Essential Pillars For Optimal Health And Well-Being

In this talk, we dive into the 8 essential pillars for achieving optimal health and well-being. From nurturing your body and calming your mind to fostering emotional balance and building healthy habits, this talk provides practical insights and actionable steps to help you live a more vibrant, balanced life.

Transcript

So what are essential points for optimal health and well-being?

We're going to divide this into eight,

And in no particular order per se.

One is about eating well,

And while we don't want to get into specifics here,

There seems to be very good evidence that we should just be having a plant-based diet,

Right?

Just be eating as much as we can vegetables and fruit,

Trying to keep with good proteins and good carbs,

Staying away from things with added sugars and deep fried foods.

We also want to think about when we eat.

It's a very good thing to get used to eating well,

Breakfast and lunch to power you through the day and to start eating very light dinners.

A second essential point is about movement.

Most people talk about it as exercise and fitness,

And we could get carried away with what's the best type of interval training to do,

Or the best way to strengthen ourselves and to get big muscles.

But generally,

The research is just showing people need to move more.

And even just walking consistently,

And especially walking through hilly terrain,

But moving well,

Enjoying your movement,

And really finding things you love to do,

And to just stay with that,

Helps out a lot with health and well-being.

And remember,

This isn't just about physical health.

They found that just being moving and exercise can bring a lot of benefits to our nervous system and the mind.

It's also very important to sleep well and to get good rest.

This is sometimes I call the forgotten key to health and well-being,

Because a lot of people think this is something they could sacrifice in the modern day,

Right?

They're busy people,

They have a lot of things going on,

And they maybe even care a lot about exercise and how they eat.

And they don't sleep well because they're very busy.

But this is not one thing you want to pass by and want to not take seriously.

Try to get your seven to nine hours of sleep.

And if you can't do that,

As we mentioned in our sleep and rest course,

Try to help yourself out if you're not getting sufficient sleep by spending more time doing relaxation meditations,

Body scans,

Yoga nidras,

What some people refer to as non-sleep deep rest practices.

Get your naps,

Your power naps.

And on the flip side of that,

Take some time in the early afternoon if you're low on energy,

Do some powerful energizing breath work.

So if you really want to optimize the health of your immune system,

The mind,

Eat well,

Sleep and rest matters.

Another essential point is about balancing our autonomic nervous system.

For most modern people,

That means being able to reduce our stress levels.

A little bit of stress is natural.

That's what we're made to do as humans.

Short periods of time where we need to fight or flight,

The stress response kicks in,

The heart rate goes up,

The blood flows to the muscles.

But that's meant for short bursts.

We're mostly meant to be in a relaxation mode.

So you want to be able to modulate and balance the autonomic nervous system.

The most direct,

Effective and efficient way to influence the nervous system is through the power of conscious breathing.

Slow,

Deep,

Smooth,

Relaxing breathing does unbelievable wonders in really short periods of time to modulate our nervous system.

Another point that's very interesting and is somewhat related and a lot of people think it's almost the same these days is about cultivating mindfulness.

This is a big problem in today's day and age where a lot of people are very distracted by always being connected,

Right?

We have constant stimulation in our modern world today,

Whether it's on our devices or with work and with people and just the speed that the world works at and our distractions and restlessness that goes with that.

So this ability to be awake and aware in the present moment with our activity to enter,

As I say,

The flow state actually brings more happiness.

There was a great study done at Harvard where they wanted to test what does it matter if people are more in the present moment.

Essentially,

What they found was a wandering mind is an unhappy mind that even when people,

Even if it was something that didn't seem so enjoyable like washing dishes,

But they were engaged in the activity,

People tended to be happier.

When we're mindful,

Not only does it improve our mental state and bring more joy,

But it could also improve relationships,

Improves our work performance,

Our ability to focus and concentrate.

So there's unbelievable amount of advantages to cultivating this mindful state and to bring more awareness into our moment to day-to-day living.

Another key thing is that we are social animals.

We are meant to have good relationships,

Connect with other people.

We're not meant to live in isolation.

There's actually pretty good proof that good relationships,

Healthy,

Connecting with others is a real key predictor to longevity.

And going back,

Interestingly enough,

On stress reduction and cultivating mindfulness,

Two of the most popular ways to do that,

As I've mentioned numerous times,

Is by using the power of the breath.

There's also been some interesting research showing that people's ability to breathe well also brings longevity.

There was one study,

I believe this was done at University of Buffalo,

That showed there was just as much of a correlation how cigarette smoking lowered life expendancy just as much as breathing well,

Which was actually done by testing the power of the exhalation,

Increased longevity.

So I found that pretty amazing that the power of healthy breathing was just as much a predictor of increasing length of living as cigarette smoking decreased length of life.

So the power of the breath,

The power of social connections for health,

Longevity,

Happiness.

I just can't emphasize enough.

I think those are two things that are really,

Really important in our lives,

Which is working with the breath and cultivating positive relationships.

The positive relationships is interesting,

If you know what I keep saying positive,

Because a lot of us have a tendency sometimes to get connected to people that actually could be a bit toxic.

And there's no magic formula here.

Sometimes it's times we need to cut that relationship.

Other times it could be a family member or an old best friend,

And that we need to maybe be there and care for them.

So you need to make that call,

But just make that call on those type of relationships from a place of mindfulness,

Self-awareness and compassion.

Another aspect I believe of that we need for health and well-being,

And once again,

There's very good evidence,

This is pretty important,

Which is just exposure to nature.

That's very important.

Actually,

It's very connected to sleep in terms of our relationship with our circadian rhythms.

It's very highly recommended that upon waking up to get some sunlight.

And that really sets our clock in motion,

Brings the right amount of energy during the day and sets us up for good sleeping patterns.

There's also a good amount of evidence that getting some evening just before nighttime,

Sunset time to get a little sun as well,

Eases the body.

It's that circadian rhythm that we need to connect with.

There's been an amazing amount of studies done on what nature does to the mind,

To the nervous system,

To different parts of the body,

And that it's very healing.

And it could just be really simple things like going out in the backyard.

There's really good evidence that just being near moving water can be very helpful.

So it's very hard these days if you're someone who lives in a city,

Sometimes it can be hard to find green space.

But do what you can,

Spend a bit of time around trees or just in some nature areas,

And really try to get some natural light into your day.

The natural light thing is very,

Very important.

The final point I want to bring up about optimal health and well-being is what they call your purpose.

In Japanese,

Right,

In Okinawa,

If you're familiar with the Blue Zone studies,

What they call the ikigai,

And they have some words for this in a lot of different cultures,

About having some purpose,

Some meaning.

Something that is meaningful for you to do.

There's a reason for you,

As they say,

To get up,

Something you're excited about,

That you're passionate about.

You don't want to just go through the motions.

If you're in a job,

In a life that tends to not give you much pleasure,

Spend some time,

Take it pretty seriously.

Find something that brings you purpose and meaning in your life.

Commit to it.

And as a final kind of extra point is how important,

This is connected pretty closely to positive social connections,

Is connecting with a feeling of gratitude and kindness.

Connect with this feeling of this gratitude for being alive on this planet,

Being reasonably healthy.

Connect with this feeling of loving kindness for others,

Wanting other people to be happy and healthy.

Because at the essence,

There's a great Dalai Lama quote about that,

Which is,

He says,

If you want other people to be happy,

Express kindness to them.

And if you yourself want to be happy and healthy,

Express kindness to yourself.

And I just think I like that simplicity and how the notion is not just purely about helping others out,

But it's really how we are meant to be,

Which is these kind,

Compassionate people.

So that's just a quick overview of what we consider essential points to health and well-being.

Things to kind of take seriously in your life.

I find these days that a lot of people take their job and status and money,

Things that it's pretty proven these things are not the pathway to happiness.

But what I've just been talking about these last minutes,

These are what have been proven by science.

These are not philosophies coming out of the East or some traditional culture.

It's been a lot of research in positive psychology about what is it that helps people be happier and healthier.

In these points that I've just been listing,

There's just a lot of research done in the last couple of decades that shows all these aspects of being very,

Very key to helping people become healthy,

Happy,

And essentially being in an optimal state of well-being.

So thanks for joining me.

Hope you follow some of these as a pathway through life.

Thanks.