For the past two weeks,
We've focused on introducing daily practices to help us ground,
Clear and revitalise the body.
These are all incredibly powerful and proven methods to help the mind-body heal and to thrive.
However,
It's important that we consider a holistic approach if we're looking to heal,
To increase energy and to increase vitality,
Or to simply feel good or just feel better.
One significant aspect of a holistic approach to energy and overall wellbeing is nutrition and the food we eat.
The food we eat directly impacts our gut health,
Which effectively underpins our immune system,
With 70% of the immune system being located in our gut.
The gut is also linked to our brain,
Our mood and our thoughts via the brain-gut connection.
And our cellular health depends on the quality of the food that we consume.
To name just a few reasons why it's important to consider what food you're eating,
I'll share with you another personal anecdote from my own journey.
For a little over a year,
I had been eating very clean,
Predominantly plant-based,
Off the back of the breast cancer diagnosis.
However,
In 2020,
I chose to step it up a notch,
I suppose you could call it that,
And I commenced the year eating raw foods for a 90-day period,
Which ended up continuing for,
I think,
Close to six months.
This change in food choices was done alongside these types of daily practices that we've been learning and practising together for the past two weeks in this program.
This was a very intentional choice based on guidance from practitioners around me at the time.
As a result of this period on raw foods,
I felt a significant clearing and expanding on a physical,
Mental and spiritual level.
It was so pronounced,
It was like a fog had lifted from my mind,
Vision,
Physical body.
It's really hard to describe the experience,
Like I had been wearing cloudy glasses for so many years and then someone came along and cleaned them up for me.
My experience of life day-to-day was so much clearer on every level,
Mentally,
Physically,
Spiritually and intuitively.
Now,
I need to clarify these shifts in perspective and day-to-day experiences had been occurring since I let go of processed food,
Refined sugars,
Meat,
Dairy,
Alcohol.
However,
It was during this raw food period that it became very pronounced.
Of the many notable changes I was feeling and observing in my own life,
One specific example I'll give here was around my business relationships and the clients I was attracting in my accounting practice.
So some context,
I also run a boutique accounting firm in addition to holistic counselling and meditation teaching.
The professional trajectory directly correlated with the personal trajectory that was occurring for myself.
I was feeling much more confident,
I was communicating a lot clearer and more direct,
I was holding boundaries very well and letting people know what was required and what's acceptable.
As a result,
I was getting booked for presentations,
The client base increased quickly and quite substantially and the revenue increased dramatically in just a single year.
It was all due to the new energy,
The confidence and the mental clarity that I was feeling.
So I offer this simple example of the various and indirect outcomes that can occur when we focus on ourselves,
When we prioritize our self-care and when we do that inner work.
We'll notice changes across all aspects of our lives.
Now I'm not specifically advocating that you go and jump into a raw food lifestyle and I do not advocate for a particular way of eating other than eating a way that incorporates an abundance of quality whole foods.
Food and nutrition is unique to an individual for so many reasons.
Every single one of us is very different and we have different reasons for the food choices that we make.
However,
I offer that example as a way to help understand that optimizing our mind-body well-being is a multifaceted approach.
There's no single pill or single panacea that will make us feel amazing.
Rather,
It's a culmination of a wide array of practices,
Many that we're covering in this program and it's about developing a sustainable lifestyle that resonates with the individual and consequently reads vitality as a result.
As an example,
We may meditate and do breath work every day.
However,
If we do not move our body each day or if we eat poor quality food every day or if we're constantly in a state of overwhelm or stress,
We may not feel that optimal level of vitality that is truly possible when we take a holistic and multifaceted approach to our overall mind-body well-being.
Another significant aspect of a holistic approach is sleep,
Particularly through the hours of 10 p.
M.
To 2 a.
M.
To help us instill a regular routine of lights out by 10 p.
M.
Each night,
We will do well to consider practicing good sleep hygiene,
Such as if you minimize screen time in those final hours before bed and generally alleviating any kind of mental stimulation close to bedtime.
Some activities that we can undertake in the evening without realizing that can stimulate us mentally might look like taking a phone call from someone,
Having a heated discussion with someone or jumping into a work task.
Sometimes these activities cannot be helped.
However,
On a daily basis,
For encouraging good sleep hygiene,
Consider setting boundaries around this time in the evening to help sort of wind down and aid sleep.
Additionally,
That time right before bed and right when we wake up is when our mind is most impressionable.
It can be a really brilliant time for meditation,
Visualizations or a simple grounding practice.
It's the perfect time to influence our subconscious mind in a really beautiful and constructive way.
While there are several important aspects to a holistic approach for mind-body well-being,
The last one that I'll talk about here is the impact of stress.
Stress can impact our mind-body in quite a detrimental way when we're operating from this space on a regular basis.
So we can experience positive stress,
Which is referred to as e-stress,
Which can have a beneficial effect on health,
On our motivation,
Our performance and our emotional well-being.
However,
It's when e-stress tips beyond that into a regularly felt distress that can disrupt our mind-body.
When our body is in a state of fight or flight or ongoing stress or distress,
Our body is releasing cortisol and the adrenal glands are releasing epinephrine into the bloodstream.
And both of those have a cascading physiological effect on the mind-body.
So we know through the science of psychoneuroimmunology that our thoughts impact our immune,
Our endocrine and the central and peripheral nervous systems.
The longer term effect of feeling constant stress can ultimately throw our endocrine system,
Which is our hormones,
Out of balance.
The endocrine system,
It regulates all of the biological processes in the body.
So you can imagine the potential impact this can have on our overall well-being over time.
As a result of ongoing stress and the related physiological impacts,
We can also trigger an inflammatory response.
While some inflammation is beneficial because it's a natural immune response,
The other end of the spectrum is a more chronic inflammation.
And chronic inflammation can underpin chronic illnesses and disease.
The good news is this is where all of these mind-body practices that we're learning in this course can really come into play.
The effects of practices like meditation,
Breathwork,
Movement,
Chanting,
Good nutrition,
Good sleep hygiene,
They all help to return our body closer to a state of homeostasis,
Which is basically the opposite of the outcomes I've just described related to stress.
So when we do carve out the time to properly self-care each day through these practices,
We can know that we are positively and profoundly impacting our mind-body in so many different ways.
