Optimal Health and Wellness – The 3 Things You Must Balance

Optimal health and wellness look different for everyone. What might work for some, may not always work for others. Every “body” is different and everyone’s circumstances vary, but what holds true for everyone are these 3 basic pillars that are essential for experiencing your best health, both physically and emotionally. Those 3 pillars are diet/exercise, stress management, and sleep. Your lifestyle, along with your specific physiology, plays a significant role in your health and wellness. Which area or areas, are you lacking in? Let’s dive in and explore them more.

Diet

It’s no secret that good nutrition is at the foundation of good health. But sometimes we think we’re getting good nutrition, but we may actually be consuming foods and nutrients that might not be serving us well. What I am suggesting here is that sometimes we are taking in food that is using up nutrients in our body, instead of providing it.

For example, when we eat a diet high in processed foods and sugar, we are actually using up valuable nutrients, because our body works so hard to process that specific food. In other words, even the good nutrients that you may be ingesting, are being used up by other “food” that you are ingesting. I like to call these foods anti-nutrients. A diet high in these types of “anti-nutrient”  foods causes one to have subclinical deficiencies of important vitamins and minerals. This will have a long-term effect not only on your physical health but your mental health, as well.

Long-Term Effects

We also need to look at the long-term effects that some diets have on our body systems in general (starting in our digestive tract and then branching out to other systems). This might include foods that we might be sensitive to that are causing a constant inflammatory response in our bodies. It could also be diet foods and drinks that are plagued with chemicals that are doing more harm than good.

An example here is fat-free and sugar-free foods. These may be free of fat and sugar, but you’re swapping it out with harmful chemicals instead. Then there are highly processed foods, diets high in GMO foods, the use of highly refined oils, foods with high doses of pesticides, and diets high in refined sugars and white flour. These are all having an impact on your overall physical and emotional health! This is where learning to read labels comes in really handy. To learn more about label reading, check out my article here.

The bottom line for diet is to eat more whole foods that are as close to their natural form as possible, with a nice balance of protein, healthy fats, and fiber. You can learn more about how to start moving toward a whole foods diet here.  

Exercise

Ok, this may be a bad word for you, and if it is let’s just call it movement. We don’t have to have a militant workout every day to reap the rewards of exercise. Let’s just take a moment to review what those rewards are:

• Decreased cortisol level
• Blood sugar balance
• Increase endorphins and serotonin levels (the feel good hormones)
• Better sleep
• More energy
• Decreased risk of chronic illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, anxiety and depression, autoimmune diseases, cancer, and obesity.
• Hormone regulation
• Boost in metabolism
• Stronger immune system
• And more…..

Again, exercise doesn’t have to be extreme to reap some rewards. What is important, is that you choose movement that you find pleasurable. This will help you integrate it into your lifestyle and help you to keep doing it! We are likely not going to stick a habit when it’s not something we find some pleasure in doing.

As you can see from the list above, getting regular movement is such an important part of our health and mood. It helps balance our blood sugar and oxygenates our blood and brain. Both are essential for your overall health and wellness.

Stress

Let’s talk about stress. We all have it and it’s impossible to not have any at all. The question to really ask yourself is; How am I managing my stress? This is really where it starts to affect your physical and emotional health. To truly understand it, let’s just look at what happens in our bodies when we are under a stress response.

Our bodies are designed to react to stress in a fight, flight, or freeze response to danger. This served us well in times when humans needed to react to dangers such as running from a lion or other predators. The blood is rushed to areas such as the arms and legs so that you can get the heck out of dodge and seek safety. This shift in blood flow and the influx of cortisol on a chronic basis will start to show up with physical symptoms.

Cortisol

You may have heard cortisol referred to as the “stress hormone.” This is 100% true, but what we may not realize is that an overabundance of this hormone will cause all sorts of commotion in our body and slow your metabolism down to the slowest of crawls.

Now, let us note that cortisol is very much needed and necessary, as it plays an important role in our body’s mechanisms. We actually have a cortisol “cycle”, much like our sleep and wake cycle, AKA your circadian rhythm. The problem that most people run into is the chronic stress that most people are experiencing. This causes an overload in cortisol production, and that’s when things go haywire.

Here are some ill effects of increased cortisol levels:

• Increased blood pressure
• Increased belly fat
• Impaired immunity
• Heart disease
• Diabetes
• Impaired cognitive performance
• Decreased bone density
• Decreased muscle tissue
• Thyroid impairment
• Sleep disturbances
• Adrenal Fatigue

Acute stress would be the immediate reaction to something that you’re currently experiencing. We have a 30 second period of time in which we choose how to react to something. This could be short-lived and we have healthy ways to deal with circumstances and experiences, or, we have unhealthy ways to deal with our stress, that could impact our health, such as alcohol, smoking, binge eating, withdrawal from others, drugs, or any other numbing mechanisms that we may use to “escape”.

Chronic stress

This is when we are undergoing long-term, constant stress due to a past experience or trauma that we carry, a dysfunctional or abusive relationship, a high-stress profession, divorce, loss of a loved one, etc. Having a stress response continuously over time can lead to some serious health problems due to the constant cortisol release. To learn more about how stress affects our health and wellness, read this article here.

Sleep

Did you rest well last night? Sleep is pillar #2, and an area that so many people have trouble with. We need to get adequate sleep for our body to detoxify, replenish and regenerate our cells and neurons. Why? We cannot be in optimal health without these vital processes.

We talked about how stress and cortisol can affect your health and wellness. When you are sleep-deprived, your cortisol level will rise. This will mimic the stress response and ultimately your body systems across the board.

Sleep/Wake Cycle

You may have heard that you have a “sleep/wake” cycle. This is called your circadian rhythm. Well, your cortisol levels also have a rhythm. Typically, when you rise in the morning, your cortisol rises and continues to rise throughout the morning until it hits its peak around noon. This is also when your digestive abilities are at their peak and why so many cultures have their largest meals at this time.

During the afternoon, our cortisol levels start to dip naturally. Along with this comes a dip in our energy (3 pm slump, anyone?). Depending on what we have eaten throughout the day thus far, this can become even more drastic, with insulin levels playing a role. This is where many of us find ourselves reaching for that Starbucks latte or a sweet treat to keep us going (blood sugar roller coaster).

In the evening, we have a slight rise again in our cortisol levels. You might get a second wind somewhere around 5 or so, and then it begins to dip again. This dip in our cortisol level is preparing us for sleep.

Detoxes Body

This is very important because our body detoxes during these hours. This is the time we are meant to rest and digest. When we eat late at night or get to bed late, we miss the mark for getting to sleep when our cortisol levels are at their lowest. If this happens,  we will have trouble sleeping and most likely wake up at 3 am.

Our cortisol will be at its lowest somewhere around 10 pm. This will vary for each individual, but this is the time when you should ideally get to sleep. This is crucial because your natural cortisol levels will start to rise throughout the night slowly, and if you wait too long, they will be too high for you to fall asleep and get some quality rest.

Experts recommend 7-9 hours of sleep as adequate for most adults. Like food, it really depends on the individual and finding what works best for you.

If you’re not getting adequate rest, you may need to look at your bedtime routine. This might seem insignificant; however, our bodies thrive on routine. It goes into “auto mode” when we have a good solid routine in place. You can train your brain to know it’s time to relax and wind down.

Power Down Hour

May I recommend a “Power Down Hour”? This is the hour before you plan to sleep and is meant for one or 2 activities that will assist the body to prepare for sleep and stay asleep. Here are some ideas:

• Turn off TV and electronics
• Take a warm bath or shower
• Grab a notebook or journal
• Meditate
• Read
• Listening to relaxing music
• Darken your sleep space
• Create a bedroom retreat

Lifestyle looks different for everyone and encompasses all areas of life. This is really what holistic health is, but these 3 components are at the heart of building a foundation to experiencing your highest level of both physical and emotional health.

Want to talk more about how to start reaching your highest potential in health and wellness holistically? Book a FREE discovery call with me.