Peak performance and showing up the way we need as leaders is very much impacted by our health. Our health is the foundation for the energy and vitality we bring to work every day. We are also living in a time where so much of our health can seem out of our control. Focusing on what we can control is key; even while outside environmental factors may be uncertain, we can always control what we put into our bodies. What we put in our bodies influences our bodies’ ability to fight disease, boost our immune system and give us the energy to show up at our best every day!
Below are somethings you can do to take better care of ourselves in terms of diet, exercise, and nutrition. These little things below are easy things we can all do to stay healthier.
Staying Hydrated
This one is simple. Most people are walking around chronically dehydrated. Do you drink half your body weight in water a day? For every soda, cup of coffee, energy drink, or candy bar, do you add at least one more glass to that? Can a plant be healthy without light and water? Think of a shriveled-up plant without water, that is what the inside of a body is like when it’s dehydrated, and then we make demands on our body and expect it and our muscles to keep up without the fuel they need. Staying hydrated gives our body one of the most essential things it needs, water.
Resource: Your Body’s Many Cries for Water by F. Batmanghelidi
Breath
Yes, this one is simple too, even taking a couple of minutes a day to take a couple of deep breaths. You can find apps or just use the old fashion method of counting to yourself to take some deep breaths. Oxygenizing yourself is the most vital thing our bodies need. In contrast, one might be able to go weeks or months even without water, but a couple of minutes without air will kill us. Additionally, our breathing gets shallow when under stress, depriving our body of oxygen, yet another ingredient that can help influence a healthy immune system. Take a few times a day to breathe for 1-5 minutes, and you will feel more relaxed when you’re done. Breath is the source of life; whether one breath or a hundred breaths, you will feel more alive!
Resources: Apps on your phone, or check in with yourself a couple times a day to break for 1-5 minutes
Move! Stay active!
Being physically fit helps influence staying physically healthy. Even thirty minutes a day is great. Remember the NFL’s Play 60? Encouraging kids to exercise at least 60 minutes a day. What a great positive message for all of us! Moving helps us breathe more fully too and get the endorphins firing making us feel happier and healthier. Plus, emotion is created from motion. When we move, we emotionally feel better. This will put us in a better state emotionally, reducing stress, influencing us to have a healthier and stronger immune system.
The Power of Alkalinity
Water has a PH scale, acidic to alkaline; our blood is the same way. Our blood must stay at a PH of 7.35 to 7.45. If it deviates from that, it can kill us. Our body then must keep the acid we put into our bodies out of our blood, which causes us to store extra fat. Sometimes, someone can’t lose those final couple pounds because their body must retain the fat to protect the bloodstream from absorbing the acid. Again, taking away energy your body could use elsewhere. Furthermore, disease has a much harder time living in a alkaline environment. Ever notice that around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s the flu bug can go around. That is partly because what happens during that time? People consumption of acidic food dramatically increase with the sugars, carbs, and alcohol that come with family gatherings. Taxing our bodies and leaving less energy for our immune system to support ourselves. Lastly you ever get 8+ hours of sleep and you are still tried. That is a sign your body is highly acidic because your body needs so much rest to help it recover.
Greens, Live Food and Nutrition
Salads, cucumbers, anything green, or in the produce section is great! You can also look up more about which foods are alkaline or acidic. Live foods have many more nutrients your body needs compared to processed foods. Giving us more of the nutrition we need and support our immune system needs. They also give us the power of alkalinity.
While these foods might not always taste good, as our bodies get more alkaline, our taste buds can change, and we can begin to like more of what we are not as used to. When we put things like sugar and caffeine in our body, they can change how the rest or our palate tastes.
Additionally, live foods tell us when our body is full, and when we’ve received the proper nutrients. Processed foods don’t have that effect, which is why we can eat a whole bag of potato chips and still feel hungry; our body got food, but not the nutrients it needs, so it’s telling you need more food with nutritional value. Also, often when we are hungry, it is our need for water; since the part of our brain that needs water is right next to the part that tells us if we are hungry.
Remember, nothing tastes as good as healthy feels. Plus, as we experiment and learn more about eating healthy, you can explore options that taste good and still give you the enjoyment and emotional fulfillment many people also receive from food.
Resources: You can easily google Alkaline Foods, here is a link to a chart that outlines acidic and alkaline forming foods to give you a jump start.
Reduce or Eliminate Acidic Foods such as: Sugar, coffee, alcohol, dairy, and animal flesh.
Around the holidays, consumption of these foods goes up, taxing the immune system and creating a lot of acid in our bodies. First, it’s the Halloween candy, then the leftover candy, thanksgiving treats and feasts, Christmas, new year’s, and the celebrations and gathering in between, all of which we consume massive amounts of these foods. Reducing their intake can reduce the acids we put in our bodies. This is one reason eating more alkaline foods, and green vegetables is so important during these times because it allows our bodies to balance themselves out enough if we cleanse and eat enough alkaline foods in return. Furthermore, being sick is our body’s way of getting better and eliminating toxins and poisons within us. Reducing these foods’ consumption can eliminate waste and give our body the ability to cleanse itself, instead of having the buildup these toxins. Which allows us to remain healthier and us our bodies energy elsewhere, again supporting the immune system.
Resources for the Power of Alkalinity, Greens, Live Food and Nutrition and Reducing Acidic Foods: PH Miracle: Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health by Shelley Redford Young, and Robert O. Young PhD, Living Health 10 Day Audio Program by Tony Robbins
“Return to Nature to Return to Your nature” ~ Wayne Dyer
Whether this is staying active like going for a walk or sitting outside, surrounding ourselves with nature can make one feel more relaxed and reduce stress. This is also knowing yourself good enough to know healthy and holistic ways to recharge your batteries.
Knowing how to recharge yourself when your emotional batteries are low is just as important as when your physical energy and vitality are low. Think of this as the nourishment for yourself emotionally and spiritually. All again, which can help keep us healthier and influence our immune system to be stronger because it doesn’t have to exert resources in other ways, like when our bodies experience “stress.”
In one of our next articles, we will discuss how understanding the power of DISC behavioral styles can help us understand the four main strategies we can use to recharge our batteries. Understanding yours can help you know how to best support yourself, your team, and the people closest to you.
Understanding our nature and our behavior styles also makes sure that life and work are aligned. If not, we have to adapt. In duration and intensity, constant adaptation leads to stress because we are being someone we are not. This can also influence stress and our health in the short term by simply having less energy or in the longer long term in getting sick because we overextended ourselves physically and emotionally.
Emotional Intelligence and Fitness
Maintaining a healthy mindset is also key. Where focus goes energy flows, and we feel what we focus on! We must remember that fear can produce anxiety, lessen breathing, and increase stress. All of which again weakens the immune system. Being able to maintain optimism even in challenging times increases our odds of success. Anger can very much weaken the immune system as well. A Harvard University scientist found that recalling an angry experience or just 5 minutes of anger can impair our immune system for up to six hours!
Incoming news and uncertainty play a role on our psyche as well. Realizing that even if we don’t know “everything” if we do these things, we can still have the “peace of mind” knowing we are doing everything we can to make a positive difference and achieve healthy outcomes for ourselves. Utilizing all the tools at our disposal to influence our internal and external environment in a way that produces healthy results.
How has the consumption of news impacted your perception? How has it affected you emotionally in terms of fear, anger, anxiety, or upset? Is there a new perspective that could be more beneficial? In fact, what if you turned the news off a little more often? How do you think that might influence things?
Sleep:
While this one might be obvious one helpful tip sleep occurs best in 90-minute cycles. It’s taken our brains about 30 minute to fall into Rehm, 30 minutes in Rehm and 30 minutes to come out of Rehm. One reason they say a quick 20-minute nap is best because anything over 30 minutes and we can go into our Rehm cycle. What the 90-minute cycles mean is you are best sleeping for 90 minutes, 3 hours, 6 hours, 7 and a half or 9 hours.
Getting started
These can be big lifestyle changes for many. What is most important is getting started with one thing that will improve your health and quality of life. Additionally do your own research and find out what works best for you and where is best to start. What is one of these items you can get started with to improve your health, energy and in turn your leadership?
Doing any one of these things can make a big difference and help maintain the mental health and emotional well-being that contributes to a healthier lifestyle for ourselves, others, and the greater good. In our Self Mastery Skill Session, we will explore more tools and questions you can explore to positively influence your potential, thoughts, feelings, actions, and results for a more empowering and healthier lifestyle.
