Jul 15, 2019
This is an episode of Crush It Mondays. Each week, I’ll bring to
you an inspiring message, habit, or contemplation to get your week
off to a powerful start. In this week’s episode, I want to
talk about health.
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What comes to mind when you hear the word "health?" For
me, the first things that come to mind are things like absence of
illness, whether someone exercises, and the food that someone
eats. When we say that someone that looks healthy,
it usually means that look fit and maybe have healthy looking
skin. But health goes far beyond exercise and the
plate. It's something that we often forget. For
example, you can look healthy and still have an eating disorder or
mental illness. You can look healthy but maybe be suffering
from burnout or you can even look healthy and have heart
disease.
After reading Dan Buettner's work with National Geographic a few
years ago in Blue Zones
and Blue Zones of Happiness, it reshaped what health meant to me.
If you haven't heard of the Blue Zones, the Blue Zones are places
in the world where people live and prosper even at age 100, and
have the highest concentration of centenarians. What
contributes to this health span into old age?
Directly from his book, Dan Buettner suggests
health and longevity includes:
- engage in regular, low-intensity physical activity, often as
part of your work
- eat until you're 80% full.
- eat a diet with a "plant slant" and limit intake of meat and
processed foods
- drink red wine in moderation (but bear in mind alcohol is
linked to causing certain types of cancer and can has toxic effects
on your organs when daily consumption exceeds a glass or two)
- take time to see the big picture
- downshift and take time to reduce stress (examples like not
rushing around and meditating)
- participate in a spiritual community
- make family a priority
- be surrounded by people who share blue zone values
I've translated Dan's work with the Blue Zones to my own
life in these ways:
- Exercise, and exercise with a positive
perspective. i.e. don't use exercise as punishment and
don't overtrain. Make sure you give yourself enough recovery from
exercise. Also, for me, exercise is always very
cardiovascular focused. Stretching, doing yoga, or working
on strength and mobility are important to overall health-
and I struggle to make this a priority.
- Eat as close to a whole foods, plant-based diet as you
can. For me, I don't consume any animal products, but I
admit that going out to eat because I'm too lazy to cook, or eating
too many treats or eating vegan processed food can creep in if I
don't watch it.
- Spend time with friends and family- whomever
makes you feel happy. This one actually is hard for me. When
I'm really passionate, I want to apply all my focus to my
work. It's embarrassing to admit, but when I'm in the
thick of my work, I don't want to stop and spend time with friends
or family. I remind myself I need to make time because it's
important. After I do, I always feel better. There
are even studies that show that working longer and avoiding social
time does not equate to doing better work.
- Spend time looking at the big picture and the meaning
of life by reflecting on death and impermanence by reading
spiritual text or philosophy that inspires you so that you
can connect to something bigger. Sometimes we think that we
are individual, but we are all connected.
- Spend time talking to my partner every day without a
screen. Sit in the backyard or sit on the couch with
a cup of tea (or wine) and just talk.
- Work on personal development so that I can
continue to learn about who I am so that I can be of greater
service to others
- Remind myself that there is a lot more to life than my
current goal to gain perspective. Put things like
cooking my own food and going slower at times during the day as
priority. I am guilty of putting work or training as #1 and
things like cooking, or taking a break, or spending time with
friends become a low priority. Interesting how usually it's only
when we have had a health event that we put these things a priority
when they probably should be a priority all along.
- Go outside in nature regularly without
headphones. Be as present as you can listening to birds,
wind in the trees, air on your skin, etc.
I hope that this episode gets you thinking about what living a
healthy life means to you so you can put it in perspective for
yourself. As you can see, I told you my priorities, but my
work still will creep in as #1 and other important things fall to
the wayside. By knowing what is healthy for you, it will help you
check in and ask yourself, "am I sticking to what I think is
healthy? What are some areas that need improvement?" It's never
going to be perfectly balanced, and even having intentional
imbalance is okay. But striving to do what makes you feel best will
help you live a more easeful, fulfilled, and healthy life.
Mentioned in the show
Books