, mental, and emotional needs. To be fair, keeping up with your physical fitness is an act of self-care, but unless you’re able to diversify the ways in which you tend to your various needs, you can lose the motivation to keep making progress. In an effort to keep your fitness moving forward, here are other activities that can balance your overall self-care.

Find a Hobby

Exercise is great because it can provide a sense of fulfillment to your life, but exercise isn’t the only self-care activity that can give you a feeling of pride and accomplishment. Everyone has their own unique interests. Some of us love to play an instrument, knit, fill out a coloring book, or spend a day out on the trail. No matter where your interests lie, you have a chance to diversify how you care for yourself.

The best kinds of hobbies are the ones that transport you away from the rest of the world. They should be like pressing a pause button on your life, allowing you to escape into an activity you love doing — at least for a little while. Your hobby should be challenging but not frustrating or unenjoyable, as that’s when it becomes a chore. Your hobby should be something that relaxes you and helps you forget about everything else going on in your life. Practicing a hobby will certainly keep you from burning out of your fitness routine.

Improve Your Quality of Sleep

A lot of times, you can burn out from being physically active by simply feeling too tired to keep the effort up. If you’re not getting enough quality rest each night, you could on your way to burning out and giving up. If you’ve noticed that you are waking up feeling groggy and tired, then there are a few things you can do to improve the quality of your sleep.

Better sleep starts with the bedroom, and creating the right environment to promote a quick and seamless slumber. You should keep your room dark, clean, and cool. You should make sure your pillow matches your sleeping position, and you might even try out a noise machine to help send your mind to sleep. Sleep is a fundamental form of self-care that helps us mentally process the day while resetting our body and mind for the days ahead.

Exercise Your Mind

You’re focused on getting your body in shape, but what about your mind? There are several ways you can work out your mind, including reading, puzzles, and meditation. Meditation is especially useful for helping you achieve a higher level of relaxation, which can combat stress that can hinder your progress towards self-care. Try to find an area in your home that you can transform into a meditation space, which will help encourage you to practice on a daily basis.

Meditation, relaxation, diet, and exercise are all ways to practice self-care. Once you realize there’s more than one way to achieve self-care, it makes the challenge of bettering yourself a little less difficult. No longer do you have to worry about pushing yourself too hard in a single area. Instead, you can now broaden your horizons and achieve true balance.

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com

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Physical Fitness During Recovery: How To Heal

Physical Fitness During Recovery: How To Heal

Published by on June 20, 2018 | Leave a response

Physical fitness can be a huge help when you are going through addiction recovery, not only because it allows you to focus on making your body healthy, but because it can help boost your self-esteem, confidence, and mental health. Getting active and practicing mindfulness can help you relax, learn how to focus on the present to reduce anxiety, and find comfort after a long battle with addiction.

“Research clearly shows that exercise helps your body, whether you’re in recovery or not. Improved long-term fitness helps with cardiovascular health and diabetes, lowers the risk of some types of cancers, stimulates the immune system, and can even help alleviate depression symptoms. Further research shows that exercise can increase the amount of new nerve connections in the brain, which will help your brain heal from the harm your drug of choice has been causing. As the body and mind continue to return to a more normal state, many people in recovery find exercise also helps restore a normal sleep schedule,” reads a blog post by SMART Recovery.

Keep reading for more on how physical fitness can help you during addiction recovery.

Sleep better

Many individuals who have battled substance abuse have trouble sleeping. Daily exercise can help you get better sleep, which can in turn reduce stress and help you feel better during the day. It will also help boost your productivity and can even help with physical issues, such as inflammation brought on by arthritis. Working out daily can help you prepare for better rest so you’ll be ready for anything that comes your way.

Boost your mental health

Taking care of your mental health is essential when you’re in recovery, since many individuals face depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders that can be debilitating. Exercise can have many benefits for your mental health, including boosting neural growth and healthy brain cells.

“Exercise is a powerful depression fighter for several reasons. Most importantly, it promotes all kinds of changes in the brain, including neural growth, reduced inflammation, and new activity patterns that promote feelings of calm and well-being. It also releases endorphins, powerful chemicals in your brain that energize your spirits and make you feel good. Finally, exercise can also serve as a distraction, allowing you to find some quiet time to break out of the cycle of negative thoughts that feed depression,” reads Helpguide.org.

Stay motivated

Exercising every day and starting a new routine that makes you feel good will keep you motivated to stay healthy and stick with it. Try to work out at the same time every day and incorporate activities that are fun so you’ll be more apt to keep up with it, such as going for a swim, dancing, or playing a sport.

Get fit

Substance abuse can take a huge toll on your body, so one of the best ways to heal is to get fit and focus on your health. Talk to your doctor about finding the right workout (or workouts) for your needs and fitness goals, whether it’s walking, weight training, cardio, or a combination of them.

Learning how physical fitness can benefit your needs is essential when you’re going through recovery, because it will help you focus on achieving a healthy body, mind, and spirit. Talk to your doctor and keep communication open about your needs so you’ll have support no matter what happens, and do the same with your friends and family. Consider finding a support group so you’ll have people to talk to who know what you’ve been through.

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