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Every year, people make new resolutions to improve their health. These may include goals for weight loss and better fitness, but not so much for mind-body wellness. This New Year, the following tips to improve mind-body wellness may be worth considering.
What Is Mind-Body Wellness?
Mind-body wellness is the connection between mind, body, and spirit. Mind-body wellness epitomizes balance, and a healthy mind-body wellness routine can aid in healing physical and mental health concerns. Besides, life feels good and is better when there is balance in the body and mind. It’s easier to deal with problems, issues, and concerns when there’s a solid mind-body wellness foundation.
Importance of Self-Care in Body and Mind Wellness
Regarding body and mind wellness, self-care is of primary importance. Many of the strategies and tips rely on self-care for optimum progress. It’s good to have a step-by-step guide or list of tips to follow, but that requires personal effort to ensure that you prioritize taking care of yourself while adhering to the recommendations.
Tips on Body and Mind Wellness
Wellness tips can spring from suggestions for everyday living as well as news broadcasts, journal articles, and conversations with family, friends, coworkers, and others. Try these tips for wellness as a starting point.
1. Maintain a Healthy Diet
We often say that our body is a temple, so what we eat is essential to maintaining that temple. Why down junk food that’s high in calories and low in nutrients? Ditto consuming spicy and fried foods and those with too much fat and sugar. Besides feeling sluggish, dull, and unable to concentrate, overeating the wrong food worsens mental and physical health. Be mindful of eating, take time to eat slowly, enjoy each bite, and you’ll help mind your body wellness and improve immunity and overall well-being.
2. Activate a Daily Exercise Regimen
Why is daily exercise essential to a body and mind wellness strategy? It’s well-known that 30 minutes of exercise daily helps improve mental and physical health. Everything from breathing exercises to cardio workouts to yoga and walking in nature helps boost immunity, improve mood, and increase strength, flexibility, and balance. Join a group of like-minded individuals at the gym or with a Zoom class. Go solo if you like but make time each day for physical exercise.
3. Get Restful Sleep
Some people claim they can get by on 4-5 hours of sleep a night, but whom are they kidding? The human body cannot function properly, let alone in optimum health, on such meager sleep time. Most adults require 7-9 hours of restful sleep for a sound body and mind wellness. Keep the room dark, avoid electronic devices an hour before bedtime, think peaceful thoughts, and allow yourself to drift off to sleep. Restful sleep is one of the best things for mind and wellness.
4. Hydrate With Lots of Water
Think about the desert cactus and how it conserves water to thrive. Humans aren’t cacti, so it’s necessary to hydrate our bodies with lots of water. Everything in the human body requires water; the body is 98 percent water, while the brain is 70 percent water. Becoming dehydrated can lead to illness and degradation of the body and mind. Keep water handy and sip it often for an easy way to improve mind-body wellness.
5. Cultivate the Art of Meditation
If the thought of meditation conjures visions of mystics in a contorted pose on a hard floor, rest assured that meditation practice is much gentler and more accessible than that. Anyone can meditate, although being in a quiet place is more conducive to the healing benefits of the practice. If there’s one essential ingredient in meditation, it’s paying attention to breathing. Another is acknowledging intrusive thoughts and allowing them to pass. Meditation classes are available online and in-person, or find a meditation coach to help guide your meditation practice.
6. Steer Clear of Drugs
Alcohol and drugs are never the answer when facing stress, uncertainty, anxiety, depression, dealing with unexpected or bad news, or any of the myriad issues of everyday life. Drinking and drug use can quickly derail a solid body and mind wellness strategy, not to mention threaten sobriety. Don’t forget that prescription drug use can also lead to addiction, and the recreational use of cannabis can be problematic for some individuals. It’s better to utilize drug-free ways to alleviate mind and body pain, like meditation.
7. Maintain Relationships with Love
People lacking close relationships are prone to loneliness, stress, and unhappiness. Yes, initiating and maintaining friendships and loving relationships takes effort, but the mind and wellness benefits such contacts produce are extremely important. When it’s impossible to connect in person, contact friends and loved ones using a smartphone, email, social media, or a Zoom call. Loving relationships can help alleviate mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and temporary sadness.
8. Be Generous
Who doesn’t admire a generous person for all the good things that they do? A little generosity goes a long way when it comes to taking good self-care and helping improve body and mind wellness. What does that mean? Giving a gift to someone makes both parties feel better, yet research shows that the generous act benefits the giver more than the recipient. Spending time with others who need company or a compassionate ear is heartwarming and an act of spiritual generosity with handsome rewards.
9. Smile, Laugh, and Enjoy the Present
The health benefits of laughter and smiling are more than worth the small effort it takes to implement this healthy habit daily. For example, smiling produces endorphins, which help relax the body, lower the heart rate, boost mood, and contribute to overall wellbeing. Plus, it takes milliseconds to smile, so why not be grateful for all the good today and grace the world with that beautiful smile?
10. Set Aside Time for Fun
Since stress is a part of everyday life, anything that can help reduce this detrimental influence is key to body and mind wellness. Having fun may not always top today’s to-do list, but it should be part of a daily self-care routine. Activities that give you joy are simple and easy to implement, yet they are infinitely more rewarding than reaching for a drink or taking drugs to numb out. Setting aside time for fun helps balance every aspect of life, so be sure to factor in fun time today.
Other Mind and Wellness Consideration
When it comes to mind-body wellness, remember that making incremental progress is more accessible than trying to tackle too many goals at once. Keep focused on the positive daily steps that add to an overall improvement. While the overarching goal is maximizing body and mind wellness, fully embrace each appropriate strategy, tip, or technique, and give it complete attention. Measuring success is more effortless once some time has passed and there has been sufficient effort exerted to warrant results. Besides, learning to be patient and allowing time for beneficial results will reinforce self-confidence that this is the right path to follow.
How do you know when you have body and mind wellness? Think of this as an ongoing journey that rewards you with valuable benefits at each turn. Just keep going and enjoy the evolution.
Seek Help If Your Life Has Become Unmanageable
There’s never any shame in seeking help if things have gotten out of hand and life has become unmanageable. Contact a medical or mental health professional to get the care you need to find ways to work through this difficult time. Counseling may be appropriate, or it may be that having an impartial professional to talk matters through with will be all that’s necessary. The critical thing to remember is that body and mind wellness is a journey, and every day is a part of that journey.
Don’t know where to turn for help? At FHE Health, our counselors are always available to discuss how we may be able to help you find answers to your questions. Contact us anytime, night or day, 365 days a year, for confidential, professional assistance. Whether life is too stressful, there’s a problem with drinking or drug use, or someone you love requires counseling or rehab, we’re here to help.
