Tag: wellness

Finding Good Habits

Christina BruniLeave a comment

I’m pulled in a magnetic way to buy special edition magazines. To read to get information that can help me have a better life.

The latest issue was the Real Simple Finding Good Habits: Simple Keys to Feeling Happier, Healthier, and More Fulfilled. I quote from the guide to encourage followers to buy and read it.

Though I haven’t read every article yet one stands out about The Power of Habits. In the feature it describes making your bed in the morning as a “keystone habit.”

In fact if this can be believed:

“Bed making is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being, and stronger money management skills.”

Do millionaires make their beds every morning then? Could this be a hidden secret to wealth-building?

In Small Changes Big Results:

Adding a tiny micro-habit to our daily routines can give us joy. Rather than take a once-a-year Cozumel vacation to an azure beach (that we might not afford to pay off) happiness can be had for a song every day of the year for free or low-cost.

One study reported in the article that adding a food ritual can help us. It’s why wine drinkers who swirl their glass before drinking are apparently more satisfied.

Making it convenient to perform a habit is the key. Fill a 23-ounce aluminum water bottle before going to bed. Keep it on your night table. Voila–it’s easy to start the day with imbibing what I’ve called The Drink of Life.

One last key factor in this second article is to Rework your vocabulary. Quoting Seattle-based life coach Patricia Love: Repeating the phrase “I choose” or “I get to” “helps shift us into a happier state.”

Reworking our vocabulary this way can get us to see a healthy habit as a positive choice we’re making not a burden. This is why I believe too that not using the vocabulary of “I have to” is the key factor in transforming how we view what we need to do.

Framing what we need to do as something we want to do is the difference.

In the end changing our perception from negative to positive is what it’s all about. Those rituals we engage in might just keep us happier, healthier, and more fulfilled.

One habit I have is using a different ceramic mug each season to drink water from at the dining table with meals. I choose a mug whose color complements the table decor. This subtle change keeps me motivated to drink the water with every meal.

I’ll end here with this:

Like with anything I’ve recommended you could be fearful of doing something that appears to be strange or out of the ordinary. It can be unsettling for some of us to think that others will think we’re not normal. The question is: Why should we care about people who don’t care about us?

Our health and wellbeing count more than others’ opinion of how we choose to live and what we choose to do. If they’re really interested in being healthy, when they see how effective we are they’ll want to copy us!

Choosing Sanity Over Vanity

Christina BruniLeave a comment

In here I’ll detail in this post further thoughts on a sane approach to consuming food and drink. Choosing sanity over vanity is what matters. Instead of caring how we look to others it’s healthier to think about whether we can live with ourselves at the end of the day.

It was the singer P!nk in a magazine interview easily a decade ago who told the reporter that if you feel bad about what you’re eating then you’re swallowing guilt.

Indulging in food or drink that we label a “good” or “bad” item has the tendency to make us think that we’re good or bad people for eating or drinking it.

Let’s face things so often what we choose to do is because we care how we appear to others. Taking the pressure off happens when we decide that the only person we need to impress or to have approve of us is ourselves.

My days of eating bags of chips are over. I stopped doing this for me.

What I’m saying and I’ve said this repeatedly before in one of the other blogs too is that whittling yourself down to skin and bones to attract others is what’s not ideal.

Are we really counting calories for our health? Are we choosing and using what to eat because the food improves our mood or does it just conform to what we think is healthy?

There’s a ton of products that the editors of the Nutrition Action newsletter expose as not really health-boosting.

Far better to indulge in a real food treat like a pastry every so often. Not bolt for a drink that’s supposed to give us energy or nutrients.

My goal is to share stories and teach others to be well as I’ve written before. Wellness is not the absence of illness. It’s not unachievable to be well when you expand the limits to the definition of wellness.

The online dictionary defines wellness as: the quality or state of being in good health especially as an actively sought goal. Within the limits we have with our bodies and minds we can strive to be in good health.

This starts when you and I ask ourselves: “What does good health look like for me? How can I get there? What do I need to do to sustain this lifestyle?”

Having the radical grace to be flexible and adaptable and open to change when this routine no longer fits our life. Just going easier on ourselves when we slip up or fall down here and there. Understanding that most setbacks are only temporary. Picking ourselves up and recommitting to the path we chose.

In the coming blog entry I’m going to talk in more detail about the ethic of going in a steady rhythm.