Movement towards total health.

It starts with one step!

Apr 11, 2022

“Health” is a HUGE umbrella where each spoke under the umbrella is one of the components that make up health. As you can imagine there are a lot of spokes!

Some key spokes include the 5 Basics that I constantly refer to. Hydration, eating clean, moving that body, sleeping well, and even doing something you are passionate about, are all a part of what makes up good health.

Our bodies are meant to move. Movement strengthens our muscles, lubricates our joints, oxygenated blood is pumped throughout the body, circulation improves, and the heart pumps oxygenated blood to tissues. Of course, there is so much more to what movement does for us!

For those just beginning to exercise … you are taking the first steps, literally, to better health! Congrats!

A pedometer (step counter) is a great self-motivating tool no matter your exercise level. If you are just beginning the best thing to do is record the steps you would normally take in a day but do so for a few days to get a baseline. Then increase every week. Whether you walk first thing in the morning, on lunch, or in the evening… just move every day! Your goal is to reach 10,000 steps. You go this!!

For those who exercise regularly a great idea is to mix up your workouts to work different muscles as well as train your brain. The key thing to keep in mind is to always take time to stretch after your warmup or at the end of your workout. I can hear the grunts and groans from mentioning “stretch” similar to what I hear from clients in my treatment room when I ask if they stretch at the gym. More on stretching next week with a few of my favorites!

Remember to perform one or 2 exercises to improve balance. As we get older we lose this and it’s so important to keep this skill sharp. So one very simple way is to stand on one foot. Time each leg and aim to go a little longer each week. The key is to not stop. Have you heard “if you don’t use it you lose it”? This happens with balance too.

Also, incorporate movement in all directions. We tend to do a lot of forward-only movements and become accustomed to it. When we say movement in all directions we mean lunging to the sides, doing reverse lunges, skipping backward, walking or running backward and sideways, etc… These are all excellent ways to strengthen other muscles as well as your brain. It’s a win-win in overall HEALTH!

Movement is one major component of good or excellent health. Movement does so much more for the body as I mentioned above. It also keeps weight down, which can also lower blood pressure and will decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease.

Health is so important and sometimes until it is failing is when we realize just how important it is. There are so many steps you can take right now to improve your health. The simplest of ways is to increase your water consumption, choose better foods to eat, and move!

So if you are just starting out move often as you can and try to get up to 10,000 steps. It’s tiring but you will also sleep well!! Are you seeing the pattern here… movement touches on so many areas under the HEALTH umbrella!! Did you know we light up when we are in a better place with our overall health? It is true!

Movement is such a big part of health as you have just read. It does so much for the structure of our body as well as for the systems within our body and our brain. This is why training in different ways or trying new sports keeps our minds sharp!

Think of where you are in your overall health and what needs improving at the moment… its a new week so let’s make some new goals!

Let me tell you mine first. My aim this week is to eat fruit or nuts in the evening, if I need a snack, and to move more this week than I have the previous 4 weeks, as I am coming out of a flare.

I hope this week’s newsletter has you thinking of your health a lot more and has you setting new goals for the week! If you are open to it, please share your goals here…

Nourished Life Mag

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