As the rest of the New Year approaches, take a new approach to your resolutions. Try something different this year like committing yourself to make each day of the year better than the day before, live a little bit healthier than you have been and to achieve a personal goal once a week. When you do this you start to make a difference in yourself and your communities.Since the beginning of time we have been making and breaking promises. Too often we forget how powerful the words of a promise are, and we use them haphazardly. This leads to creating expectations that are never fulfilled, leaving disappointment and distrust in our wake. An early failure to lose weight may have been followed by a promise to never diet again. Without realizing it, we may be fulfilling that promise and wondering why our personal wellness seems out of control.Embracing a healthier lifestyle is much more than mere promises to do the things we think we should do; it is setting the intention do the things we know we should do to live each day better than the day before.Here are a few small steps that you can take on purpose towards making this New Year a brand New You!
Having a salad with lunch and dinner serves two purposes: it provides the fresh servings of vegetables that you need and it helps fill you so that you're not consuming as much of the other stuff. Eating salad almost every day may be one of the healthiest eating habits you can adopt ~ and one of the simplest, experts say.Green salads are found on the menu of almost every restaurant as well as at fast food chains, usually for a low cost. Making a green salad at home can be done in as little as five minutes, especially if you are armed with a bag of pre-washed salad greens, a few carrots or other veggies, and a bottle of light salad dressing.Not only that, but salads are cool, crunchy, and fun to eat, packed with lots of textures, colors, and flavors. You can customize them to include the fruits and vegetables that appeal to you the most, and whichever ones you have on hand.
If you don't already exercise regularly, start by taking a leisurely afternoon stroll on the weekend. You'll get some fresh air and get your heart pumping. Walking has many health benefits including reducing weight loss, controlling your blood pressure, boosting "good" cholesterol and reducing the risk of many health threats - from heart attack, stroke, hip fracture and glaucoma to breast cancer and Type 2 Diabetes.
Get your brain flowing and de-stress with a good book. Reading improves your spelling and increases your vocabulary - more than talking or direct teaching. Reading forces us to look at words that we might not have recently seen or heard. In fact, languages in children's books are likely to be more sophisticated than your average conversation. Reading a book, fiction for example, allows the mind to shift gears, distracting you from a stressful day and taking you into a form of meditation. Reading a fiction book is great before bed time as it soothes and relaxes. Reading forces you to sit still and quiet your mind, a great cure for our high-energy selves.
Embrace your inner silence with meditation or prayer. In our fast-paced, noisy world, silence is certainly at a premium. By embracing silence on a regular basis through prayer, meditation, etc., we create the opportunity to centre ourselves and get in touch with that small, still voice within us that represents our deepest wisdom and truth. We all need to turn down the noise in our lives and tune into truth and wisdom on a regular basis to maintain our spiritual and emotional balance. Regular meditation calms down the restlessness of the mind, and decreases the number of distracting thoughts, bringing a sense of inner peace and relaxation. As the sense of inner peace increases, the ability to concentrate and focus the mind improves.With a peaceful mind we make fewer mistakes, make better decisions and become more patient and tolerant, improving relationships with family, friends, neighbours and colleagues.Regular meditation enhances our sense of happiness and contentment. As the mind becomes more and more peaceful, the number of worries, anxieties, fears and negative thoughts decreases, and in their absence, happiness rises unobstructed from within as the solutions to our problem flow much more easily in a calm mind.Stress and tension normally experienced in our daily lives comes from our own mind. These stresses, including illness, are brought about or aggravated by worry and tension. This distress can be dramatically reduced by regular meditation. When the mind is at peace, many daily problems simply disappear, and others are dealt with more ease.
Once a month, treat yourself to some "me time" to do something you enjoy. See a funny movie, go to a museum, a spa, the beach anything that you would consider enjoyable and stress free. To nurture yourself, identify what you enjoy doing on your own, and make that a priority no matter what. Once you start taking time for yourself, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. Finding time for yourself may present a challenge so it is essential to example your activities and priorities. If you can't take an hour every day, ease into it with an hour each week or 10 minutes each day. You may enjoy it so much that you'll find a way to devote more time to yourself.After you've built short periods of intentional wellness activity into your day, think about times when you could lengthen each one by a few minutes or add an extra day a week. The key is to start small and grow gradually. You are creating a better, healthier lifestyle, not demanding to resolve a harmful habit. Next time you look for an excuse to skip a salad, a short walk, some quiet time or a reason to just laugh; remind yourself of the benefits. You're helping yourself feel good, look better and live longer. Who wouldn't want that? It's a new year, a new decade, and it's time for a New You!
