Written by: Lisa Beth Lent, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
“When you look good you feel good.” This catchy marketing phrase coined by Vidal Sassoon in the 80s was a lie! The truth is, when you feel good, you look good. Looking good by society’s standards has little to do with health, since there are unrealistic expectations of size and shape and a hyper-focus on youthfulness.
What is most important is how we feel, not how we look. Feeling good creates health and when we are healthy, we feel good and looking better is just a biproduct of it.
As we mature past the third decade, many start to notice that their health requires attention. We start seeing how our bodies seem to wear down, old injuries come back to haunt us, and we lose some of our vitality and luster. But how much of this is really due to our own negligence?
Vitality requires a bit of maintenance, not a lot, just more than what most give themselves time for. Making oneself a priority is no easy feat with all the demands on our back. Being healthy and well has little to do with merely hitting the gym, there’s much more to it than that.
There are 3 main factors that health and wellness is created from:
The Mindset: cognitive functioning influenced by perception, beliefs, and values.
The Psychology: emotional patterns and responses to our perceptions, beliefs, and values.
The Physical Body: expression of both mindset and the psychological functioning.
The good news is that all three of these factors can be adjusted to drop old habits and create new ones in order to improve overall health.
The bad news is that there is no quick-fix to true wellness. However, wellness only requires self-awareness and commitment to our long-term goals, while having compassion for the journey to better health. In health, we learn as we go, and every day, we learn more about what being healthy means to us.
The Influencers
Here’s the fine-print beyond the foundations. Wellness lies in understanding our state of health and tweaking lifestyle circumstances to gain better health. By taking a bit of inventory of these three contributing influencers:
The Gut-Brain Axis (GBA): The crux of “you are what you eat”, our microbiome has a direct influence on how we nourish our bodies and the way we feel and think. The gut, or the second brain, as the gut is now being referred, is the linked to the central nervous system via the enteric nerves (throughout the digestive system) are direct pathways to cognitive and emotional centers in the brain. Consider the vagus nerve the super highway between the two, also vital to our ability to relax and recuperate from illness.
Our Stress: Pressure is an unavoidable part of being alive. Too much stress is when we start to feel chronic pain, constant fatigue, and suffer from anxiety, depression, or persistent irritability are the classic symptoms of stress in excess. Having cortisol levels raised too often for too long throws our hormonal balances off, often resulting in frazzled nerves, insomnia and dependance on caffeine and sugar to function. Coping with too much stress is proven to have detrimental effects, so it’s important to lower stress levels in our daily or weekly routine to combat from it wearing us out and breaking us down. Making time for ourselves to recharge our batteries is essential to feeling well and being healthy.
Our Will: Thinking smarter, not harder is the best approach to the concept of self-discipline. Preparing for our goals and creating dynamics to succeed is key to long term health growth. Planning our strategies, preparing for challenges, and protecting our commitment are fundamental to actualizing our health goals for good. Too many people get discouraged by the idea of a lifetime of eliminating sweets or alcohol, for example, but if we approach it one day at a time, we make it all the way to our long distant hopes and desires. Having a sensible pace to our wellness journey and taking baby-steps to our goals will make it feel less overwhelming, so making incremental adjustments to our lifestyle will serve us better than “all or nothing” thinking.
To sum it up, there is no true wellness if we feel bad on a regular basis. There's no need to suffer from pain, emotional discomfort, or mental anguish anymore. All we need to do is be willing to get the support we need, no easy feat, I know that personally. Maybe that's the most important facet of all to health, courage to reach out.
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Lisa Beth Lent, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Lisa Beth Lent is a body-alignment educator and trainer, working with courageous individuals and progressive corporations in calm confidence cultivation, achieving authentic inner-alignment of purpose and fulfilment. She leads with her knowledge of anti-inflammatory nutrition and posture awareness, training in the "abundance mindset" and how it ties into growing health and enjoying profound wellness. By encouraging courage and self-trust, deep diving into personal accountability in her private coaching and group engagements, Lisa Beth bridges sensible embodiment to practical empowerment. Align the body, align the life.
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