7 Ways to Feel Healthier and Happier
To feel healthier and happier, it takes a combination of self-awareness and consciously working with the three parts of our system, our mind, body, and spirit. Here are 7 ways that I have found helpful over the years to keep me healthier and happier. They have also helped give me peace of mind, joy, and fulfillment. It’s a journey and I am learning new things all the time. I’d love to share some of them with you.
1. Be Physically Active
I’m a big believer in being active and exercising, whether you’re going to the gym, doing yoga, playing a sport, dancing, hiking, swimming, walking, jogging, or whatever you enjoy doing. There are many benefits to being active and here are just a few:
- Increased breath capacity- check out my blog on the benefits of increasing your lung capacity and taking deep breaths can do for you at: https://www.gailmae.com/blog/feel-more-calm-by-deep-breathing-which-stimulating-the-vagus-nerve
- Increased blood flow– It’s crucial for good health. Your heart pumps about 5 quarts of blood through your body’s system of blood vessels each minute and delivers oxygen to help eliminate waste. When circulation is poor, your blood doesn’t flow as vigorously and symptoms can include numbness in your fingers and toes, fluid retention, bloating, and lack of energy.
- Increased brain sensitivity– for the hormones serotonin and norepinephrine, which relieve feelings of depression, making you feel happier.
- Reduces anxiety.
- Maintains and builds strong muscles and bones– giving you more strength and flexibility to achieve the activities you want to in life.
- Increased energy.
- It helps you to focus better by increasing blood flow to the brain– keeps you aware with less brain fog, increases memory and thinking skills, and causes the hippocampus (vital for memory and learning) to grow.
- Helps to keep your weight down.
- Reduces the risk of chronic disease.
- Reduces changes in the brain that can cause Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia.
- Helps you relax and sleep better.
- Reduces pain.
2. Take care of your Emotional Life
Emotional health is a daily discipline we cannot neglect. It’s like going to the gym or brushing our teeth, an everyday thing. Many of us grew up in homes that repressed emotions, we didn’t learn healthy ways of expressing them or weren’t allowed to express them. The difficult emotions were brushed aside or buried deeply where they can explode when we get triggered and simply can’t hold them in any longer. If we manage to continue to hold them in, shove them down, and rationalize them away, it can cause physical, mental, and emotional problems.
Repressed Trauma
To feel healthier and happier we need to acknowledge and heal any repressed pain or trauma in our life (no matter how big or small). Unhealed traumatic or painful memories can cause problems in our careers and the quality of our relationships. It can create disease, depression, and more. When we experience trauma we learn beliefs about ourselves and life. If the trauma is buried in our subconscious because it was too overwhelming to deal with at the time, I encourage you to seek compassionate and skilled help in healing. The key is finding out what beliefs are attached to the traumatic events In a healing session, especially using EFT-Tapping. During a session, trauma is neutralized and one gains a new empowering belief. Your deeply held core beliefs affect your emotions and your reactions to everything. You must believe positive and life-affirming beliefs not just consciously but also subconsciously. This is because we are run 95% of our lives by our subconscious core beliefs. We can ’will’ things to happen just so much before the subconscious takes over and we start self-sabotaging in one way or another. Once these core beliefs are transformed, your subconscious can accept and believe positive affirmations. You gain the freedom to create your ideal life and live your purpose.
3. Develop and use your mind by:
- Reading books and perhaps attending a book club.
- Writing and doing research, attending a writing course.
- Taking college courses or any other type of course.
- Being creative, either creative writing, performing, painting, singing, dancing, improvisation, etc.
- Crossword puzzles (those that stretch your mind), chess, and mind games.
- Learn another language or a musical instrument.
- Eat a healthy diet (more about diet below).
- Teach a skill to others.
- Listening to others – as we become more interested in others, we not only learn a lot but it develops different parts of our brain.
- Learn a new hobby or skill.
- Write things down in longhand. Research has shown that writing down new information longhand helps you integrate it more thoroughly and recall it more easily.
- Stop smoking. Researchers have found evidence that smoking impedes cognitive function and may even shrink the size of your brain’s hippocampus. It can decrease your abilities related to memory, planning, and overall mental flexibility.
- Getting plenty of sleep.
- Listening to music.
- Spirituality and faith practices such as contemplation, prayer, and meditation. As Andrew Newberg, director of research at the Jefferson Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital and author of the book, “How God Changes Your Brain”, says “As you grow spiritually, as you change your beliefs, as you enhance your sense of compassion, for instance, this affects the brain. If you practice prayer a lot, data shows that these practices change your brain over time. Specifically increased activity in the frontal lobes (one of the areas in the brain involved with compassion and positive emotions)."
4. Spirituality and Sense of Purpose
Your spirituality is connected to your mind, your body, and your emotions. When we seek happiness only from our worldly experience, we come up short because we only have our experience to rely on. For many, that might not be enough to feel safe, loved, and accepted. As much as there are great people around to learn from, they don’t have the unique and specific perspective and connection with the higher power that you have. God wants to have a relationship with us but we have to seek it, want it, and ask for it. In “Psychology Today” Ryan T. Howell Ph.D. says that spiritual people are gracious, optimistic, compassionate, savor life experiences, flourish, and self-actualize.
Connecting to God
Connecting to God (you may use other words such as higher power, spirit, the light, or that small still voice inside, whatever speaks to you) will help you to discover your purpose. Having a strong sense of your purpose gives you the strength to get through difficult times because you know that during those times you are not alone. You have the inner strength that makes you learn from the experience and grow in character. A new study from Northwestern University finds that people who know their purpose also have the benefit of sleeping better at night. Having a purpose outside yourself is good not only for your mental health but it’s good for your physical health, longevity, and even your genes. Those with a greater sense of purpose, no matter what age or education level, scored better on tests of memory, executive, and cognitive functions than people with less purpose. Connecting to God will help you to feel healthier and happier all around.
Knowing your Purpose
Knowing your purpose allows you to be creative, and to envision your future with inspiration from your higher power. Envisioning stimulates the creative and imaginative part of your brain. Remember Einstein's quote that "Imagination is more important than knowledge" and from the bible, in case you might be doubting yourself, that "nothing is impossible with God". (Luke 1:37)
5. Be Grateful
No matter how challenging things are in your life, there is always something to be grateful for, whether that is a roof over your head, a friend you can rely on, or a pillow to rest your head on at night. When we cultivate gratitude, we increase our well-being and happiness. In addition, gratitude—and especially expressing it to others—is associated with increased energy, optimism, and empathy. If we look at it from an energetic point of view it raises your vibrational energy.
6. Give Back
As Alice G. Walton writes in Forbes magazine, “Most philosophies and religions, include a strong sense of giving back to the world. Giving back has the benefit of helping others, and it’s one of the most therapeutic things we can do for ourselves. Mahatma Gandhi said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” When we do this, we see how our problems are not so prominent in the grand scheme of things and that others have suffered deeply too. When we share each other’s burdens they become lighter!
7. Eat a Healthy Diet
Eating a healthy diet helps you on multiple levels, mind, body, and spirit. I’m not going to take much time here talking about diet as this could be a whole book in and of itself and there are so many good ones out there already. I remember years ago I found myself in the hospital having lots of tests for my heart as I was having dizzy spells. After spending 3 or 4 days in the hospital, reading a novel, and getting lots of rest in between tests, I realized I was only suffering from stress. The tests came out perfectly normal but I knew I needed to take better care of myself. I had been putting myself last on the list with moving, five kids, and family visiting to look after. I went to a naturopath and changed my diet. I had to be strict at first and I took a lot of supplements. It was incredible the change I felt in my energy levels, my mood, and my sense of being able to affect change. I feel healthier and happier now since I started taking care of my needs first. I’m not as strict anymore but I try to stay as healthy as possible. I hope that you can add some of these ideas into your life so you can feel happier and healthier and that these changes make a positive difference in your life!
If you would like to reach out for a complimentary 20-minute consultation. I would love to help you let go of anything getting in the way of you being your healthiest and happiest. Click here to schedule a call.
Some Sources:
Sleep and Purpose Study:
Is purpose in life associated with less sleep disturbance in older adults
https://sleep.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41606-017-0015-6
Purpose in life and cognitive functioning in adulthood
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13825585.2016.1251549
Love,
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