I have declared September Self Love month and wrote a whole challenge for people to follow here. I’ve had enough of different months being labelled for illness awareness. Now, don’t get me wrong I am not saying we don’t need to raise awareness for certain things.
What I am suggesting is that we start focusing on the positives of keeping ourselves well. After all it is easier to stay well than to get well, just ask anyone trying to battle an illness
(1) Meditate: I know, I know you don’t have time and the busier life gets the easier it is to push things like meditation to the bottom of a very long “to do” list. The trouble with that is that meditation is the very thing that our poor, stressed out bodies need. In fact meditation has been found to help in lowering blood pressure, relieve insomnia, aid digestion, improve depression and reduce anxiety. You don’t even have to do it for long – just schedule a 5 minute, uninterrupted break and focus on your breathing. For extra credit add an affirmation such as “Peace” or “ Love” and see how quickly you feel more centred and relaxed.
(2) Keep a gratitude journal: each day take a moment to write down five things you are grateful for. The beauty of this is that you start to pay more attention to those special little moments that you would normally ignore – the sunrise as you wake up, the smell of your first coffee, or the first flower on your favourite plant. The more you notice the more you find to be grateful for.
(3) Move your body: Find an exercise that you love and do it. Every day. Even if it’s raining. Even if you don’t feel like it because chances are at the end of your session you will be feeling so glad that you did.
(4) Make a smoothie or a green juice: Most of us do not eat enough fruit and vegetables each day and adding them to a smoothie or green juice guarantees that you are getting more colour into your day. The upside is that you will feel amazing and people will want to know what, exactly you are doing.
(5) Eat something fermented: Kefir, kombucha and fermented vegetables are all foods that used to be eaten, or drunk on a regular basis. In fact, before we had fridges, fermentation was the only method to preserve foods and fermentation provides our bodies with a multitude of probiotics and digestive enzymes that our diets currently lack. More and more research is being done on the value of good gut health not just for digestion but also to curb anxiety and depression so do your body a favour and learn more about how to make them yourself. Fermentation is far better than any probiotic pill on the market.
