Living a wellness, holistic lifestyle is paying attention to all your healthy or not so healthy life decisions. A person who eats healthy, drinks enough water, and pays attention to all other aspects of health, but doesn’t exercise, is not living a wellness lifestyle.

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What is Wellness? “Wellness is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” – The World Health Organization. Wellness is about taking into account your physical, mental, emotional, environmental, relationships, and spiritual health. You have to pay attention to all aspects of your health to live a wellness lifestyle.

What is Holistic? Holistic means to look at the whole health of a person.

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Wellness Feels And IS HARD – We Are NOT Conditioned To Think About It

We are not taught enough about the importance of wellness. You can see that is true based on 2 out of 5 people not meeting federal physical activity guidelines, or that 1 out of 2 Americans don’t drink enough water, or the fact that the majority of us consume 3x the amount of sugar that is recommended.

It is not at all EASY! I wouldn’t say it is easy by any means because as I have mentioned in my Flaws in Healthcare blogs, we are conditioned as children to not think preventatively when it comes to our health. There are exceptions, we are conditioned as kids to brush our teeth as a preventative measure to avoid oral problems later – I would say because there is money in that. But, for example, we were not conditioned as kids to drink a certain amount of water each day. I would say that is maybe as important as brushing your teeth everyday.

Prolonged or repeated bouts of dehydration can cause urinary tract infections, kidney stones and even kidney failure (Mayo Clinic, 2021). Complications due to dehydration can include kidney damage, heart problems, fainting, trouble seeing, falling due to loss of balance and even seizures (Levy, 2021). Or it could just mean not having as much energy as we should.

Our Healthcare is Reactive not Proactive

We often wait until we are in a ton of pain to seek treatment, and we are usually subscribed pills to fix it. Quite often there is no consideration for the health decisions that may have led to that pain or illness. Our healthcare system is reactive not proactive. That is one of the reasons many are fearful with regards to alternative treatments. There is also a lack of knowledge around them, as discussed in my flaws in healthcare section. However, they are usually safer than medications.

Can You Imagine Growing up with a Wellness State of Mind?

Can you imagine how our health would be if we had a class every year from kindergarten until were seniors in high school that taught us how to handle stress, eat more whole foods, how to exercise enough, drink enough water, and build positive relationships? Or just our doctors told us these things. I’m guessing we wouldn’t have anywhere close to the number of people who have a chronic health conditions today! We would also probably get along better with others.

When we are mentally and physically healthy, we feel better about ourselves and then tend to care more about others and the world. Living a holistic lifestyle can make a huge difference!

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Benefits of a Holistic Lifestyle

We NEED Wellness to Help Prevent Chronic Health Conditions

The thing is, you can be doing just about everything right with your health, but if you are doing horrible at one thing you could end up with a chronic health problems. I mean there is still no guarantee, but lifestyle choices play a huge role in our health because they can determine what genes turn on and off (This is the concept of Epigenetics – it is super cool).

Let’s say that one thing you are doing wrong is you have horrible posture and you have been ignoring your back pain for a long time. Prolonged nerve irritation, which occurs when back pain is left untreated for too long, can lead to permanent disabilities (Curavi, 2020). Yikes! Now I just used that as an example because things like too much sugar can contribute to numerous health conditions: Alzheimer’s, autoimmune disease, cancer, diabetes, and the list goes on…

We need enough sleep, water, exercise, supplementation for nutritional deficiencies, healthy relationships, a healthy spine, nature, a healthy diet (which I mention in my clean eating blogs), stress management, good mental health (which I will be writing about in the near future), less toxins (will be writing on soon), good oral health, skin health, and even spiritual health. Just making this list of wellness things I realize I have so much more to share.

There are a lot of things to consider

That is why I cover these things from a general perspective in my blog on how everyone can work toward them. The advice I give applies to just about anyone and is based on not just my research (you can read research anywhere), but my experience struggling with all of these things and getting pretty good at them. I mean I still struggle because it is impossible to live a perfect, holistic lifestyle. But my goal is for you to be just as good, if not better.

Wellness Hasn’t Been Easy for Me – Which is Why I Have A LOT to Share

My advice on how to drink enough water is based on years of struggling to drink enough and finally finding a method that works well. Hate exercise? I know I used to feel that way. Addicted to sugar and in love with eating? Yeah I’m with you. I’ve been there. Been in back pain for years but not sure if you trust chiropractic or if there are other solutions? Yeah I’ve been there.

I sucked at being healthy for quite a long time. And the advice I give in my blogs isn’t just random research or based on a small struggle I’ve had. It’s years worth of information I’ve gathered from reading thousands of articles, learning from natural heath practitioners, and making health changes over many years with a ton of different health struggles. Sometimes health experts give advice on one or a few topics, and then they are ignoring sleep, healthy eating, drinking enough water, or other health aspects. I definitely understand the concept of a holistic lifestyle and make a point to not ignore any aspect of my health! 

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Here are 10 of the Most Important Holistic Health Habits

1. Clean Eating

Your diet plays a huge role in your health. What you eat can literally make or break your health. Your body is made up of cells and those are for the most part made up of what you fuel your body with or the junk you eat. Today, we don’t get enough nutrients from our food, and most people eat too much processed food and sugar vs whole food and organic food.

I’m not going to go into too much detail on this, as I have a whole section of my blog devoted to clean eating, so check that out!

THIS IS A SUMMARY OF 10 BLOGS I WROTE ON LIVING A WELLNESS, HOLISTIC LIFESTYLE

2. Water

As I mentioned previously, I struggled to drink enough water for years. When I was in my teens and thirsty water wasn’t the first thing I went to. I would often choose juice, soda, or gatorade over water. Even as an adult I didn’t enjoy drinking as much water as I was supposed to. It felt like I had to choke it down.

Over time I realized how much better my body feels when I drink enough water. Now, it has become more of an automatic thing. I pretty much always leave the house with a bottle of water, and usually have water next to me. I read one place that you should be drinking a sip of water every 15 minutes. Now I don’t do that, I just prefer to take big gulps of water when I do drink it. But, drinking enough is the most important thing. Around 60-75% of the human body is water.

I think one of the biggest things people are confused about with drinking enough water is to drink water when you start to feel dehydrated, which is inaccurate. If you can tell that you are dehydrated than you have already reached the point where your body is becoming weak. If your pee color is already a dark yellow you are past the point.

You are not supposed to wait until you are thirsty to drink water. If you are drinking enough water you should never reach a point of a dry mouth, thirst for water, and dehydration. Not to say this is doable all the time because I fail at it, my husband fails at it, life gets in the way. But, it shouldn’t happen all the time.

Clean Drinking Water Matters

It is not just important to drink any water, we need clean drinking water! How clean your water is will ultimately depend on where you live, but tap water can contain all sorts of bad contaminants in it including lead from pipes, fluoride (linked to brain development issues), heavy metals, pharmaceutical drugs, waste from treatment plants and chlorine. Find out how to ensure you have clean drinking water, my tips for drinking enough water, why what you drink out of matters, and how to determine how much to drink a day in my blog.

How to Increase Water Intake & Choosing Clean Drinking Water

3. Sleep

The CDC states that 30% of people don’t get enough sleep. I think we all kind of know the importance of sleep, but maybe discount the importance of sleep schedules. Did you know that there is a specific time frame where your body gets the most benefits physically, mentally, and emotionally? “The 90-minute phase before midnight is one of the most powerful phases of sleep, because it’s the period where the body is replenished,” Dr Ramlakhan says (Davis, 2020). Going to bed at 3am even if you get your 8 hours of sleep in, will never give you all the benefits of going to bed around 10pm or 11pm. No matter how much you train your body to get used to it, you still won’t get the proper deep sleep you need.

Do you know whether or not you are getting enough REM and deep sleep? I have included signs to watch out for, health consequences of not getting proper sleep, and how much sleep is needed for adults and kids in my blog on sleep. You can also read all about napping, and whether it is beneficial or not.

Sleep Stages, Schedules, Naps, and More. 

Ideas to Improve Sleep

For those who do struggle to sleep, there are a ton of things that can help! This is a really cool blog that isn’t like anyone else’s. If you struggle with sleep, I have given you a basic checklist of things to pay attention to in order to figure out why you struggle to sleep. Categories for the checklist include: your comfort at night, before bedtime activities, stress, and health issues. Once you determine if one of those things is what you struggle with you can view my sleep fixes and remedies for that category. If I haven’t covered your problem, I mention toward the bottom of the blog types of professionals that can help.

How to Sleep Better & What to do When You Can’t Sleep

4. Supplements

TWO IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT SUPPLEMENTS!

First off, roughly 92% of people are deficient in a vitamin or mineral. There are 13 essential vitamins and 16 minerals our bodies need. Our foods are not giving us all the nutrients we need. I talk about some of the most common vitamin deficiencies in my blog on supplements. It is hard to say what supplements we all necessarily need, but there are certain supplements that most health professionals seem to agree on.

Second, there is this misguided view that we can buy supplements from anywhere and they will work the same no matter what brand we buy. Actually, no. Not all supplements are created equal. It matters where you buy them from, what brand you buy, and what ingredients they contain. There are NO strict regulations on supplements. FDA is not authorized to review dietary supplement products for safety and effectiveness before they are marketed (FDA, 2017). Find out why you need to look for whole food vitamins vs synthetic, how to find a good brand, and why you should never buy your supplements from grocery stores and big box stores.

Everything You Need to Know About Supplements

5. Nature

Nature helps with our health beyond what we consciously realize! I always feel nature deprived in the Winter. I seem to be one of those people who just needs nature to feel emotionally and mentally balanced. And it makes even more sense to me now after writing this blog on nature. (Sometimes I get massive benefits from my blogs because I research little things I know about, but dive deeper into understanding them.)

Nature provides this feeling like there is something larger than us. It can help us to reflect on our lives and look at what is important. It can have mental, physical, and spiritual benefits. Just 20 to 30 minutes of nature time can lead to reduced cortisol levels.

Time in nature can lower blood pressure, regulate your heart rate, reduce tension, boost the immune system, and actually help you get better sleep. More than two-thirds of people will head to a nature setting when they feel stressed. Nature has not only been shown to help reduce psychological stress, but also improve mood levels, increase energy, create more meaning for people, and improve self-esteem. Many people are less depressed or anxious after spending time in nature.

Lastly, what is really fascinating with our need for nature is the concept of grounding. It is believed that our health is affected when we don’t connect with the earth due to the overly positive electrical charges running through the body. By grounding we balance the negative and positive charges in our body. Find out how grounding works, how you benefit from nature, and how to get the most benefits out of nature in my blog:

Nature Heals the Soul, Calms the Mind & Restores the Body

6. Exercise

Making Exercise Fun

Exercise should be FUN for the most part. It was once a chore for me, and now I can’t get enough of it. I love being active! I love being in nature. So I enjoy hiking, swimming, biking, frisbee golf, kayaking, and snow shoeing. Check out my awesome tips on how to find exercises that you enjoy and ways to make exercise more natural for you. I also go over how much exercise is necessary, and the benefits we don’t typically consider. Oh and the problems with sitting too long!

Strength Training

I’m still working on how strength training can be fun. I mean I feel great about it afterward, but I don’t necessarily enjoy it. So if you enjoy it – I would love to hear why.

The importance of strength training really doesn’t get enough attention! For one, we are all supposed to be working on our strength, not just men to get those bulky muscles. Us women don’t need to get bulky muscles, but we do need to have a healthy muscle-to-fat ratio.

Also, strength training helps prevent future illnesses, helps with pain management, boosts your metabolism, improves your strength (obviously), helps with flexibility, balance, posture, improves stamina, sleep, strengthens the heart, slows aging, improves mood, increases bone density, and can improve performance of everyday activities.

There is definitely a difference between being strong and being bulky. There are many ways to strengthen your muscles which I briefly go over in this blog.

How Exercise Can Be Natural & Fun.

Cardio & The Benefits of HIIT

I wrote a special blog on HIIT as a form of cardio. I’m far from an expert on it and did more research than I enjoy, but that’s because I really struggled with cardio exercise until I discovered HIIT. HIIT can be an easier way to do cardio. When researchers talk about HIIT, they’re referring to workouts that alternate hard-charging intervals, during which a person’s heart rate reaches at least 80 percent of its maximum capacity usually for one to five minutes, with periods of rest or less intense exercise (Belluz, 2019).

HIIT training has been shown to deliver the same or even more benefits than other cardio exercises in less time. Routines that are nearly 20 minutes of HIIT haven been shown to burn around the same amount of calories as exercise with a continuous pace lasting 50 minutes according to multiple research studies. Find out how to do HIIT in my blog and more on the benefits, plus the importance of cardio.

Cardio vs HIIT – Find out the Benefits of Both!

7. Mental Health – Stress

There is more to mental health than managing stress, so I will talk more about mental health in future blogs. But, stress is one of the most important concepts when it comes to mental health. In my blog on stress I share my own concept of 3 stages of stress. I believe there is 3 stages of stress that a person can manage.

The first one is managing that first moment you feel stress coming on and taking actions to stop it from taking over. The second is managing stress after it has taken over, this is just short-term stress. Then, the last stage is managing chronic, ongoing, long-term stress. We all will deal with chronic stress at some point in our lives, so it is super important to know how to manage it. Chronic stress is the hardest to manage of the three, but also the most important.

I provide some awesome tips on how to stop stress along with noticing it is taking over, how to relieve stress with your own stress toolbox (I provide ideas for your toolbox), and ideas on what to do when you have reached chronic stress.

Managing 3 Stages of Stress

8. Relationships

You can’t live a wellness lifestyle when you surround yourself with the wrong people, when you have unhealthy relationships. People can honestly be more destructive to your health than just about anything else out there! The people we surround ourselves with can influence how we see ourselves, impact how positive or negative we are, how much we care about our health, and can help us achieve our dreams or stand in the way of them. It isn’t right to just cut out any family or friends who are in a negative place (unless they are toxic), but to surround yourself with at least some positive people too.

We all need to have relationships with healthy boundaries. There is a lot to be said with regards to boundaries, but I just focused on a few concepts of what it means to have boundaries. I also provide an overview of what is defined as a toxic relationship, what to do about it, what it means to forgive, and how toxic relationships can lead to health issues. Again there is a lot more information out there with regards to toxic relationships, but this is a pretty good overview.

How Relationships Influence Our Health (in multiple ways) & Our Success.

9. Spine Health

I definitely think this is something we take for granted, and dismiss the importance of. In the blog, I talk a lot about my story of struggling with back pain, neck pain, and how chiropractic not only made a difference for me, but how I prevented arthritis, potential future hip problems and more. But chiropractic is not the only thing that has helped me to have a healthier spine, I share other things that have helped too.

I talk a lot about general spine health based on my knowledge from over 4 years doing marketing for a chiropractor. If you work in an office, make sure you have a high quality, ergonomic chair, which is one of the things I cover in this blog. Also, you need to have your computers/monitors at the correct height.

Find out what it means to have good posture, health risks due to bad posture, and the benefits of using a chiropractor, physical therapist, or osteopath. Plus, view all my spine health tips.

How an Unhealthy Spine Can Cause Numerous Problems

10. Avoiding Toxins

This is such a huge problem that many are unfamiliar with so it will be getting its own section. It shouldn’t just be glossed over.

Spiritual Health
I do think spiritual health is super important too, but I haven’t been feeling the urge yet to write a blog on spiritual health. It will be a topic in the future though.

I Hope You Are Adopting a Wellness, Holistic Lifestyle!

I take great pride in my continuous efforts to live a wellness, holistic lifestyle. My hope is that you feel good about your efforts, as well. Just look at what you struggle with the most, and start there, or pick little things you need to be doing but are not. Be proud of the changes you make in your life and feel good about them. Every step toward living a wellness, holistic lifestyle is important. 

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View All Wellness Lifestyle Blog Posts:

How an Unhealthy Spine Can Cause Numerous Problems

How Relationships Influence Our Health (in multiple ways) & Our Success

Managing 3 Stages of Stress (Conscious, Hidden Stress & Preventing It)

Cardio vs HIIT – Find out the Benefits of Both!

How Exercise Can Be Natural & Fun

Nature Heals the Soul, Calms the Mind & Restores the Body

Everything You Need to Know About Supplements

How to Sleep Better & What to do When You Can’t Sleep

Importance of Each Sleep Stage, Sleep Schedules & More

How to Increase Water Intake & Choosing Clean Drinking Water

Key to Wellness: Listening to Your Mind, Body, Spirit/Soul

Addicted to Your Phone? Ideas for Spending Less Time on Your Phone

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Resources:

Mayo Clinic Staff. MAYO CLINIC/Dehydration. (2021, October 14). Retrieved from: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dehydration/symptoms-causes/syc-20354086

Curavi/6 Consequences of Untreated Back Pain. (2020, May 3). Retrieved from: https://www.curavi.com/blogs/all/6-consequences-of-untreated-back-pain

FDA/What You Need to Know about Dietary Supplements. Retrieved from: https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/what-you-need-know-about-dietary-supplements

Belluz, Julia. (2019, Dec 26). Vox/How to get the most out of your exercise time, according to science. Retrieved from: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/1/10/18148463/high-intensity-interval-training-hiit-orangetheory

Davis, Jessica. (2020, May 11). BAZAAR/Why sleeping before midnight is so important.
Retrieved from: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/beauty/mind-body/a32430882/sleeping-before-midnightimportant/

Levy, Jillian. (2021, April 24). Dr. Axe/5 Natural Treatments for Dehydration Symptoms. Retrieved from: https://draxe.com/health/dehydration-symptoms/