What You Need to Know About Living A Holistic Lifestyle: Part 2
Living a holistic lifestyle is about making daily choices that focus on the mind and body. Last week I gave you three ways to live a holistic lifestyle including: eating clean, increasing your movement, and recycling energy.
Today I am back to give you even more advice for embracing a holistic lifestyle; keep reading for details.
3 Ways to Live a Holistic Lifestyle
1. Grow
One way to embrace a holistic lifestyle is to constantly grow and learn; you’re already getting started by reading this post! By continuing to learn and grow, you are expanding your mind and taking the time to focus on yourself. This is vital to keep life interesting and avoid complacency. If you’re not sure how to keep growing and learning, here are a few activities to consider:
Work on Puzzles
Read Books
Learn a New Language
Take a Class on an Interesting Subject
For many of us, starting and sticking with a new program or hobby can be challenging. Here are three ways you can keep yourself accountable as you embark on new learning adventures:
Write Your Plans Down
If you made a goal to work out more, or learn a new language or instrument, is it still floating around your brain? Studies have shown that writing down a goal or plan can significantly improve the odds of success. It’s important to be specific, reasonable and front of mind; take a look at your plan to remind you of your objectives throughout the year. While you may not be fluent in French in three months, you can make a goal to learn a certain number of words or how to conjugate verbs within that timespan.
Make it a Part of Your Schedule
Another way to make sure you stick to your goals is to make them a part of your regular daily routine. Set time aside to read that book you’ve always wanted to finish or to tackle that new puzzle. One tip is to treat the time you want to set aside for your learning time as an appointment; once it’s in your calendar, follow through and do it!
Keep Learning
No matter how much time you have to dedicate to learning or trying something new, it’s important to always keep working on it. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t get to whatever your goal is every day or even every week; just keep going back to it when you can.
2. Stop Rushing
Are you a busy bee? While there isn’t anything wrong a full life, taking on more than you can handle can lead to an unhealthy amount of stress. I previously wrote about stress and the negative impact it has on your health; here are a few reminders of how it can hurt your mind and body from Health:
Insomnia
Do you think a restless night’s sleep is normal? Stress can cause hyperarousal, a biological state in which people just don't feel tired. While major stressful events can cause insomnia that passes once the stress is over, long-term exposure to chronic stress can also disrupt sleep and contribute to sleep disorders.
Headaches
"Fight or flight" chemicals like adrenaline (epinephrine) and cortisol can cause vascular changes that leave you with a tension headache or migraine, either during the stress or in the "let-down" period afterwards.
Memory
Too much of the stress hormone cortisol can interfere with the brain's ability to form new memories. With acute stress, the hormone also interferes with neurotransmitters, the chemicals that brain cells use to communicate with each other. That can make it hard to think straight or retrieve memories.
You can read more about the impact of stress here.
In order to stress less, it’s important to learn how to stop rushing. Here are a few great tips to stop always being in a hurry from Reader’s Digest:
Don’t Worry About Being Late When You’re Not Yet
Are you someone who stresses about being late and what will happen if you are? As psychologist Jennifer Guttman states, "People use so much mindshare getting anxious about the possibility of being late before they're even late," she says. "Focus that energy instead on making sure you are completely prepared for when you arrive." This might be one of those times when ‘better late than never’ holds true.
Remind Yourself to Slow Down
If you feel yourself becoming overwhelmed, take a minute to calm yourself down and focus. It’s better to take the time to get something done right with your full focus, then to try work on a little bit of everything all at once and end up with incomplete tasks.
Prioritize
Like I mentioned before, writing down goals and tasks is important to completing tasks and staying organized. Create a schedule that maps out your day and week with appointments and tasks that need to be done, noting which items are higher priorities than others. Then, instead of something creeping up on you and adding stress on your day, you can be prepared and ready for what you need to do.
3. Love
Many of us experience love through our family, friends, pets and even at work. But do you experience self-love? Loving yourself is important because it allows you to take care of yourself and to take care of others. Follow these tips to help you practice self-love and live your best life.
Take Care of Yourself
Taking care of yourself can cover everything from eating right (which I discussed in part 1 of this series) and exercising to getting enough sleep. Don’t let yourself get run down by commitments or life; take time for you.
Experience Emotions
Do you ever ignore your feelings? Living a holistic lifestyle is about experiencing and addressing everything going on inside your mind and body. Pay attention to what happens after you let yourself embrace the emotions; you may find you don’t have lingering feelings later on.
Forgive Yourself
It may seem impossible to forgive yourself if you’ve made a mistake, sometimes no matter how small. As Psychology Today notes, “You have to accept your humanness (the fact that you are not perfect), before you can truly love yourself.” Practice being less hard on yourself when you make a mistake.
Set Boundaries
This may be hard for some people, but it is okay to say no to people and events sometimes. If you stretch yourself too thin (think about being rushed and stress) you can become overwhelmed by your situation. If adding on one more task or social event seem like they’re going to put you over the edge, simply pass on what you can. You can even try to reschedule if possible so you’re able to participate, but at a time that is better for you.
Along with self-love, it is important to work on building successful relationships with the people around you. Here are a few tips from Fast Company to help you strengthen and build life-long relationships with the ones you care about.
Become a Strong Listener
It is often said that listening is more important than talking, and I couldn’t agree more. People want to spend time with someone who listens to them. Remember to actually hear what they are saying instead of planning on what you are going to say next.
Ask Questions
Questions are a great way to engage and connect with someone. Whether you are getting to know someone new or are talking to a family member, show interest in their life and day by being inquisitive.
Pay Attention
When you’re talking to someone, pay attention to their body language. This will help clue you in if something else is going on in their life, even if they’re not verbally expressing it. Paying close attention to them will lead to a stronger relationship.
Remember Important Things
One simple way to show someone that you care is to remember facts about them. When is their birthday? What’s their favorite drink order? Remembering these things will come in handy down the road as you try to show them you care.
When someone is talking about people important to them, try to remember what you can. As Fast Company notes, “We don’t have to remember everything about them, just focus on their names and one important piece of information.”
Manage Emotions
Everyone is allowed to have a bad day, but it’s important we don’t take it out on the ones we care about. Try to manage your emotions the best you can as to not put stress on others.
Be Open
Instead of sharing everything about yourself to someone new, Fast Company recommends sharing slowly and building trust. “To build strong relationships we need to be able to pace ourselves and share when it’s appropriate and at a level that is consistent with the depth of the relationship.” There’s nothing wrong with taking your time to peel back the onion layers of your life.
Be Supportive
I completely agree with Fast Company when they say, “People who build great relationships feel good about who they are and always look for the positive in their world. They genuinely want the best for others and want to see them succeed.” We only hurt ourselves when we tear others down; share love and success with others.
Live A Holistic Life
Living a holistic lifestyle is more than just eating whole foods and exercising, it is about growing, slowing down and loving yourself and others. How do you live a holistic lifestyle? I look forward to hearing what you do to live a well-rounded life!
About Green Lake Natural Health:
Green Lake Natural Health provides natural healing services and medicinal herb counseling to patients. The mission of Green Lake Natural Health is to provide customized care to patients to effectively treat their health concerns in a natural manner that restores harmony and healing in the body. Services include, but are not limited to, acupuncture, massage, medicinal herb counseling to treat conditions such as anxiety, insomnia, chronic pain and more.
