If there was only one piece of advice I could give related to your health and fitness, it would be, listen to your body. And I would add that prevention is better than cure and knowledge is power. Adding these simple but fundamental pillars into your life with regularity and consistency will move the needle to true health and fitness.
Just breathe
The connection between stress and breathing is becoming clearer. For most of us, shallow breathing into our chest has become the norm. For our health and mental wellbeing, we need to be breathing deep into our abdomen and a daily practice calms, soothes and energises the body.
Daily breathing ritual
- Rest your hands gently on your belly.
- Take 3 breathes in through the nose and breathe out hard through the mouth. Feel your belly rise as you breathe in and sink back in towards your spine as you breathe out hard, make a loud “haaaaaa” noise to get rid of any stale air.
- Then, breathe in through the nose for 5 counts and breathe out through the nose for 5 counts. Repeat as many times as you need and increase the time in and out as you relax. Allow your focus to move to your abdomen.
Sooth your gut
The gut is considered the second brain; it has its own nervous system and produces your mood hormone serotonin. Having good gut health is vital for both our physical and mental wellbeing. And when you are stressed, it greatly affects your digestive system.
There is no doubt the best and easiest way to achieve good gut health is through eating whole foods with as much variety as possible.
- Choose whole grains that are gluten-free such as millet, quinoa, brown rice, wild rice, steel-cut oats and buckwheat, and a wide variety of in-season vegetables.
- If you are noticing your gut is unhappy, introduce some fermented foods to boost your good bacteria found in your gut. Some good, fermented foods are kefir, tempeh, kombucha, miso, kimchi, and sauerkraut.
If you really cannot face eating vegetables, add some butter, olive oil or a sprinkle of feta cheese; it makes all the difference to the flavour.
If you are looking to lose weight, you will be on the right track by taking care of your gut first, as this allows you to absorb nutrients properly and significantly reduces food cravings and overeating.
Move it, move it
The biological point of moving is to build and condition the brain, therefore, exercise has a profound impact on our cognitive abilities and mental health. It is easy to forget that we are born movers for survival, which also leads to good health.
I only have time for a 12-minute workout, however, do not underestimate the power of its ability to significantly improve your health and fitness in weeks and give you a huge mental boost.
The 12 Minute Workout
- Work at high intensity, 8-9 out of 10 on intensity/ non-talking pace.
- 20 secs on at a fast pace/10 secs rest, repeat each exercise 6 times /9 otherwise known as a Tabata).
- Squats – Scale to seated to standing (sitting in a chair using legs only, come to standing).
- Push-ups – Scale to being on knees or hand release (allow your chest to rest on the floor, raise your hands off the floor and push back up into the push-up position).
- Step-ups – Using a chair, a bench or your stairs, step up and down as fast as you can, making sure you lock your leg out at the top to fully activate your glute muscles.
If you suffer from high levels of stress and often feel run down at the end of the day, it could mean that your adrenal glands are overworked in which case avoid the high-intensity workout and instead choose a more meditative movement session like a long walk outside in the fresh air or Qigong, both are vital for calming down an overworked nervous system.
Emotional first aid
Often, our overall vitality comes from our peace of mind. It is hard to think or worry your way out of a stressful situation; we can only change the energy, so the antidote is to physically move it out of the body.
~Business Game Changer Special Promotion~
If we learn to own our emotions and have a good awareness of them, we can master our health. Every thought has a biochemical reaction at a cellular level in our body, that means if our thoughts are constantly negative, we won’t be having a positive effect on our body and, conversely, the state of your body affects your mental wellbeing. This doesn’t mean we need to be bouncy and happy all the time, but it does mean we should work to feel in balance with our emotions and to express them without one of them taking over. A good aspiration to work towards is an even, quiet contentment.
So how do we shift the emotion out of our body?
- Become aware of the emotion, sit quietly and notice it, then allow it to be expressed in a controlled way without becoming overwhelmed, but some good shouting, screaming and crying can help!
- Breathe the emotion out through the mouth with a loud noise.
- Move it out by shaking your body vigorously, dancing, jumping, running, and jumping – you will be amazed at how cathartic it is.
- Get a good night’s sleep or take a 20-minute power nap in the day; both will settle your hormones and calm your body and mind.
- We are governed by our hormones and they change according to the light. Having inconsistent sleep will play havoc with your hormones and affect your overall mood and ability to process everything from the day. In the winter, it gets dark earlier and, therefore, we should sleep earlier and rise later. This decreases as we move into spring and summer where naturally we have more light and we need less sleep. We then begin to wind down again coming into Autumn.
By Georgie Britt, Performance Coach at hero
