Guide To Essential Health
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So, you’re ready to start living a healthier life. That’s fantastic, but the first steps for starting that journey aren’t always clear. In a world of conflicting health advice that comes at you from every angle, it isn’t easy to know where to begin to improve your lifestyle.
But there’s good news. Generations before you have pondered the principles of healthy living, and you can take their lessons to heart to improve your health today. In this e-book, we’ve distilled decades of wellness research into fifteen central approaches that you can follow to improve your health. These principles are far from trends; they are time-tested techniques for enhancing your physical, mental, and emotional wellness so that you regain control of your life.
A Sunwarrior understands that your health future is in your hands. It’s your choice to make the necessary changes that will transform your life. Take these tips seriously, and you can start the process of working towards optimal wellness for your body, mind, and spirit.
LET'S GO!
Stay Hydrated at All Times
You already know you need water to stay alive, but few people realize just how important hydration is for optimal mental functioning. Your water intake has a significant effect on energy levels and overall brain functioning, and studies show that losing just 1–3 percent of your body weight from dehydration will quickly lead to compromised mental abilities. Failing to stay hydrated can elevate your stress and anxiety levels, impair your ability to concentrate, and put you at risk of chronic headaches.
And, as it turns out, staying hydrated helps you maintain a healthy weight. Your brain frequently confuses hunger with thirst, so fighting the urge to snack by sucking down a glass of water instead might provide you with the satiety you are looking for. Drinking enough water can even boost your metabolic rate. Research shows that drinking half a liter at a time can increase your metabolism by up to 30 percent for hours after. This improves your total energy expenditure for the day by up to 100 calories, making it easier to start shedding some weight.For the best benefit, drink at least one glass of cold water before each meal to increase the feeling of fullness and prevent you from overeating. This technique might sound silly, but studies show that it can close to double your overall weight loss results.
Why cold water? Your body will burn even more calories by bringing it up to your internal temperature. To fend off dehydration, it’s smart to down a glass immediately when you wake up and to drink a full liter by lunchtime.
Ideas for Keeping Hydrated:
Sleep Well, Sleep Often
It’s hard to discount the importance of a good night’s sleep, as the benefits for your health go far beyond the bedroom. You’ve probably personally experienced the difference in how you feel from a good night’s sleep versus one where you tossed and turned all night.
At a base level though, sleep is essential for the basic functions your body needs to perform. Sleep is a restorative process for your body; it’s the time when your system creates new skin cells and when your brain files away its memories of the day. Without adequate amounts, you’ll run yourself ragged, reduce the effectiveness of your immune system, and be at greater risk of catching colds and other illnesses.
While modern culture often praises the “overachiever” who can get by with four hours of sleep, most of us should aim for 7–9 hours of quality rest each night. Any less, and you build up a sleep debt that leaves you lagging.
Even if you can get away with only four hours of sleep, this doesn’t mean that sleeping less is healthy for you. Sometimes falling asleep can be a challenge though. If you struggle to fall asleep at night, consider following a few simple techniques to improve the process.
- Turn off electronics a few hours before bed: The blue light glare from your phone screen stimulates your brain and prevents melatonin production, which keeps you awake long after you hit the pillow.
- Stay away from alcohol: While you might feel that a nightcap helps you fall asleep faster, the truth is that drinking before bed causes you to spend less time in REM sleep each night, meaning that you’ll wake up without feeling well-rested.
- Keep your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet: Tempting as it might be to use your bedroom as a multifunctional room, you’re better served by only using it when it’s time to sleep. You can optimize the space for better rest by keeping it dark, using a fan or noise machine to block sound, and making it slightly chillier than room temperature so you’re tempted to burrow under the covers.
Additional Resources:
Practice Intentional Breathing
In some eastern philosophies, it’s believed that we are all born with a set amount of breaths and that your life will end once you use up your supply. No matter your beliefs, there are impressive benefits to slowing down your breathing and concentrating on the present moment. Intentional breathing gives your body the opportunity to slow, bring air into your extremities, and calm your mind. The process is considered a proven way to ease anxiety, relieve physical and mental stress, and increase your energy levels. It even works as a natural painkiller.
Mornings and evenings are an excellent time to cultivate a habit of intentional breathing. Resist the urge to check your cell phone when you first wake up and instead strive to spend the first five minutes of your day taking deep belly breaths that fill both your diaphragm and lungs. Let those breaths out slowly, letting the process linger for tens of seconds, and you’ll cultivate a sense of relaxation that can last throughout the day.
Manage Your Stress Naturally
Feeling stressed? You’re far from alone. Surveys show that eight out of ten Americans deal with stress, and 44 percent report that their stress levels have worsened over the past year. This proves that anxiety is far from a fringe experience.
While some people turn to medication to manage the symptoms of stress, you’re better off by addressing the root causes of your unrest and adopting intentional techniques to handle it from within. Below are some of the best ways we believe you can calm your anxieties and stop them from controlling your life.
Adopt a Mindfulness Mentality
Do you coast through your days without ever feeling engaged? Does it feel like you are perpetually suffering from brain fog? It’s easy to live through days at a time without breaking out of your head, and this is an exhaustive way to live that pulls you out of the present moment. A better option? Adopt a mindfulness mentality that brings you into the world around you. You may even find that you feel happier.
Strive to take time out of each day to be supremely aware of your thoughts and what’s happening around you. Consider journaling during your lunch break or logging your emotions on your phone at set intervals throughout the day.
Another way to create more mindfulness is to stop multitasking. Not only does multitasking make you less productive, it also makes you less mindful. No matter what method you adopt, taking time to check in with yourself will pay back dividends for your quality of life.
Additional Resources:
Develop a Meditation Routine
Meditation is a centuries-old practice for centering your mind, and it promises impressive results for relieving anxiety. Studies show that meditation reduces the production of cortisol, a hormone that triggers stress and stress-related conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, PTSD, and more.
Maybe you’ve tried meditation before and felt frustrated because you can’t seem to “empty your mind.” You don’t need to join a class or sit still for hours to start experiencing the benefits of meditation.
Even a ten-minute routine can re-center your mind and improve your perspective. Start by sitting quietly on the floor or a chair (eyes closed is best) and focus on nothing but your breath. As your thoughts enter your head, acknowledge them and let them float out again, leaving nothing in your mind but the peace for the present moment.
Don’t judge your progress based on how focused you are during your meditation. At the end of the day, reflect on how you reacted to stressful situations and your mental clarity during difficult tasks. Did you refrain from yelling at the car who swerved in front and cut you off? Did you find that you accomplished tasks more productively?
A meditation routine is well worth the effort. For beginners, it might be helpful to follow a guided meditation routine from a YouTube video or an app like Headspace.
Additional Resources:
Practice Being Present
Most of us spend far too much time regretting past actions or stressing about the future. But here’s the truth: you have nothing but this present moment. The past isn’t changeable, and the future is outside your control; all you have ownership over is your response at this moment. It’s far from easy to accept this reality, but finding ways to make it feel truer to you can substantially reduce your anxiety.
One way to begin? Try writing down the mantra “All I control is the present moment” on a piece of paper and put it somewhere you will regularly see it. Good options include on your work desk, in your wallet, or on a mirror.
Develop Your Struggles into an Opportunity to Grow
Hardships are a fact of life for all of us, but it’s your decision whether you use them to grow and develop or allow them to stunt your progress. Try to picture your life in the context of a video game; every level you achieve brings new challenges to your life, but overcoming them will lead you even further along in your journey.
You can adopt a growth mentality by accepting that situations are outside your control and that all you can change is your reaction to them. No matter what life throws your way, focus on learning what you can from your experiences and moving forward in more productive directions for your overall health.
Connect with the Inspiration Around You
Modern living makes it easy to fall into a mentality where the world shrinks to the size of the cell phone in your hand. Few of us reach out to others in public spaces, and it’s easier to avoid even a second of boredom than to take a risk with an opportunity to experience something new.
If you want to bring your life to the next level, strive to fight the “easy fix” of sticking to established patterns. Instead, find ways to connect with inspiration from those around you. Talk to a stranger on the subway, take a new route home from work, and buy an unknown ingredient for dinner at the farmers’ market. Building opportunities for creativity and inspiration in your life will pay you back in countless ways.
Gain A New Perspective
Sticking to a routine might add stability to your life, but over time it can grow stifling. You’ll be amazed what you can learn from occasionally diving into a new perspective, so surround yourself with people that challenge your preconceived notions about the world.
Make friends with people of different social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds, and don’t shy away from tricky conversations that challenge your ideas about the world. Talk to someone with different political views than you, and strive to find three key ways that the two of you are working towards the same goals, despite the different paths you might be taking. Gaining a new perspective humanizes those around us and makes it easier to understand how much we all have in common, and how your worldview is just one option out of many.
Nourish Your Body with What It Needs
Your body is only as good as the fuel you put in it, so one of the best ways to prepare yourself for optimal health is to give your system what it needs for optimal nourishment. This means filling your meals with home-grown produce, sourcing ingredients from the farmers’ market as much as possible, and choosing organic options when they are available.
What difference does food make for your health? Let’s dive into the details below.
Additional Resources:
Minerals
You probably think of protein or vitamins when you think of eating nutritionally. But minerals are just as important.
Minerals are essential building blocks that aid your physical functioning. They improve your metabolism, balance water levels within cells, and promote the development of stronger bones. Every mineral serves a different role within your body, and keeping adequate levels of each one is critical for your overall health.
Minerals help your body both receive and process vitamins, making them a foundational component for health. They are involved in numerous metabolic processes, including promoting the development of enzymes that trigger chemical reactions within your system. In this way, minerals regulate the normal functioning of organs, muscles, and tissues within your body. In fact, most vitamin-related diseases and deficiencies can also be linked to critical mineral shortages.
You can thank minerals for your healthy skin, hair, teeth, nails, bones, and robust energy levels. A deficiency in even trace minerals can lead to physical weakness, malfunctioning in your digestive system, and the development of debilitating diseases.
Below are a few of the minerals within your body and some of their health benefits:
Boron: Aids bone health, promotes better brain function, reduces muscle pain, and promotes better sexual health.
Calcium: Boosts bone strength, prevents osteoporosis and arthritis, and improves dental health.
Chromium: Aids glucose uptake and stimulates fatty acid synthesis.
Copper: Improves brain function, enhances skin care, and promotes iron intake.
Iron: Triggers the formation of hemoglobin in the blood to improve circulation, prevents the development of anemia, and boosts immune system function.
Iodine: Reduces the risk of goiter, breast disease, and numerous skin conditions.
Magnesium: Promotes immune system function, treats high blood pressure to prevent heart attacks, reduces cramps during periods, menopause, and pregnancy, and seemingly lowers the risk of anxiety and stress.
Phosphorus: Boosts brain function, improves bone health, and reduces muscle weakness.
Potassium: Reduces tension in blood vessels, promotes oxygen distribution to vital organs, regulates blood pressure, and protects against cardiovascular disease.
Selenium: Prevents free radical formation and promotes bone growth.
Silicon: Promotes brain health and the formation of healthy hair, skin, nails, teeth, and bones.
Sodium: Helps cells maintain healthy water balance, prevents sunstroke, improves brain functioning, and reduces your risk of muscle cramps.
Zinc: Triggers over ten enzymatic functions within the body, promotes processes for healing wounds, storing insulin, preventing acne and eczema, and fighting off skin infections.
More Resources:
The Benefits of Magnesium; Why 80% of Americans Are Deficient
Vitamins
Vitamins are critical compounds that promote your health. Many enter your body through food, while others are naturally produced. Vitamins facilitate many of your body’s mechanisms, and they are critical for treating and preventing a variety of diseases and conditions like high cholesterol, heart problems, and skin disorders.
While a healthy, well-rounded diet should provide you with a broad spectrum of vitamins, the sad truth is that many of us are deficient in one or more varieties. To keep your levels where they should be, make sure you fill up on fruits and vegetables each day. A daily vitamin supplement is usually helpful for most people: especially pregnant women, those with underlying medical conditions, and anyone with digestive problems that prevent them from absorbing nutrients from food.
Some of the essential vitamins to stay aware of include the following:
Vitamin A (Retinol): Treats acne, speeds up the healing process for wounds, and prevents eye and skin disorders.
Vitamin B1 (Thiamine): Boosts the body’s metabolism while preventing heart disease, blood circulation problems, and improper brain development.
Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin): Treats cataracts, anemia, and skin disorders while improving your metabolism and immune system function.
Vitamin B3 (Niacin): Counters the effects of heart disorders, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and reduces problems caused by diabetes and indigestion.
Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid): Reduces premature hair graying, can relieve stress, and reduces the negative effects of arthritis.
Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxamine): Lessens the symptoms of diabetes and reduces instances of morning sickness, motion sickness, stress, excessively heavy periods, and convulsions.
Vitamin B7 (Biotin): Boosts your hair health, can treat skin disorders, and improves the body’s metabolism.
Vitamin B9 (Folic Acid): Reduces anemia, indigestion, skin disorders, and gout while increasing the formation of red blood cells.
Vitamin B12 (Cyanocobalamin): Reduces side effects of anemia, smoking, pregnancy, liver disorders, mouth ulcers, and can prevent the development of heart conditions that can lead to strokes.
Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid): Considered to be one of the body’s most essential antioxidants, vitamin C can reduce your risk of infections, the common cold, scurvy, kidney disorders, heart disease, certain cancers, and more.
Vitamin D: Beneficial for bone repair and reduces your risk of rickets, osteoarthritis, and certain types of cancers.
Vitamin E (Tocopherol): Contains powerful anti-aging properties that improve blood circulation and protect against heart disease, brain malfunctioning, and eye disorders.
Vitamin K: Controls blood flow and prevents internal bleeding, menstrual pain and flow problems, and the formation of kidney stones.
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Forget what you’ve heard about fat being bad for you; omega 3 fatty acids are something you don’t want to do without. Not only does your body need these compounds to function, but they also offer some impressive health benefits. Research shows that taking in adequate levels of these heart-healthy fats can lead to lower triglyceride levels (reducing your risk of heart disease), less stiffness and joint pain from rheumatoid arthritis, lowered risk of depression, and increased healthy fetal brain development.
It’s absolutely possible to get omega-3 fatty acids from plant sources primarily in nuts and seeds. Aim to eat sources that are rich in these fats at least a few times a week, including chia seeds, flax seeds, spinach, Brussels sprouts and more.
Consider taking a supplement if you’re struggling to keep your levels where they should be. You should plan on ingesting between 1–4 grams per day, depending on your personal health challenges and your doctor’s recommendation.
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Drink Fresh Juice Daily
Your daily produce consumption is directly connected to your overall health, but many of us struggle to take in the amount we need. If you’re looking to start your day on the fresher side, consider drinking cold-pressed juice each morning.
Drinking a glass of juice is much easier than trying to eat a pound of carrots.
Juicing extracts the vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and even some fiber from fresh produce. This is an excellent way to maximize the health benefits of consuming fruits and vegetables, and this easy-absorptive state provides you with a quick energy supply. Likewise, juicing makes it easier to fill up on a variety of produce, especially if you’re generally picky about the fruits and veggies you eat.
Cold-pressed juices tend to be best, as they are typically served fresh, contain few (if any) added sugars or sweeteners, and retain a significant portion of the produce’s vitamin and mineral content. When you make your own juice, strive to make only as much as you’ll drink in one sitting so that there’s little risk of it spoiling or losing some of its nutritional content. If you’re buying your juice commercially, look for a pasteurized product to lessen this risk.
If you’d rather keep things simple, starting the day with a glass of lemon water is a great way to re-mineralize and cleanse your blood. To enhance the benefits and boost your metabolism in the process, consider adding a dash of cayenne pepper.
Additional Resources:
- Glorious Green Juice
- 5 Juice Recipes for Immunity, Good Health, and Good Life
- A Conversation with Famous Juicer Joe Cross of Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead
Focus on Your Macros
Forget counting calories; your macros levels are what really matter. “Macros” is shorthand for macronutrients, which consists of the grams of protein, carbs, and fats you eat in a day. Micronutrients, in contrast, include vitamins, minerals, and other trace nutrients.
- Carbohydrates: As a vital source of energy, carbs keep your brain and muscles functioning as they should. They should typically supply between 45 and 65 percent of your daily fuel needs.
- Fat: Adequate fat intake aids vitamin absorption and keeps your organs functioning as they should. Seek out plant-based fats like those found in seeds and nuts as much as possible.
- Protein: As the essential building blocks of your body, protein is critical for repairing all tissues like muscle, bones, and skin, and for producing the hormones and enzymes that support proper immune system functioning. You can obtain protein from plant-based sources like quinoa, brown rice, and more.
Why track macros instead of calories? All calories are not the same, and two foods with the same calorie content can have dramatically different impacts on your health. (100 calories of broccoli, for instance, is hardly the same as 100 calories of chocolate). Tracking macros instead of calories make it easier to monitor the kinds of nutrients that you’re taking in to experience optimal health.
The ratio of macronutrients that you should take in depends on your unique health goals, so consider talking with a health specialist to determine what your personal macro levels should be.
Additional Resources:
Minimize Processed Foods
Life gets busy, and the frozen food aisle is forever tempting. Is it bad for your health to indulge on occasion? The evidence shows that processed foods are profoundly unhealthy, and you’re best off eliminating them from your diet for good.
Why are processed foods such bad news for your health? These dishes are designed to have as long of a shelf life as possible, meaning that they’re often stuffed with added sugars, salts, and preservatives at the expense of any nutritional content. This means consuming even small amounts makes it easy to overdo your levels of these compounds, which can lead to consuming empty calories and health problems like obesity and cardiovascular disease.
If you want to make a bold change for whole body health, ditch any food that comes in a box or is filled with unrecognizable ingredients, and instead focus on filling up on whole fruits and vegetables at every meal. Your digestive system will thank you for it.
6. Practice Grounding for Better Energy
Strange as it might sound, one of the best ways that you can improve your health is to cultivate a closer connection to the ground—literally. Years of research shows that going barefoot outdoors on natural surfaces like grass or dirt can connect you with the earth’s physical energy and diminish health ailments like chronic pain and fatigue, and it even works to reset your biological clock for better sleep at night.
This connection is known as earthing or grounding, and it works through the simple premise of electron transfer. When your bare skin is in contact with the ground, electrons enter your body. These compounds can neutralize the damage caused by free radicals, which often manifests itself as chronic inflammation or disease. As your body is made up of water and minerals, it is optimized for this type of electron transfer.
Other benefits of connecting with the ground include the following:
- Increased energy and vitality
- Thinner blood to improve blood pressure and flow
- Lower stress levels that promote calmness and cool down the nervous system
- A lower instance of muscle tension and headaches
- Relief for intense menstrual symptoms
- Faster recovery from athletic injuries
- More rapid recovery from jet lag
To get the benefits of earthing, strive to spend at least half an hour outdoors each day with skin contact on the ground. You can sit, lay down, or walk around on grass, sand, dirt, or unpainted concrete to get the benefits for your body.
7. Spend Time in Sunlight
Even if you keep your shoes on, spending time outdoors is essential for good health. As we previously mentioned, your system needs vitamin D to function properly. The body can convert sunlight into this critical compound, and the vitamin will improve your health by helping you maintain healthy bones and teeth and protecting you from developing certain types of cancers, type 1 diabetes, and multiple sclerosis. The compound is even renowned for improving your mood and counteracting the effects of depression (especially in the winter time).
Another benefit of spending time in natural light is that it can increase activity in your pineal gland. This is the part of your body that produces melatonin, a hormone known for its anti-aging and anti-stress properties. Best of all, melatonin is the compound that induces sleepiness in the evenings, so adequate light exposure during the day means you’ll be ready to fall asleep at night.
To ensure you’re getting enough sun exposure, aim to spend at least thirty minutes outdoors each day. The strongest sunlight is from 10 am to 2 pm, so plan your time accordingly. If you live in a high latitude location that experiences minimal sunshine in the winter, you may want to invest in a sun lamp to trigger your body to synthesize vitamin D. Another option is to take daily vitamin D supplements throughout the darker months so you can factor sunlight exposure out of the equation.
8. Adopt Better Blood Flow and Circulation
When it comes to full-body health, you can’t discount the role of the circulatory system. Your heart pumps blood throughout your body at a rate of 83 gallons per hour, and these red blood cells carry oxygen to every vital organ. Good circulation leads to healthier skin, better brain functioning, and sharper mental abilities. You’ll also feel more emotionally stable and better able to handle stressful situations.
Without adequate blood flow, you’ll experience low energy, compromised cognitive functioning, and even numbness and loss of movement in your limbs. If you want to keep blood flowing where it should, then move regularly and minimize the amount of time you spend sitting down. Regular exercise and a consistent stretching routine will keep oxygen-rich blood traveling through your body at a steady rate, preventing your cells from becoming deprived.
9. Start a Stretching Routine
Additional Resources:
The Benefits Of Stretching: How Dynamic And Static Stretching Improves Your Health
You likely know how important regular exercise is for health, but don’t discount the role that stretching plays as well. A stretching routine keeps your muscles limber and healthy, and it helps you maintain a healthy range of motion within your joints. Failing to stretch leads to tighter muscles, and they can shorten over time, permanently reduce your flexibility, and put you at risk for joint injuries or muscle damage.
You’re compounding the problem if you work an office job that causes you to sit all day. This results in tight hamstrings on the back of your thighs, and it puts you at risk of a sports injury if you transition too quickly from sitting to running or other physical activities.
Stretching just once won’t solve your flexibility problems; you need to commit to the practice to see long-term benefits. To reduce your risk of injury, develop a regular stretching routine designed to keep you limber. Yoga or Pilates is the perfect way to stretch out your entire body, so consider joining a class or finding online videos that match your skill level.
10. Practice Intermittent Fasting
Timing your meals is all the rage these days, and the practice goes by the phrase “intermittent fasting.” This is a practice of intentionally putting your body into ketosis so that you can maximize its fat-burning potential each day. While your system typically powers itself on glucose, putting it in a fasted state will cause it to convert to burning your body fat instead- which leads to weight loss over time.
Some people use intermittent fasting to shed their stubborn belly fat; others incorporate the routine into their overall lifestyle. Regardless of your goals, delayed eating offers some impressive health benefits like improving metabolic functioning, prolonging your lifespan, and reducing chronic inflammation. Some research even reveals the practice might slow down the signs of aging and disease progression.
You can experience the benefits of intermittent fasting for yourself by experimenting with the Lean Gains method. This requires you to go without food for 16 hours out of every 24. Most people avoid eating in the morning until approximately 1 P.M. and then take their last snack before 8 pm. Another option is the Up-Day-Down-Day approach, which requires you to significantly reduce your calorie intake for one or two non-consecutive days of the week, trying to limit your eating to raw veggies and electrolyte-infused water on your low-calorie days.
Additional Resources:
11. Monitor Your Health Perimeters
When your body is functioning as it should, your health will reflect that. One smart way to ensure everything is working right is to monitor your health perimeters. Consider checking your pH levels regularly so that you can tell if your stomach acid is making your system, well, acidic. If you overeat acidic food, your body has to pull alkaline substances like potassium and calcium from the bones to neutralize it. This can lead to a host of health problems like decreased bone density, indigestion, gastric reflux, and a higher risk of heart disease.
One of the best ways to gauge your pH levels is through a urine test. A test level of 7.4 is considered healthy for the human body, while any level below 7 is a sign of acidity. Consider taking a test whenever you feel like your health is compromised, and you can gauge whether acidosis is to blame.
12. Make Reading a Daily Habit
How many hours do you spend on your phone each day? If you spend just a fraction of that time reading instead, your health might be better for it. Over time, the habit of daily reading provides impressive health effects. You’ll fall asleep easier (no blue light to overstimulate the brain) and likely come away inspired with better energy and emotions. All genres can have a positive impact on your health, from fiction to memoirs and self-help books.
If you’re not in the habit of working through books, try setting an alarm each evening that reminds you to put down your electronic devices and read for at least half an hour. Physical books and kindles both work great, but try to stay away from reading on your phone or a tablet unless you put it on airplane mode first so that notifications don’t distract you.
13. Play & Listen To Music
Music enjoyment is more than a hobby; it’s a way to improve your health. Research shows that music can ease pain, improve your physical endurance, motivate you to push harder in a workout, improve your sleep quality, and even cause you to eat less per meal. In other words, the right music can alter your mood, influence the direction of your thoughts, and improve your energy levels. Start considering music as a tool that can optimize your experience at any given moment, and you might be amazed at the impact it has on your life.
Want to boost the benefits even further? Make your own music by plucking on the guitar or taking piano lessons. You can also gain impressive benefits for socialization and group synchronization by joining a local choir. Or get up and move to music by taking a dance class. You’ll be getting some great exercise in as well.
Making music encourages the connection between the left and right sides of the brain. It also promotes empathy, memory, and has the potential to slow down aging. There are so many elements involved in making music, all of which can benefit your physical and mental health. Whether you’re listening or playing music, you can benefit from the energy music provides.
Sacred Frequencies and Vibration
For music and sound to travel, the molecules need to vibrate. The molecules move in a sound wave. The frequency of a sound is how this sound wave is vibrating. It’s so easy to relax and listen to music but, there’s actually a ton of work that has gone into producing a specific sound. The frequency or vibrating of sound waves show that sound has energy. Sound gives you the chance to communicate, learn and express ideas.
The way sound effects and influences your mood is extremely personal. Sacred frequencies have been widely used throughout centuries for their ability to restore peace, balance, and fuller life. The Solfeggio frequencies have a history that dates back centuries. The frequencies make up a six-tone scale. The original frequencies used in the Solfeggio scales are:
- 396 Hz
- 417 Hz
- 528 Hz
- 639 Hz
- 741 Hz
- 852 Hz
Each frequency in the scale is thought to balance the body, mind, and spirit.
The Fibonacci Sequence
When it comes to great music, the Fibonacci Sequence has often been at the center of it. The Fibonacci Sequence has been used by the likes of Mozart and Leonardo Da Vinci and plays a major role in musical scales. The sequence is a pattern, the next number is produced by adding up the two previous numbers. It’s this pattern that can be seen or heard in great pieces of music.
Composers have used the Fibonacci Sequence for hundreds of years to create masterpieces. It’s thought that historic figures like Beethoven, Bach, and Debussy used the same sequence to write their music. You can often see the Fibonacci Sequence in musical composition as well as musical instrument design like the violin.
You can distinguish musical sounds from one another by recognizing certain qualities. These qualities are tone color, duration, pitch, and dynamics. The pitch is the highs and lows that you hear which is determined by the frequency of vibrations. Dynamics is the softness or hardness. While the tone color, or timbre, is how the sound is perceived. Words like mellow, dark, bright, or rich can be used to describe the tone color of a sound.
Whether you play music, sing, or listen to the radio, music can have a huge impact on your wellbeing, mood, performance, and memory. Who hasn’t found it easier to run a little further or push yourself harder at the gym after listening to a piece of music? Music has the power to connect at a deeper level and make you feel inspired.
14. Connect with Nature
Modern living isolates many of us from the outside world, and this is a tragedy for our health. Research shows that spending time in nature can restore your mind, improve creativity, and even enhance short-term memory formation. In fact, the Japanese have a term for the therapeutic process of spending time in the woods: shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing.”
No matter where you live, you can bring the benefits of nature into your life. Consider walking or biking to work a few times a week, taking your lunch breaks outdoors, or even bringing potted plants or a fish tank into your office space. It’s also smart to take your workout routine out of the gym and into a nearby park on occasion so that you can sweat and get your vitamin D at the same time.
You can also consider cultivating potted plants at your home. Planting and nurturing even a few herbs will increase the time you spend connecting with nature and improve your dinners in the process.
15. Live a Life That Serves and Inspires Others
Chronic loneliness is no joke. In fact, some studies state that a life without meaningful relationships can shorten your life expectancy as much as being obese or a lifelong smoker. Your goal for better health should instead be to connect with others as much as possible.
Strive to find ways to serve those around you and maintain regular relationships with those in your great community. Work volunteer service into your daily routine, and challenge yourself to make connections with those around you. Smile at the person in line behind you at the grocery store, and make small talk with your companion on the subway. By refusing to take the easier route of looking down at your phone while spending time in public, you might be surprised at how good you feel after cultivating a new social connection.
Live a Life of Focused Attention for Better Health Today
Every day you wake up healthy and whole is a gift, and it’s entirely within your control how you choose to spend it. At Sunwarrior, we believe that healthy living is a choice that’s within all of us to make, and we want to encourage you in the process.
This guide is designed to open your eyes to the ways that you can take control of your own life throughout the time given to you each day. We believe that we can choose to eat fresh, vitamin and mineral-rich foods. We can choose to re-connect with ourselves every day. We can choose to exercise our bodies and minds regularly. We can choose to be in nature and share moments with people we care about. We can choose love as our response to all we meet in life.
By taking the tips, strategies, and suggestions written here seriously, you can make impressive strides towards optimizing your life today. So why not give them a try? You have nothing to lose, but your best life to gain.
Up Next:
- What Is Epigenetics: Your Mind’s Influence Over Your Health
- DNA, RNA and Epigenetics
- Neuroplasticity And Epigenetics: Design A New You
- How To Increase Neurogenesis
- The Power of the Mind — How Our Mindset Programs Our Cells
- What is Nutrigenetics? A New Perspective on What You Eat & Drink
- Kinesiology and Yoga for Improved Athletic Performance
- What Is Kinesiology? Using Ancient and Modern Knowledge to Improve Movement