Top 10 Healthy Living Essentials
Here’s a list of my top 10 overall tips for living a healthier and more balanced lifestyle. Some may sound obvious or be advice you’ve heard before, but these tips have made a huge impact on my life, so I thought I’d share!
Prioritize healthy sleep
Getting quality sleep is SO important to our overall health! We want to make sure to establish a nighttime routine that helps calm our nervous system and prepare our bodies for bed. My favorite ways to do this include stretching, meditating, reading, drinking tea or a warm drink, taking a warm shower, wearing comfy PJs, listening to soothing music, and dimming the lights. Another great way is to do nervous-system regulation techniques that can involve breathwork and gentle touch, you can look up more about this online to find one that works for you. Here’s a TikTok video I use sometimes. It’s important to avoid screens as much as possible in the hours before bed, but if you have to use screens at night it’s best to use blue-light-blocking glasses or turn the night shift on on your devices. (Personally, I keep my night shift on 24/7 to help with headaches!) It’s also important to have a consistent schedule with the time you wake up in the morning and go to bed at night to maintain a healthy circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythms are our natural 24-hour cycle of physical, mental, and behavioral changes. (I’ll do a full post on circadian rhythms soon, so look out for that!) Waking up close to sunrise and going to bed within the 3-3.5 hours after sunset can help with this. (I don’t wake up at sunrise, not yet anyway, but I try to wake up as early as possible.)
Eat lots of fruits, veggies, and whole foods
This one may seem obvious, and we all know we’re supposed to eat healthy, but I’d say the largest shift in my mental health, energy, and overall vitality came when I started eating primarily plant-based and focused on whole, natural foods. This means eating as many fruits, veggies, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, and things grown from the Earth as possible! My favorite way to get in my daily dose of fruits and veggies is through smoothies. Every morning I drink the “Glowing Green Smoothie” by Kimberly Snyder, and I swear I noticed a huge increase in my energy and saw a glow in my skin after a few days of drinking it! Of course, there are so many smoothie recipes out there, so find some that work for you to help you incorporate healthier foods into your life. Kimberly’s website has great recipe ideas that are primarily plant-based and super easy to make, I highly recommend the Feel Gratitude Sweet Potato Soup, Kale & Tomato Love Pasta, Sprouted Hummus Wraps, and the Garlic Tomato Basil Sweet Potato Noodles. Eating plant-focused boosts your health & vitality, connects you to the Earth, and helps you avoid the toxic chemicals in most of today’s grocery stores and fast food. Here in America, we don’t have proper regulations in place to keep these harmful ingredients out of what we’re buying and putting in our bodies, so it’s important to try and avoid the chips and the Chick-fil-A (trust me, I still miss it, but I feel SO much better!) as much as possible.
Get Outside
Again, we all know spending time outside getting fresh air and sunlight is good for us, but it seriously can make a HUGE impact! When I was struggling with depression, getting outside for an hour felt like an enormous task, but getting the sunlight on my skin and breathing in the fresh air almost always made me feel better. Getting sun gives you Vitamin D which is good for immunity and overall health, boosts mental health by stimulating the production of serotonin, improves sleep quality by regulating the body’s internal clock, lowers blood pressure, lowers stress levels and hormones, and overall connects you to nature and our beautiful planet. Getting fresh air can improve lung health, brain function, digestion, immunity, boost your mood, and reduce stress. Not only does getting outside have outstanding physical and mental health benefits, but it grounds you and centers you in a way nothing else can. By connecting with the Earth and simply being in nature you become more grounded, grateful, and alive. Some of my favorite ways to spend time outside include walking, sitting in the park/grass, and going to the beach. If you’re lucky enough to live near a natural water source such as the ocean or a lake, that can also help boost physical and mental health in a variety of ways. In general, it’s important to spend as much time outside as possible. Go for a quick 20-minute walk with no screens or distractions, simply feeling the sun on your skin, breathing in the fresh air, and observing your surroundings and see how much better you feel!
Create a morning routine
Establishing a healthy morning routine and committing to it has been another thing that has helped me immensely. Sticking to a good morning routine can improve mental health by providing a sense of structure, reducing anxiety and stress, boosting focus and productivity, improving mood, and overall setting a positive tone for the day by allowing you to intentionally focus on self-care. Creating a morning routine encourages healthy habits, fosters a sense of stability, increases energy, boosts immunity and health, and provides you with the space to make self-care a daily ritual. One of my favorite morning routine habits is drinking warm lemon water, which is great for hydration, immunity, digestion, detoxification, and metabolism. Some other things I do during my morning routine are journaling, stretching, meditating, practicing gratitude, making tea or a smoothie, doing positive affirmations, and avoiding going on devices for as long as possible after waking up.
Pay attention to your screen time
We all know that being on our phones, or laptops, or watching TV for too long is bad for us. But what does it physiologically do to our bodies and minds? Excessive screen time can negatively affect our brains by disrupting sleep patterns, reducing cognitive function, impairing attention span (if you’re reading all of this, great job), altering brain structure, and contributing to mental health issues like depression and anxiety. Have you ever wondered why after scrolling on Instagram or TikTok for an extended time you feel drained, lethargic, and just out of it? It’s because excessive screen time can lead to an increase in cortisol, the primary stress hormone in our bodies, activating our fight-or-flight response and waking up our nervous system. High levels of cortisol can lead to an increase in stress, weight gain, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, sleep issues, mood changes, and many other health issues. Screen time and scrolling give our brains dopamine, but over time the reward pathways in our brains get overused and “dried up”, becoming desensitized to pleasure. This means that we start to crave more and more stimulation and dopamine to experience smaller amounts of pleasure. This is harmful to our mental health, focus, motivation, and overall happiness. Spending too much time on devices can also increase isolation, allowing us to stay inside on our phones or watching TV rather than getting outside and spending time in nature or with friends and family.
This is another big change I attribute to my improved mental and physical health, simply getting off the couch, turning off the TV, or stopping scrolling TikTok and getting outside to spend time with loved ones. If you’re depressed or anxious, I’m telling you right now that laying in bed scrolling on TikTok for hours on end is the worst thing you can do for yourself! We don’t want to be ruled by our devices, think about if you get anxious without your phone or if you can’t go a day without Instagram. Try going without your phone for 5 minutes and see how you feel. Can you make it an hour? Baby steps are the only way to progress, so take it one day at a time. I know this seems obvious and we all know screen time is harmful but putting away your phone and getting outside even for 30 minutes is a huge gift to yourself.
This blog post is still under construction, check back later for more information:)
