Wellness is booming and the endless options for wellness promoting products prove it. It can be overwhelming to constantly hear ‘do this’, ‘try that’, ‘it’s simple’, or ‘you’re doing it wrong’. The wellness industry has infinite options, but that leads to a lot of confusion and uncertainty about what sort of actions we need to be taking to create more balance and wellbeing for ourselves. The thing about well-being is that it’s just about the basics. If there is one thing that I recommend for you to be doing to promote more wellbeing in your life, it’s to go back to the basics.
It really is just about eating your greens, taking a walk, quieting your mind, and living your life as peacefully as you can. All the options that we have access to are just the cherry on top. They could sometimes be helpful and give us an extra boost, or enhance support, but usually, you can just stick to the what’s simple and it’ll be enough.
These are the five things that you need to be doing for your wellbeing: practice intuitive movement, eat the rainbow, take your CBD, practice peace, and prioritize your sleep. The wonderful part about these different points for wellbeing is that they can be easily implemented and modified to your liking without taking a huge amount of effort on your part.
Practice Intuitive Movement
While exercise is extremely beneficial for our bodies and mental health, it can seem daunting for most and many avoid it because it’s not enjoyable. That is why I recommend practicing intuitive movement. One of the hardest parts about starting to exercise is the whole idea of having to exercise in the first place because once you get to the gym or a fitness class, you’ll get through it and might realize that it wasn’t so bad after all.
Intuitive movement versus a regular fitness routine is very different because it prioritizes you over the exercise. Fitness gets a bad reputation because many trainers and influencers perpetuate the idea that if you don’t burn 500-1000 calories, it doesn’t count. There’s a belief that you must over exhaust yourself to make it worthy, but that’s what should change.
Let’s deconstruct ‘practicing intuitive movement’. Prioritize practice versus perfection. So many times, we delve into a fitness routine without setting healthy and realistic expectations of how it can fit seamlessly into our lives. Exercise takes patience, tenacity, and practice. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Removing the pressure of hitting the gym 4 times a week but practicing movement as much as you can is a much more effective way of making a lasting change.
Intuition is everything when it comes to moving your body. You’ll hear people tell you to go even when you desperately do not want to and that is why we associate some negativity with exercise. Use your intuition to help guide your exercise routine. It doesn’t always have to be the same routine and when you allow yourself to curate movement in a way that’s enjoyable for you and your body, you’ll notice you enjoy it a lot more. One day, a 30-minute walk will suffice, and other days a full weights routine might suit you better.
I use the word movement because it is something that is inherently in our nature. We always move and our bodies are built to move. It’s a less intimidating word than ‘work-out’, or ‘exercise’. Movement can be chasing your kids around the house to get them ready for bed. It can be standing for an hour to do all the dishes and clean the kitchen. Movement is walking our dogs and dancing in the shower. Let’s go back to the basics and walk. Walk and enjoy the views, the smells, the thoughts, and the way that gentle movement fuels us instead of depleting us. Exercise doesn’t have to be difficult, and it doesn’t have to be over-the-top.
Eat the Rainbow
How many times have you gone on a diet only for it to slowly dissipate and you go back to your usual ways? This happens because we make plans for ourselves that are unsustainable and counterintuitive. We think that taking out certain food groups or ingredients will be the key to our digestive success, but is it really? When we approach nutrition from an open-minded stance of ‘adding in’ rather than ‘taking out’, we leave so much more room for trial and error, and in the end, create more sustainability.
Eating the rainbow is key for our wellbeing. Eating different colored foods creates biodiversity for our gut which in turn affects so many different bodily mechanisms. Rainbow colored foods tend to be rich in fiber which has been linked to lowering risk of cancers, heart disease, and other debilitating diseases and conditions. Overall, eating the rainbow helps us feel so much better.
Like exercise, changing our diet can seem daunting, but the key to approaching nutrition is to think about all the ways you can add healthy ingredients instead of removing many of the foods you enjoy. At the end of the day, cutting something out cold turkey is not going to be sustainable. If we don’t honor some of our cravings, we can experience anxiety and at the end of it all, we will end up giving in and do more damage than good.
Let’s say one of your favorite meals is pasta. Pasta is delicious, it has many different varieties, and textures, but it’s a very demonized food just for being a carbohydrate. How can we use the ‘add to it’ mentality for a pasta dish that we crave? It’s about balance and moderation. Instead of having pasta with a simple sauce that won’t be super nutrient dense, try adding a vegetable that you like such as broccoli, zucchini, carrots, or anything else. Add flavorful veggies that are naturally anti-viral like onions and garlic to add flavor and make the meal even more balanced. Add some healthy fats found in things like EVOO and healthy plant-based protein sources.
You can still enjoy the foods you love from time to time but make them more substantial and nutrient dense with rainbow ingredients. A rule of thumb I use for nutrition is to always have one of each macronutrient in every meal: fat, carbohydrate, protein, and nucleic acid (found in fruits and veggies which give us lots of fiber).
Take Your CBD
I guess you could include taking your CBD as part of eating the rainbow. CBD comes from hemp plants that are naturally abundant in cannabinoids that aid optimal function in our bodies’ endocannabinoid system (ECS). Just like we would practice intuitive movement to improve our heart and mental health, and we eat the rainbow to help give us energy and a healthy gut, we should also take our CBD to support our ECS since it’s in charge of so many bodily functions.
Not only is CBD naturally abundant in antioxidants, but it has also been shown to help with inflammation and pain related issues. Some studies indicate that it alters ECS function, and this is great for those of you that may have an endocannabinoid deficiency, or other issues with your ECS. Aside from offering a wide array of support on different mechanisms, it may also calm our nerves and decrease tension in our bodies to help us get more restful and deeper sleep.
Taking CBD is easy because it takes very little time to do and may be taken alongside other vitamins, or supplements. For easing dosing and something flavorless, try our CBD capsules that deliver the same benefits as our other CBD products, but without the earthy taste of CBD and the effort to dose it yourself. If you want something stronger and more fast acting, choose one of our many CBD oil tinctures. Since the oil is dropped under the tongue, it is absorbed into the bloodstream rapidly having a quicker effect on the body and mind than other types of products.
Since CBD is suggested to decrease inflammation, this helps promote more balance in our gut microbiomes which act as the second brain. There is direct communication between the brain and gut through the gut-brain axis. The gut affects the way our brains produce serotonin and other feel-good hormones that can affect anxiety and depression. CBD is honestly another simple way to add to your wellbeing.
Practice Peace
Stress is killer and it can negatively impact us in so many ways. Even if we were to partake in different activities that help promote wellbeing, high stress levels would cancel out all the benefits. The body does not work well under stress as it goes into fight or flight mode never letting us rest and digest to take it easy.
Being on high alert elevates cortisol levels which creates inflammation, puts us at risk for developing diseases, and doesn’t allow us to thrive. This is why it is crucial to take moments for ourselves. This could mean doing something as simple as sitting in the car an extra 5 minutes before going inside your home to take a few deep breaths and say one thing you’re grateful for.
Don’t perceive practicing peace as meditating every day and removing the ego. To practice peace is to be compassionate towards yourself and others, stay true to who you are, and look at all the things you have going for you in life. It’s about living with intention and understanding that there is a flow to life, and we thrive when we go with that flow instead of resisting what is not meant for us.
Catch yourself whenever you’re counting all the wrong ways things are going and paying attention to all that you don’t have. Stop yourself, breathe, and start spending your energy on the things you do have, and the people that you are connected to, and what you are abundant in versus what you lack.
Prioritize Your Sleep
Very similar to the point above relating to practicing peace, no matter you do, it’ll never be enough if you don’t sleep enough. If we keep putting our sleep schedules on the backburner and not prioritizing healthy sleep hygiene, we will never see differences in our wellbeing.
Make small changes to your sleep schedule and hygiene by reading instead of scrolling on your phone before bed, taking CBD instead of having a caffeinated drink too late in the day, or have a chat with your loved ones instead of watching TV. Even if you do decide to be on your phone and watch TV though, aim to go to sleep before 11PM.
The best thing we can do for our sleep is to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Our bodies love consistency, so if you don’t know where to start, start there.
The Big Picture
These 5 different components come together to help support our wellbeing in so many ways. They combine seamlessly to target different issues and it is a holistic approach to make sure we aren’t focusing too much on one thing and not on others. Always remember that practice is superior to perfection and start curating changes based off what works for you.