January 3, 2018

Getting healthy and staying that way can seem like a big challenge. And with all the confusing health information floating around out there, it can be hard to know where to start.

Watch Part 2 Now!

Or, read more below…

If your health is on track, this five-part series on kickstarting your wellness journey probably isn’t for you.

Instead, this series is designed for people who want to get healthy… but just can’t seem to gain any traction. Sometimes getting started is the hardest part. So, the goal here is to give you something small and easy to do each day that, if you stick with it, will make a big impact on your long-term health.

The series is divided up into the five fundamental cornerstones of a healthy lifestyle. In order, we’ll go through each part and give you some tools that address each of the elements: “Frame the Day,” “Speed Up,” “Slow Down,” “Connect,” and “Fuel Up.”

Think of it like this: You already have the first few scraps of newspaper in the fireplace. This series is the match. Start small, concentrate on one thing at a time for just a few minutes each day, and sooner than you think you’ll be on your way to great health!

So, let’s begin at the beginning.

THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BED

Have you ever gotten out of bed in the morning, and nothing goes right from the very beginning? You’re out of coffee. The water heater kicked the bucket overnight, and you’re forced to take a freezing shower. You’re running late for work and can’t seem to find your keys anywhere.

It’s easy in those circumstances to just throw up your hands and wish you could crawl back into bed and start the whole day over again. Because the rest of the day already feels ruined.

Well, in the same way that the day can feel ruined from the start, it can also work in the opposite direction. You can set yourself up for success each day by starting out by spending just a few minutes framing the day ahead of you.

It’s like choosing to get up on the right set of the bed every day.

The key is to have a plan and spend an intentional few minutes getting your mind in the right place. Here are four simple tools that do just that. Choose one and do it every day this week for five minutes.

We start our wellness journey with the mind because everything else flows from that. If you aren’t approaching your journey with the right mindset, it doesn’t matter what you do after that.

Without the right frame, the picture isn’t going to turn out well.

Your health begins in your head.

1. Choose to Be Happy

Let’s say you get into a fender bender. Two choices arise. You can get angry, frustrated, and start a scene. Or, you can take a deep breath, take a moment, and decide that you’re thankful no one was hurt. It’s your choice.

In the same way, happiness is a choice. It seems overly simplistic, but the research is clear… you can choose to be happy. Or you can choose to be a grump. Spending just five minutes each morning thinking through your day and deciding, right then and there, that it’s going to be a good day… that’s a recipe for getting things off to a good start.

Think about it this way…

Whenever something arises during the day, shift your focus from thinking that you HAVE to do it, and instead frame it as something you GET to do.

Because life is a privilege. You only get one go at it. So, you might as well make the most of it. You don’t HAVE to live. Instead, it’s something you GET to do.

2. Gratitude Journal

I’m a big fan of the gratitude journal. It’s amazingly useful for getting your mind in the right place. You can read more about it here, but here’s the gist.
Grab a notebook and pen. Put them next to your bed.

Before you get out of bed in the morning, write down three things you are grateful for. You don’t have to go nuts here. Just three things. They don’t even have to be big things. Because, after a few days, you’ll probably have gone through all the obvious ones. Family, shelter, food, your hamster. By day four or five you’re going to have to think about your life in a little more depth. Rainbows. Baby ducks. Escalators.

The magic of this technique is that it forces your mind to be on the lookout for things you’re grateful for as you go about your day. And you’ll do it without even thinking about it. Your brain is going to be primed to find silver linings all around you… even when the storms set in.

The other great thing about the gratitude journal is that it quickly becomes a habit. Do it for a week or two, every day, and before you know it you’ll just do it without even thinking about it.

3. Inspirational Reading

If you’re not into the first two techniques on this list, no problem. Instead, just do five minutes of inspirational reading each morning. Choose something positive, something light. Choose something you’ll be able to stick with. If you’re religious, then choose a devotional of some kind. If you like motivational quotations, there are a ton of sites on the web dedicated to just that sort of thing.

The key is to do it for a few minutes each day until it becomes a habit… until you can physically feel its absence if you skip a day of doing it.

4. Treat Yourself to a Healthy Breakfast

Nothing builds momentum like a healthy breakfast. It’s not just literal fuel. A healthy first meal also gets you going in the right direction.

Not sure what to make? Check out these breakfast recipes from our recipe library on our site.

• The Everything Smoothie
• Yummy Breakfast Scramble
• Sweet Potato Hash
• The Ultimate Breakfast

So, no matter which of these four you choose to do, take five minutes out of your day and do one (or more!)

The key is to get your mind right at the beginning of the day. Because without that positive framing, you won’t have anything on which to build your other tiny habits of health. With the right frame of mind, though, you’re primed for taking that next small step in your health journey.

Because that’s how health happens: Baby step after baby step after baby step. Nothing happens overnight. But when you stick with it, when you do it every day until it becomes something you JUST DO, that’s when real transformation happens.

That’s when health and wholeness combine. That’s when the happiness you’ve been practicing invades every part of you—and starts to spread to all the other people around you!

Want more great information about the foundations of a healthy life? Download our new eBook The 7 Habits of Highly healthful People for FREE right now, right HERE!

Listen to Part 1 here:

The post Health KickStart Series #1: Frame the Day appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

June 11, 2016

In a previous post, I talked about how important it is for your health, no matter what state your well-being is in these days, to start from the ground up. 

What I mean by that is health and wellness begins when we direct our bodily energy down through our feet and into the earth.

So, here are the top 10 techniques for doing that. In my experience, these have been effective for a lot of people. They’re also very practical, very easy, and don’t take up a ton of space in your day.

When you’re feeling scattered, out of sorts, or just blah, pick one or more from this list and try it out!

1. Breathe deeply using your body for breath rather than your facial muscles (this is difficult at first which is why Sit Stand Stroll is so critical). With every breath, imagine that each worry or anxiety dissolving into the air around you.
2. Eat or drink something healthy. Concentrate on the sensation. Is it hot or cold? Sweet or bitter? What’s the texture like?
3. Sit and just be in the moment. Keep your eyes closed and just feel what your body is doing.
4. Do some simple yoga positions.
5. Imagine yourself in a safe, comfortable place, and concentrate on the details around you.
6. Take a piece of paper. Write down ten things you are thankful for.
7. Read the first paragraph of a book out loud to yourself. Concentrate on your own voice. Feel the sensations in creates in your body as it travels up through you and out into the world around you.
8. Have lunch with a friend. Eliminate distractions. Concentrate on just being together.
9. Take a bath or shower and focus on the sensations of the water.
10. Pick up and hold something soft and comfortable. Focus on how it feels and how your body responds to it.

Have another idea? Let us know!

Want more great information about the foundations of a healthy life? Download the first installment of our NEW 7-part eBook series The 7 Habits of Highly Healthful People for FREE right now, right HERE!

The post Top 10 Grounding Techniques appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

June 3, 2016

Cultivating awareness is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. Just like knowledge is power, knowing yourself—what motivates you, what stresses you out, what makes you afraid, what truly makes you happy—is the first step in the journey to living your best life possible.

So, great! But… how do you do that?

Here are four simple steps to getting to know yourself—and being conscious of what is actually going on inside the complex animal that you are!

Develop a Meditation/Mindfulness Practice

We live in a world full of distractions. From the internet, your smart phone, the tv blaring in the background… the volume knob on you daily life is set to eleven by default.

That’s why it is important to learn how to sit in silence and focus inward.

It sounds like a big job, but with a little practice, you’ll see the benefits in no time.

How to do it:

Find a quiet spot. Wear some comfortable clothes. Sit and close your eyes. Breathe deeply.

Now, sit with your thoughts. Observe them. Put space between them. Understand what they are, where they are going, and focus on recognizing that your thoughts are moving you to different places.

The more you practice this, the better you’ll get at it. You’ll begin to understand how your brain—and your thoughts— affect your body—and vice versa.

Journaling

Humans are really good at making things up. Our brains fill in a lot of gaps that our memory leaves out. Which means, it’s hard to get an accurate view of what your actual habits are if you don’t write them down as they’re happening.

That’s why journaling is so important. It gives you a very accurate view of what your “normal” behaviors are.

This can take a number of forms. Food journaling is a great way to keep track of what you’re putting into your body. If you want to be healthy, it’s easy to forget that you binge-ate a box of Twinkies at 2 AM last night. In fact, your brain wants you to forget about it because otherwise you’ll feel guilty about it. It’s a cognitive dissonance issue.

So, keeping a food journal gives you both an accurate view of what you’re actually eating, and also holds you accountable to your own health, since whatever you eat you have to write down.

Exercise Journaling works in a similar way.

You can also just write down your thoughts. Knowing—and seeing—what you are thinking is a great way to get a gauge on who and where you are personally. Knowing your thoughts raises your consciousness, your awareness, and will positively impact your health.

How to do it:

Turn off your phone. Get a pad of paper or a blank journal. Schedule out a time each day to just sit for five minutes and write. Figure out a time where you know there will be no distractions. Make it as easy as possible for yourself to succeed. And don’t stress out about what you’re writing. Just get it down within the set timeframe and then move on with your day. You can look back later—hours, days, even weeks— and see what you’ve written. You’ll be surprised at how valuable this exercise is in raising your awareness.

Breathing

You can go approximately one whole month without food before you die. You can survive for three whole days without water.

Without oxygen, however, you won’t last six minutes.

That’s how important air is.

So it makes sense that learning how to breathe correctly would be vitally important to both your health and your awareness.

Believe it or not, but you’re probably not breathing correctly. Most people breath with their faces, which results in a very shallow breath. Good breathing happens from the ground up.

How to do it:

Sit or stand with good posture, keeping your back straight and your feet flat against the floor. Exhale down into the floor, concentrating on fully emptying your lungs. When you take your next breath, push your feet into the floor as you inhale. Squeeze all the way up through your body, imagining that the breath is filling you completely. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Goal Setting

Health doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It also doesn’t happen just by yourself. You need community, because community breeds accountability.

Goal setting is important for a few reasons. You’ll never get to where you want to be if you don’t know where that place is. Goal setting is also good because in the process of setting those goals, you’re also strategizing about how to get there.

How to do it:

Say your goals out loud. Write them down. Let others know what your goals are and ask them to hold you accountable to reaching them. Just getting a little air under your words makes a big difference. Set both short term and long term goals, and put realistic milestones between them. Make your goals attainable and measurable.

And then work each day to meet them!

I hope this post about how to cultivate awareness has opened your eyes a little to how important it is to understand what is going on inside of you. Meditation and yoga have been around for thousands of years for a reason. There’s something integral to who we are and how our bodies function that relates directly to our thoughts. Getting into the habit of tracking with what’s going on inside of yourself is key to living the life that you’ve always dreamed of.

The post 4 Simple Steps to Cultivate Awareness appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.