Before life gets all pumpkin spiced, I wanted to take a minute to get back to the basics. I remember as a little girl, getting so excited for a new school year. New books, classes, and new opportunities to learn—yes, I have always been a bit of a nerd.
Sometimes however I feel like we live in an information overload period of history. Life can be overwhelming sometimes—faced with a million decisions and countless paths to take.
So today, I am keeping it simple. Living a healthy life requires intention, a willingness to change and experiment, and dedication to always keep the big picture in mind.
I wanted to share a few “back to basics” principles that I practice everyday, and ones that I have seen a HUGE difference in my health, my joy and my energy each day.
4 simple daily steps to a healthier YOU
Intentionally Choose A Positive Mindset
So much happens each day that is out of our control—hurricanes, war, negativity, stress, deadlines, toxins, etc. But choosing our reaction and choosing our mindset to approach those situations is in fact very much IN our control.
Negative thoughts lower your energy and will take that much more energy, aka stress on your adrenal glands, to bring you back up. If your health is already in a weakened state or you are in a state of adrenal fatigue, negativity can REALLY bring you down.
Your goals, attitude, fear of failure or success and the community you choose to keep all influence your mindset. Ultimately it requires YOU intentionally choosing how you are going to react to each situation. Choosing joy in each situation and choosing to find the silver lining, no matter how bad things may seem at the time, is a choice only YOU can make.
I have the words “choose joy” tattooed on my wrist for a reason—to remind myself that when life seems to be crumbling and there seems to be no good way out, it is up to me to choose joy, to keep persevering, to stay positive despite everything in my body telling me the opposite.
It takes intention to stay positive, and trust me it is NOT always easy, but with time and purposeful dedication, each time you are faced with a choice, it becomes that much easier to choose the road of positivity and grace.
Just Eat Fresh Foods
I am often overwhelmed with the dogma, the restriction, the negativity associated with food and nutrition. How do we really know what to eat and what not to eat and more importantly how do we allow something like pursuing a healthy way of life not consume our every action?
Searching for healthy can quickly become a negative if we allow it. But in eating real food, the way God designed the food, and the foods that nourish our cells and bodies, there is freedom.
Now, each person is unique and finding what works for you, your underlying health issues and your lifestyle is the best form of nutrition. But there are a few basic principles that are in fact true!
Eating real, fresh, whole foods is the one principle that never wavers. If you recognize the ingredients—think butter should just be cream and salt or eggs should just be, well eggs—then you are going to be eating healthy foods. Think about it, we are obsessed with reading nutrition labels and ingredients, but the world’s healthiest foods do not come with labels—sweet potatoes, beef, cream, spinach, almonds are all just their own ingredients.
That is what I mean by real, fresh, whole foods—foods as they are properly found in nature, without additives, sugars, toxins or pumped with hormones. Cows are designed to eat grass, so grass-fed beef should be “normal” (sadly it isn’t, but grass-fed beef would be a fresh, whole food).
Look for foods that will only last a few days or even a week. Eat foods without packaging or labels. Eat foods in their original form and you will be on the road to health!
Purposefully Slow Down
Slowing down isn’t about going on vacation or sleeping in on the weekends, it is about allowing rest and grace, not hustle, to permeate every aspect of your life. It is about making rest apart of your everyday practice, not just something you do in yoga class on Saturday mornings.
It is about intentionally choosing how you spend your time, what lights you up and carefully curating your top priorities.
You see, our adrenal glands control our stress response, but this issue is we have constant stressors and stimulation today. Even just being on your phone can sometimes be perceived by the body as a stress. We need to give our bodies room to breathe, to tap into our inner creativity, to detox naturally and to rest.
Just like your iPhone will eventually run out of battery, your body will eventually say enough and collapse unless you plug it into the charger daily. How can you purposefully plan your day and priorities to allow for times of rest?
Trust me, I believe in the hustle and believe in working hard and chasing our dreams, but we can’t do all that unless our bodies are fully functioning. Sometimes that means choosing rest over hustle.
5 Minute Safe, Non-Toxic Minimalistic Makeup Routine for the Better Beauty BabeEliminate Toxins Where You Can
Sadly, we live in a toxic world, which is the good and bad result of this modern era. We can’t freakout and go hid on the top of a mountain, but we can choose to eliminate toxins where we can. Choosing glass storage containers over plastics, safe laundry soap, deodorant and makeup will make a profound difference in our daily functioning.
Why? Because toxins interrupt our endocrine, neurological, reproductive and immune systems all of which are very important to every day functioning. These toxins can wreck havoc on our bodies, stimulating allergies, learning disabilities, thyroid dysfunction, PMS symptoms and adrenal fatigue.
What may seem like a simple step in choosing organic sheets, all natural deodorant, or heavy metal free lip stick, matters to you but also to your future!
