The Four Pillars of Your Health
What is Health?
Is health just the absence of illness and disease?
I believe true health is more than that. I think it’s made up of many areas that combine together to make a bigger picture than any one of these areas does alone.
That might sound confusing, but I promise you it’s not. Once you understand a few basic principles, and how to implement them, I think optimum health is something we can all achieve.
Today I want to talk about what I consider to be the four most important aspects of health and how you can easily promote more wellness in your life.
#1 Daily Movement
We evolved to move.
It’s only recently that our lifestyles have become increasingly sedentary, with many of us spending vast amounts of time sitting, whether that be in an office, car or at home on the sofa.
It’s no wonder back pain has become so common. All that sitting compresses the intervertebral discs that cushion the bones in your spine, this can cause muscular imbalances along the postural chain.
Over time this leads to muscular tension, back pain, and decreased flexibility of the spine, causing it to age prematurely.
Don’t think that that lack of exercise will only affect your physical health either. In this 2018 study, scientists found leg exercise to be a critical component to brain and nervous system health.
In fact, regular physical activity has some amazing benefits to your nervous system in general. Aerobic exercises, such as jogging, swimming, cycling and rowing have shown to be particularly beneficial for brain health.
Here are just some of the many benefits you can get from just 30 minutes of physical activities a day:
2. Improved brain structures that allow for improved memory
3. Higher retention of cognitive abilities in old age
4. Improved academic performance in academic students
5. A natural way to fight depression
This small list of benefits can have a huge impact on your quality of life, and all you have to do to get them is simply move more.
It doesn’t matter who you are, what your fitness level is or what your goals are, we can all incorporate more daily movement in our lives. What this movement looks like will be different for everybody, but a good place to start is to just get outside for a daily walk.
Walking is low impact, safe, easily accessible and is perfect if you are just starting to introduce more movement into your daily routine.
Once you have built up a base level of mobility, you could then move onto more advanced forms of movement such as weightlifting, jogging, swimming, or playing sports. The choice is yours, so get out there and experiment to find a way of moving that makes you and your body happy!
#2 Nutrition
You’ve heard the expression, “You are what you eat.”
It might be overused, but there is a reason this expression has been around for nearly 200 years!
What we eat influences so many aspects of mental and physical health, yet instead of eating for nutrition, so many people choose to eat what is quick, easy, and readily available.
This usually means fast foods, ready meals, junk snacks and most other food products that have come from a factory.
I do have a certain degree of sympathy. Life is hectic and it may appear that we don’t always have the time to make healthy meals, but this is more to do with mindset than anything else.
It doesn’t take long to prepare some simple fresh ingredients to make a healthy a nutritious meal. It takes even less time when you consider you can make larger portions to freeze for later in the week.
Nutrition can seem complicated at first glance. There are countless diets available to follow, and it can be difficult knowing which to follow, but there actually isn’t any “one diet to rule them all”.
My advice is to stick to natural healthy, whole foods, and don’t be afraid to experiment! Healthy doesn’t mean boring, so find foods that you enjoy eating and make mealtimes fun.
#3 Sleep And Rest
Coming in at number 3 we have sleep, which I feel is an extremely underrated aspect of health. It’s when we rest and recover, both mentally and physically, and without enough of it, our health can deteriorate rapidly.
Most people need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep a night. Any less than this on a regular basis and you may start experiencing side effects such as:
· Extreme fatigue
· Difficulty concentrating and poor memory
· Poor decision making and reduced cognitive ability
· General aches and pains
· An impaired immune system
· A decreased ability to deal with physical and mental stress
The best way to get a good night’s sleep is to maintain good sleep hygiene by having an established bedtime routine.
Here are some tips that are worth sticking to if you want better sleep:
1. Make the last hour before you go to bed screen-free time. The blue light emitted from screens can interfere with the release of chemicals in your brain that prepares you for sleep.
2. Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even at the weekends. This will keep your body in a natural rhythm and you’ll find drifting off and waking up easier.
3. Keep your room slightly cooler (around 18℃) and make it as dark as possible.
4. Try to keep any distractions to a minimum. That means no sleeping with the TV on! Some people find it helpful to listen to white noise such as rain, air conditioning or a whirring fan as it can help mask any other noises that might be around.
#4 Managing Thoughts
Last but certainly not least, I want to express how impactful the quality of your thoughts are on your health and wellbeing.
Contrary to popular belief, your thoughts do not control you! Once you learn that it is in fact you who is in control you gain a huge amount of freedom, but it can take some practice.
It helps to start off by just observing your thoughts thought the day.
· Are they positive or negative?
· Are they helping or hindering?
· Are they kind or unkind?
Meditation is a great tool to help you manage your thoughts and if you haven’t tried it then it’s something I highly recommend.
It can help you observe your thoughts from a new perspective, almost as if they are clouds passing above you. Watch them pass by without judgment, and as you progress, you’ll notice fewer and fewer pass by.
Another great technique for managing your thoughts is to grab a pen and paper and write them down! Often thoughts will just rattle around in our heads over and over, but journaling can be a way of getting the thoughts out of our head onto the paper. Try journaling in the morning as a kind of “brain dump” where you write down your thoughts and feelings about the upcoming day and see how much better you feel.
A Holistic Approach
Our health can be affected by so much, from our internal environment, such as the topics we have discussed above, from our external environment and the people we surround ourselves with to the types of media we consume.
These 4 pillars are a great place to start if you want to become healthier, fitter and generally feel better every day.
You don’t have to be perfect. Start off small, don’t try to change too much at once and try to get a little bit better each day!