Mind: The key to good health all begins in the mind
Our society is suffering the affects of stress more than any other time in history.
A certain level of stress is good for us. When we have a small amount of stress infrequently, the body responds with greater strength, fitness and clarity of mind. This can help you deal with the stressful situation and respond appropriately. For example, a Mother whose child was trapped under a concrete slab during tornados was able to move the slab to free her child, but later it took 3 men to move the same slab.
Unfortunately most of us suffer from stress most of our waking hours and our bodies can never recover from this so our health starts to severely suffer causing us many aches and pains and more serious problems.
We are all too busy and have far too many competing pressures in our lives.
We rush around from the moment we get up to the moment we go to sleep, and we wonder why we lie awake replaying the day and figuring out what we need to do tomorrow!
We need to slow down our bodies and our minds to truly rid ourselves of stress.
8 Ways to stop Stress and improve your outlook on life
Respond to stress: Recognise when you are getting stressed.
Notice what physical signs you have of stress (increased heart rate, getting hot) and tell yourself that you are getting stressed.
Try to calm down by slowing your breathing down, counting to 10, or walking away from the situation.
Practice regular relaxation. You need to have some time during your day when you stop moving and working.
The best time to relax is before bed. Read a book for 30 minutes before you go to sleep, something unrelated to your work that won’t get your mind thinking too much.
I do 10 minutes of my yoga DVD to relax which works amazingly well.
Get spiritual. Spend some time working out what you beliefs are and ask yourself some big questions, what do you believe happens after you die, why are we here, what is your purpose in life, is there anything outside of this world?
Even if you don’t believe in God, embrace a spiritual practice or meditation of some kind.
This will make you put your day in perspective. If you believe in a better life after death then it helps you to put more trivial stress in perspective.
I’m not saying that you should think ‘well I’m going to die and go to heaven anyway so what’s the point of doing x, y and z’ rather that ‘One day I won’t even remember my boss snapping at me today, so why should I let it affect my health and bring me down today’.
Don’t blow things out of proportion. If you’ve had a bad day, tell yourself that it’s just this one day. You can wake up the next day and have a brilliant day.
I find it hard to remember my faith and remember that God is still there amongst all the business.
That’s another good reason to get outside every day. As soon as you see nature, grass and trees, you realise not everything in this world is man made and we are not in control of everything, and that God is still there waiting patiently for us to stop just for one second and really think.
Get Spiritual, ask big questions and take yourself away from it all. Give yourself time to think to avoid stress. This Zambezi sunset cruise was magical.
Don’t try to do too much. You can’t be everything to everybody.
If you work full time all week and have a family you literally don’t have much time left after you’ve done your basic chores.
Recognise your limitations. Don’t say yes to things that will only stress you out.
If you don’t have time to reply to your personal emails or keep up with friends on facebook then that’s just the way it is.
Decide what’s important in your life and use the little amount of time you have left doing that.
A great book I read is called Making Room For Life by Randy Frazee, which really helps you to assess your relationships and focus on the people you really care about.
Assess your standard of living. Are you working too hard at a job you hate? Do you and your partner work full time so you can afford your mortgage and 2 cars? Would it take the strain off if one of you worked part time and you downsized?
Sometimes you’ve got to have a rethink and decide if it’s really worth it.
Send yourself some positive messages: Feeling down or pessimistic? Do you wake up every morning with the weight of the world on your shoulders? Do you tell yourself you’ll never achieve your dreams so there’s no point in trying?
I love the quote from Napoleon Hill ‘Whatever the Mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve’. So basically we make our own luck.
Even if you really struggle to believe good things about yourself and your life, write down who you want to be and what you want to achieve and say it out loud every morning and evening. You will feel silly but it actually works.
Your words become part of your thoughts and these will affect how you act and what you achieve in your life.
Connect. Have people in your life that you care about and who care about you.
If it’s not your family, find some good friends or connect online with someone.
It’s better to have a few very close family members or friends in our lives than hundreds of acquaintances.
Work out who makes you feel good about yourself and spend more time with them.
If you are having relationship troubles, remember this one important less from Gandhi ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’.
I promise you if you improve how you act towards someone you are having problems with, they will also reassess how they act towards you.
Implement all 5 steps to health in this series. When you are healthier in other areas of your life, it’s impossible to feel so stressed.
If you’re still struggling with stress and you have no time to think about how to reduce it. Try these Holy Basil supplements. They worked amazingly well for my stress.
So we’ve come to the end of our series The Secret To Dramatically Improved Health In Just 20 Minutes A Day. Try and improve one aspect of your health every few weeks and monitor how much better you are feeling. So to recap:
- Eat more fruit and veg and limit processed foods. I will guarantee you more energy, better sleep, more of a desire to exercise and get fresh air and a massive reduction in your stress levels. Go and grab some fruit right now.
- Go to sleep at 10pm tonight and notice a dramatic improvement in your state of mind tomorrow. You will be less hungry, make healthier food choices, have more energy and feel more alive than you ever will be staying up later.
- Go for a 20 minute walk today. Just get up right now and go! Tonight you will sleep better, have created natural endorphins which really lift your mood, get fitter and stronger physically and mentally and you will burn more calories while you are resting.
- If you can’t get outside, do a quick workout inside with the window open and sleep with the window open. Either way get moving and get some fresh air.
- Relax before bed, read something. Remind yourself of the bigger picture, how short life is and ask yourself big questions. Take yourself away from your stress. Decide what’s really important in your life. Tell yourself (out loud) every day that you will achieve your goals and be the person you want to be. Treat people how you want to be treated and spend time with uplifting people.
Great health in just 20 minutes a day?
And if you’re really pushed for time, how about trying to power pack all this into 20 minutes?
5 steps to amazing health: Don’t sweat the small things, get out there, notice the big things and really live. (These cute small animals are called Dassies but they are actually a descendant of a very big animal – the Elephant!)
Go for a 20 minute walk. While you are walking drink a green smoothie or a green thickie which can include up to 15 servings of fruit and vegetables.
This will give you a massive energy boost for the day.
During your walk, connect with nature, notice how beautiful the greenery is or the little animals or birds are and how free they are.
Think about your life and what you want to achieve, tell yourself positive thoughts, imagine getting to bed early and sleeping very well.
Or walk with someone you love and discuss meaningful things with them and what you can both do to achieve your goals.
There you go, 20 minutes to amazing health achievable for us all.
This isn’t ground breaking stuff but living life to the full isn’t complicated.
We have just replaced the healthy practices of life with activities that stress us out and cause us to get ill.
I’m still working on improving my health but I’m always striving to be healthier. I’d love to hear about your health.
What changes have you have made lately to improve your health?
Have a healthy day
Talk soon,
Katherine Kyle
Katherine Kyle @ Green Thickies
Read Katherine's inspiring comeback story, From Fat and Fatigued To Lean and Loving Life In 4 Months.
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Hi, I'm Katherine. I lost 56 pounds and recovered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by replacing meals with Green Thickies - my original green smoothie concept.
Read my inspiring comeback story, 
Hi, I’m Katherine. I lost 56 pounds and recovered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by replacing meals with Green Thickies – my original smoothie concept.
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