9 Wellness Tips to Kickstart your Healthy Year
Youthful Living with Dr Arien
A truly integrated, holistic (mind, body, emotions, soul) wellness lifestyle starts with a mindset, a conscious choice you make every day, sometimes from minute to minute. It’s the unwavering commitment to the pursuit of personal, communal and planetary wellbeing.
A healthy, wellness focused journey starts with knowing your health risks, with a basic annual screening, including the InBody body composition assessment, to identify existing health risks, or through Genetic Screening, to identify a predisposition for future health risks.
Lifting your head out of the sand by simply assessing your health status, is an ideal way to understand your health risks, not to scare you, but to make you aware of them and then allowing us to help you manage and assess the risks with the support of natural, holistic remedies, plant medicine and appropriate relaxation and stress management training.
The health coaching process will help you manage the risks and then we encourage a follow up to show improvement within 3-6 months. If you got side-tracked over the high days and holidays, get back into, or start, our Weight Control Clinic Program a.s.a.p. to lose the fat weight fast, before it becomes a fixture.
A few of my favourite tried and tested tips to get you started
- Start the day right: breathe deeply, plan carefully, stretch fully! Be grateful for the good in your life, for being alive.
- Maintain fuel levels for sustained energy: eat plenty of fruit, vegetables, salads, nuts and seeds, fish, legumes and low GI carbs. Use plant oils (cold pressed, extra virgin olive, grapeseed, coconut, flaxseed oils).
- Visit the watering hole regularly: drink fresh, clean water (1 glass of water for every 10kg body weight: 70kg = 7 glasses) and herbal teas.
- Ensure optimal system support: take a daily dose of the 3 basic food supplements or nutriceuticals (food as medicine) – 1) a comprehensive, high quality antioxidant combination; 2) calcium and magnesium always together, in the correct ratio and amino acid chelated, with vitamin C, D, minerals boron, potassium for optimal absorption; 3) and an omega 3 fish oil top up.
- Use plant medicine circumspectly and safely, to treat symptoms of dis-ease. There is a plant for every problem! Consult a knowledgeable health practitioner if you’re unsure about what to use. However, there are so many safe herbs to use as plant medicine, to be found in your own garden – e.g. lavender, rose, rosemary, basil.
- Your body loves to move: try fun activities – yoga, swimming, Tai ‘chi, kick boxing, dancing, walking
- Spend time outdoors: connecting with and opening up to nature is good for our health and happiness.
- Breathe deeply: to slow down your brain waves to alpha state and open up the right brain for relaxed, creative thinking.
- Sleep well, rest completely: 7-8 hours of sound sleep in darkness, allows your body to recover, defrag and rejuvenate
Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast, you also miss the sense of yourself, where you’re going and why.
A selection of superfoods to choose from every day
- Berries – high in antioxidants
- Bananas – to optimise serotonin (feel good neurotransmitter) production. A banana before bedtime also helps for snoring!
- Nuts, seeds – packed with nutrition
- Green stuff to pack a punch: wheatgrass, spinach leaves, sprouts
- Raw honey – make sure it’s raw with no irradiation!
- Cinnamon, ginger, turmeric – take a pinch of each (or 2ml fresh) in hot water, with raw honey to taste. Drink frequently to alleviate acute and chronic inflammation, e.g. sore, stiff joints and muscles, arthritis, colds, flu, fever, sinusitis
- Pulses/legumes
- Garlic
- Mushrooms – Shi’itaki, portobellini, oyster
- Bee pollen
- Aloe ferox/vera
- Seaweed (nori)
- Raw cacao – beans, nibs, powder, butter
Berry blaze superfood smoothie
Ingredients (4 servings): 500ml full cream milk or plain yoghurt; 2 large handfuls of berries; 1 large banana (optional); 1 wedge fresh Aloe ferox or Aloe vera (optional); 1 T raw honey; 1 handful of nuts: almonds, pecan; 1 Vanilla pod; 2.5ml ground cinnamon (optional).
Directions: Put all ingredients in a blender and whisk away.
This is great for a quick energising breakfast, or any time during the day.
Daily relaxation practise
- Sit quietly in a chair, feet on the floor, arms and hands relaxed
- Tense the muscles in your feet. Then relax them. Do the same with your lower legs, upper legs, buttocks, tummy, chest, hands, neck, head & face
- Take your attention to your breathing. Make it deep and slow. Count to 4 or 5 as you breathe in, while pushing out your tummy. Hold your breath for 2 to 3 counts. Then sigh your breath out while you count for 5 to 7, pulling those tummy muscles towards your spine. Carry on doing this for 7-10 breaths
- If your mind becomes filled with thoughts, simply let them flow by like clouds in the sky, keep on bringing your attention back to your breathing
- After 2 to 10 minutes, become aware of your body, slowly open your eyes and carry on with your day as usual, feeling calmer, more relaxed. Try to do this in the morning & evening, and whenever you feel upset, tired or stressed
