The 8 Pillars of A Healthy Life
1. Positive Mental Attitude
- This includes
- personal development,
- stress management: what is YOUR biggest source of stress? Comment below please.
- self esteem and confidence building,
- self-motivation,
- self-discipline and in general, the mindset that promotes health and success in life.
I have a whole portion of this site www.doctorkem.com (Personal Development – and the corresponding blog) devoted to this pillar, it’s that important. You’re not truly healthy if this area is messed up.
- Your body responds even at a cellular level, to your thoughts and mindset. Mind-body connection is for real.
- Cultivate a positive mental attitude, learn how to manage your stress and build a healthy self esteem, self-image, self-concept, discipline yourself to take appropriate actions and do what you know to do when you know to do it – and your health will improve. The newsletter and blog over at www.doctorkem.com teach you how to do all this.
- The Healthy Lifestyle Project (www.thehealthylifestyleproject.com) includes practical ways to help you out in this area too, so go check it out now!
2. Adequate Hydration
- You must drink enough water for your body size, each day, in order to function optimally.- Dehydration causes many symptoms such as headaches, body and joint pain, heart burn, etc. Don’t treat these symptoms with drugs – treat them with water! If you’re well hydrated (see below) and you’ve still got the symptoms then go see a Doctor.
- Drink (33ml x your body weight in kg) of water each day. More if you exercise or drink anything that dehydrates you eg caffeine-containing drinks, alcohol, etc.
3. Adequate Nutrition
- You must eat the right types of healthy carbohydrates, healthy fats, healthy proteins, in a proportion that depends on your ‘metabolic type‘. No one ‘diet’ fits all.- Adequate nutrition shall be your medicine, as Hippocrates wisely said all those years ago. Nutritional medicine is Preventive Medicine.
- You must also take high quality, comprehensive, complete and balanced nutritional supplements daily, to provide optimal levels of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants for your cells.
- According to 2 reviews published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in June 2002, “…it appears prudent for all adults to take nutritional supplements.”
- So start eating a healthy balanced diet according to your Metabolic Type, PLUS take high quality nutritional supplements such as the Essentials made by USANA Health Sciences (Visit the page on ‘Essentials!’ to learn more)
- What constitutes a healthy balanced diet? What are healthy carbs, proteins and fats? Sign up for the FREE Health & Success newsletter at www.doctorkem.com to find out!
- As a participant in The Healthy Lifestyle Project, we work with you to help you optimise your nutrition - you'll get to go through your larder and replace unhealthy, disease-promoting foods with healthy, life promoting ones. What fun! Apply to take part here: www.thehealthylifestyleproject.com - you get FREE consultations (worth £75 - £195) for the entire 3 months, as well as unlimited, FREE email support, and FREE weekly webinar attendance.
4. Adequate Physical Activity and Posture
- You must exercise regularly, and your exercise program must include aerobics, strength training and flexibility exercise.- At least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise at least 3 times a day, strength training with weights for at least 20 minutes every other day (check out my health blog for pictures of 6 simple strength training exercises you can do at home), stretching for flexibility daily.
- Start today, don’t delay! Discipline will bridge the gap between your dreams and their realisation so get that butt moving!
- You must maintain correct posture at all times as well. Images of examples of good posture are found on my health blog over at www.doctorkem.com.
- The Healthy Lifestyle Project includes 2 powerful exercise resources that empower you to cultivate regular exercise habits at home or at the gym, up to you. You've got no excuse now! Apply to take part here: www.thehealthylifestyleproject.com
5. Adequate Oxygenation
- You must breathe well enough to ensure your cells have enough oxygen for you to function optimally. Many other benefits of being well oxygenated (see FREE newsletter when you sign up!)- This includes deep breathing exercises and laughter.
- Now you know why laughter is like medicine! So find reasons to laugh each day.
- Do daily deep breathing exercises. An example is described in an earlier post on this blog.
6. Adequate Sunlight
- Vitamin D is now known to do more than just give you strong bones and teeth: it affects the functioning of most every cell in your body, and boosts your immunity, therefore a host of illnesses occur when your levels are lower than normal. Certainly if you feel ‘tired all the time’, get your doctor to add this to the other blood tests they’re doing to see if low levels are contributing to your symptoms.- Pregnant women also MUST have their Vitamin D levels checked as low levels have not only been associated with hypertension in pregnancy, but are also known to lead to deficiency in the baby, with sometimes serious health consequences for the baby.
- You must ensure you have optimal levels of Vitamin D (ask your doctor to test for ’serum (25, OH) Vitamin D’ levels. If insufficient, order USANA’s Essentials today – the HealthPak alone contains enough vitamin D per serving (2000IU Vit D3) to keep you from having insufficient levels of this important vitamin, and to treat you if you ARE already insufficient or if deficient, order USANA’s Essentials PLUS USANA’s Vitamin D3 supplements, then go have your blood levels tested again after a month on the supps. to make sure they’re improving.)
- It's 'flu season'. One reason why flu and colds are more common in the winter seasons is that there isn't much Vitamin D being made at this time, so you've gotta make sure your levels are optimal, to boost your immunity.
- Again, as a participant of The Healthy Lifestyle Project, this will get checked and optimised for you. Sign up NOW for these FREE sessions www.thehealthylifestyleproject.com
7. Adequate Rest
- You must get enough sleep each night. A lot of your body’s restorative and growth processes take place while you sleep. Certain hormones are released at night while you sleep, to aid in the said processes.- Just as a point of interest, inadequate sleep has been linked with weight gain…
-’Experts’ seem to agree that 6-7 hours of sleep minimum per night, are enough for most adults.
8. Support: Receive support, Give support
- Studies show that being part of a support system helps you maintain a good habit. Studies also show that people in a stable relationship are generally healthier than those who are not.-’Support’ could be in form of a spouse/partner, friends, coaching group, Personal coach, church fellowship, etc.
- You must be plugged into a proactively support system if you are to establish, build and maintain 8 strong Pillars for your Healthy Life. Isolation is bad for your health! You’ve got to have at least someone you can confide in and offload/share your burdens with. ‘No man is an island’ may be cliche, but it’s true. We were not created to be loners. And disease (either mental or physical) ALWAYS results when we go against the way God designed us to function, as a general principle…
- You should also seek out ways to be a source of support to others. Give of your time, talents, money, to those in need. This is a powerful therapeutic habit. Volunteering. Certainly does wonders for you if you suffer from depression: it’s hard to feel depressed if you’re focused on others and what you can do for them…(this mindset ties in with the first pillar, however the taking action bit of it is under Pillar 8.). Seek ways to bless others and you too will be blessed: it’s an undeniable and irrefutable spiritual law.
If you find yourself feeling unwell, go through the above 8 pillars and honestly ask yourself where you’ve gone wrong. Contact me if you need help in working through this. Better yet, sign up now for The Healthy Lifestyle Project and you'll be coached to optimal health, for life!
Sign up over at www.thehealthylifestyleproject.com
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