Focus on the fundamentals of life for a simple, healthy life

Get the basics right, working with your body not against it and see how your life improves

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As ‘animals’ our basics are:

• Nutrition
• Hydration
• Motion
• Restoration

As humans with our thinking and emotional brains, some of the following basics are also key to a healthy life:

• Relaxation
• Motivation
• Connection
• Medication

Consider these.

Nutrition

• Eat your drinks and drink your food, Gandhi.
• Eat a simple, clean diet, free of sugar and processed foods that is easy to digest and avoids overtaxing and toxifying your body.
• Make your food your medicine.
• Notice, do you eat to nourish and nurture your body and mind, or use food to numb out, stuff down feelings you fear to feel or distract yourself from.

Hydration

• Drink more water! Filtered where possible.
• For every cup of tea, coffee, drink a glass of water to counter the diuretic effect of caffeine.
• Avoid overhydration; no need to spend half your life on the loo and overtaxing your kidneys!

Motion

• Move your body, preferably in ways that make you feel good.
• No time for exercise? Can you create opportunities for movement? Crank up your favourite music and turn all the household chores into a work out - tidying your home, hoovering, cleaning windows, cooking for starters.

Relaxation

• Make this intentional, enjoyable, purposeful.
• Know the difference between proper embodied relaxation and zoning out.
• Notice the difference between getting into a flow state and numbing out.
• Learn how toxic stress is on the body, and whilst we can’t avoid stress altogether, chronic stress can be a silent, slow killer and needs to be countered with periods of rest, relaxation, proper down time.
• Stress inflames the body and takes its toll in every which way - mentally, physically, emotionally, energetically, spiritually.

Restoration

• Introduce daily restorative practices and cultivate a good sleep regime.
• Sleep is critical for rest, repair and recovery.
• Stress impedes sleep. If we are still full - with a mind that cannot shut down due to cortisol, with a body ramped up with stress chemical so it is tired but wired, with emotions that are heightened due to the state of the body and mind plus all our coping mechanisms such as denial, distraction, discounting, disconnection...so we then might stuff down all this chaos with food, drink, electronics… - how can we expect to sleep well?

Motivation

• Do what moves you, inspires you and brings you joy in every area of your life.
• Choose to live with intention and on purpose.
• Choose a conscious life.

Connection

• Meaningful connection is vital, enriching and fundamental to our overall wellbeing, though not at the cost of putting ourselves last on the list.
• Do you connect to your self first and foremost to show up most authentically and to foster your true identity.
• Where might you forfeit your true self in order to fit in and put others before your own unique needs and true nature.

Medication

• Notice if, how and when you self medicate - with food, alcohol, drugs, mindless doom scrolling, and other forms of escapism.
• What and whom are your avoiding, escaping from.
• How much you feel the need to numb out and why.
• Are you fully present with yourself always?
• When do you abandon your body and yourself and for what reasons?
• Do you flog the proverbial dead horse (yourself) and so have to go the full opposite and escape from your life of internal overwhelm, pressure and stress.
• Consider "medicating" yourself naturally - through all the above, so that you don’t need chemical medications and have to then deal with their side effects and potential addictive hooks.

Not only does stress age the body (allostatic load where our internal organs and systems wear out and age faster than our actual age); it creates health issues and disease. Traumatised, abused children acquire life threatening disease and can die younger due to stress and trauma (The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, Felitti, Anda et al (May 1998).

Consider this – stress may well be ‘out there’, though stress largely can be self induced and perpetuated. Whilst many factors lie beyond our control, we get to control what occurs within.

Make your life a virtuous circle, a dance, get in sync with and get to know your unique self so that you may flow through your one precious life.

Consider choosing wisely; getting the basics right through daily conscious choices and habits can go a long way to finding that often nebulous precious peace of mind through integrity of mind, body and spirit.