At the beginning of each year we all start off with the best intentions. The ominous topic of a New Year’s resolution creeps in. Often, our goals are out of proportion to what we can physically, mentally, and emotionally handle at any given moment. The reality is, our lives are hectic, we experience a high level of demand on a daily basis, and we have very limited bandwidth to incorporate yet another time consuming task into our day such as "take care of Self". Sound familiar?
In my experience, when we are feeling a lack of energy, unmotivated, and scattered, it is virtually impossible to efficiently and effectively manage our day, much less take care of ourselves. Therefore, the first step to overcoming this vicious self-limiting pattern is to improve our health, one step at a time.
Now I know what you are saying. "I don’t have time to tend to my health, there’s just too much to do and not enough time in the day!” Well, my reply is this: "you can handle the following basic steps and seamlessly incorporate them into your day without it being a major time and energy investment.” These easy, and foundational health tips have the potential to make huge improvements in your energy, focus, and motivation to take your health to the next level. Don’t get ahead of your selves, start basic. As you begin to feel better, you can add something else to your healthy routine. Next thing you’ll know, it will be 2021, and you'll have completely revamped your health without an ounce of complaining about it. Just watch, you’ll see.
#1 Improve your Sleep
Long-term health depends on the regeneration that occurs during deep sleep. Growth hormone, or the “anti-aging” hormone, is secreted during sleep, which stimulates tissue regeneration, liver cleansing, muscle building, break down of fat stores and normalization of blood sugar. During sleep free radicals are scavenged in the brain, minimizing its aging. Many health problems are aggravated by inadequate sleep. Sleep gives us renewed vitality, a more positive outlook on life and energy with which we can become our full potential. The following 7 tips will help you get the most out of your sleeping hours.
Maintain consistent sleep and wake times. Do not push yourself to stay up past the initial signs of sleepiness. This can create epinephrine production, causing more difficulty getting to sleep later. It is good to have a “getting ready for bed” routine to relax and prepare your body for sleep.
Reserve the bed for sleep and sex only. Do not read, watch TV, eat, or worry in bed. Solve daily dilemmas outside of the bedroom. If you find that you’ve been lying awake in bed for 15-20 minutes, get out of bed. Do something mundane until you feel sleepy, and then go back to bed. Repeat this as often as needed.
Your sleeping environment should be quiet, cool and comfortable. The room should be clutter-free. Reduce the amount of ambient light as much as possible. Electronic devices such as clocks, stereos, TVs and computers generate electromagnetic fields that can disturb sleep for some people. Experiment with moving these into another room or using EMF shields. Feng Shui, the Chinese art of placement, can be valuable in creating an optimal sleeping environment.
Exercise regularly. Exercising during the day or early evening decreases the time it takes to get to sleep and increases the amount of deep sleep obtained. Most people do better avoiding exercise late in the evening.
Exposure to sunlight early in the morning and late in the afternoon or evening encourages a strong circadian rhythm. The hormone melatonin, which helps create a sleep state in the body, is suppressed in light and secreted in darkness.
If you have problems with waking during the early hours of the morning, have a small protein snack just before bed to ensure consistent blood sugar levels throughout the night. Consistently get exposure to sunlight as late in the day as possible.
Improving overall health will improve the quality of your sleep. Work towards improving or eliminating health problems. Treatment modalities such as massage, acupuncture or cranial sacral will help to relax the body. Effective stress management is essential.
#2 Meal Plan
Do you feel like eating healthy means that you MUST spend the majority of your time shopping for food, preparing food, and cleaning up after yourself? Is this completely unfeasible in the face of your busy schedule? The time required for food prep is a shocking reality for most when they begin to take control of their nutrition, and it leaves most saying in frustration “...are you serious? How am I supposed to eat healthy AND keep up with everything else?!”
Most of my patient’s have the best success when they meal plan, and prepare meals for the entire week ahead of time. This cuts out redundant food prep that can be done once on the weekend, saving you a ton of time during the week to relax and focus on other important things on your schedule. My suggestion is: selected a time on the weekend when you have at least 3 hours that you can spend in the kitchen preparing meals for the week. In the beginning, you may need a little more than 3 hours, but eventually, you can get this down to less than 3 hours once you get into your groove.
Below is a list of 5 ways to simplify your food preparation thereby increasing your potential to follow through on creating a healthy 2017:
Partially-homemade meals: Use pre-prepped options. There is an increasing number of pre-prepped components to meals available at your grocery store such as frozen quinoa and kale salad, frozen vegetable medley, and frozen pre-marinated or seasoned salmon. Frozen vegetables are much more nutritious than canned, and can be added to proteins, and whole grains to make a more interesting and nutritious meal.
Roast your veggies: roasting vegetables reduces their water content thereby increasing the amount of time they can be stored as compared to sautéed or steamed veggies. The added benefit is, most veggies taste better roasted. Use herbs such as rosemary, oregano, thyme, and black pepper to spice it up. Also, there are a variety of salt-less herb mixes that you can purchase that really make the vegetable category jump up on your list of tasty treats.
Do not get too complicated with variety: yes, variety is hugely important when it comes to all of your food selections, however, this does not mean that you need to eat 10 different veggies, and 10 different fruits every day, or even every week. Select 3-4 veggies that you will make meals out of and purchase a large quantity to prepare for the upcoming week. The following week, chose 3-4 different veggies. Over the course of a month, you will be able to claim a tremendous variety of fruits and vegetables thereby assuring that you are getting a wide spectrum of vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients.
Multi-task: If you are a man, you may have more difficulty with this tip, but rest assured, there is likely an app out there that can help even the most single-task oriented man become a savvy multi-tasker. While you are cooking, set timers, and get all aspects of the kitchen working at the same time. While protein is cooking, have veggies roasting, all the while you are simmering items on the stovetop. Meal prep day should not consume more than 3 hours of precious weekend time if multi-tasked like a pro.
Store things smart: My recommendation for optimal time efficiency is to use glass containers that you can re-heat your food in. This way, the container can go from the refrigerator or freezer, to your lunch pack, to a microwave or toaster oven, and then back home to be cleaned. No mess created in between. Never heat food in plastic, even if it says to on the packaging. This is a common source of toxin and xenoestrogen exposure and can lead to hormonal issues in both women and men and increase the potential to develop cancer. Select a glassware that stacks easily in the freezer or fridge, and that is large enough to hold an entire meal for one person.
#3 Drink Water
Probably the most underrated health tip out there is: “drink more water.” A simple recommendation that can go a long way in improving your health. Water is the ultimate transport medium in your body, and if you are dehydrated, which most of us are, you are having trouble with transporting nutrients, and eliminating toxins. Over time this can cause severe health problems. The rule of thumb is, take your weight, divide it in half, and that is the number of ounces your should be drinking each day. For example, if you weight 140 pounds, half of your weight is 70 pounds. 70 ounces is your ideal water consumption goal each day. Stay away from using plastic bottles for the same reason indicated in the food prep section.
#4 Breathe
Much like water, oxygen is essential for the perpetuation of life. More than any other organ, our brain is the most sensitive to oxygen deprivation, and therefore, optimal breathing is an essential component to improving brain health and feeling focused and “on point” throughout the day.
Breath is the cord that ties us to our body. Breath is also the only physical way to directly influence our emotional states. Our breathing pattern changes based on how we are feeling inside. If we are stressed, scared, or frustrated, our breathing becomes shallow, and rapid. When we are relaxed, our breath becomes slow, deep and rhythmic. Many of us breath shallow and rapid out of habit, because we are most often stressed, scared or frustrated. Intervene in this pattern by consciously changing your breathing.
As a part of a complete wellness plan, healthy breathing must be viewed as an essential component. On a daily basis, practice the following breathing exercise while taking a light stroll through a local park. Not only will this oxygenate your brain and tissues helping you feel more awake, focused, and energetic, it will help you relax and connect with the natural environment, and help you establish a sense of peace and relaxation when you are feeling frustrated and anxious. Whatever you do, do not go for a walk along a busy street and do this breathing exercise. Seek out an area that is calm, has relatively fresh air in abundance, and has a natural setting to rest your eyes on.
Inhale: While walking, inhale through the nose to a count of 6. Focus your breath into your abdomen allowing your belly to expand for the majority of the inhale (Tip: use your step as a metronome counting one each time your right foot hits the ground)
Hold: Hold you breath to a count of three. If you are using your steps as a metronome, hold for three steps.
Exhale: exhale to a count of 6 through pursed lips. Pursing your lips prevents your from exhaling too fast, and helps you connect with your breath.
Repeat for as long as you can. Ideally a minimum of 3 minutes, and a maximum of 15 minutes.
NOTE: If you begin to feel lightheaded, stop, sit down, and rest for a moment until you normalize. Decrease your count to 4-2-4.
