Energise your life and boost health
DR LIBBY WEAVER
This is the second part in a series helping you to get clear on how you can make 2017 the year that you finally get around to doing those things you’ve put off, the year you begin to really explore your purpose, or the year you take control of your health and wellness.
As discussed in the first article this requires that you get really honest with where you are now, what works and doesn’t work in your current life. It also begins with great energy.
To support our biochemistry to return us with an abundance of energy, we need to amp up our intake of nutrients as well as decrease those things that deplete us by putting additional pressure on our organs and body systems.
2017 is the year to start prioritising your own self-care and part of this is prioritising nourishing our bodies with whole, real food.
If you’re someone who says you don’t have time to prepare and cook nourishing meals for yourself, refer back to the first piece in this series where we talked about exchanging ‘‘I don’t have time for’’ with ‘‘It’s not a priority for me to’’ and see how it feels to say that nourishing your body is not a priority for you.
Our bodies are fuelled by nutrients, without them they simply cannot function optimally.
If you feel a bit like a walking zombie most days, address your nutrient intake by adding a green smoothie with a scoop of additional powdered greens, load up on your vegetables (particularly your greens), and cut down on those energy zappers – specifically processed foods and artificial ingredients, refined sugar, caffeine and alcohol.
In addition to nutrient intake, we can build more energy through nourishing our adrenal glands with restorative practices. For so many people, their nervous system and adrenal glands are stuck in a stress response and there is very little that they do in their daily or weekly routine that helps to address this.
If you are someone who perceives most daily tasks to have great urgency and puts loads of pressure on yourself regularly, it’s likely that you’re activating your ‘‘fight or flight’’ stress response and putting a huge drain on your energy.
Help to counteract the myriad health issues that result from your body being stuck in a prolonged stress response by allowing for time to rest. Prioritise getting to bed by 10pm, integrate diaphragmatic breathing break intervals throughout your day, take time to disconnect from your devices each week and take up or maintain a regular restorative yoga, tai chi, or meditation practise. All of these things will help to restore and nourish your body and rebuild depleted energy.
So what can you achieve with better energy and health?
In the first part of this series, we talked about where we are right now; the next step is to talk about where you want to be. Get really honest with yourself about how you want your life to look and feel for the next 12 months – or even beyond that.
What do you want more of in your life? What would you like less of? Where would you like to direct this newly restored energy?
You might be feeling the pull to learn something new like a language or delve into more study of another nature. It might be time to finally look for that new job, the one that will utilise the skills you have in a new way – a way that will inspire you and feed your energy in a completely different way to wholesome food.
Maybe you need to reconnect with things outside of your work or family that bring you joy, things that are solely yours and make you who you are away from being a mother, father, employee or boss.
Write it all down and keep it somewhere safe until next week when we will go into the third and final step!
Dr Libby is a nutritional biochemist, best-selling author and speaker. The advice contained in this column is not intended to be a substitute for direct, personalised advice from a health professional. Visit drlibby.com. Support your health in 2017 by trying Bio Blends by Dr Libby, her new range of food-based nutritional supplements at blends.co.nz.