Importance of Body and Mind
When thinking about how to live a truly sustainable lifestyle, we have to first focus on ourselves before looking towards how we can help and improve the environment around us. If we don’t make this a priority, our body and mind will inevitably shut down and we will become overly tired, stressed, and negative.
When most of us think about taking care of ourselves we think about exercise, getting enough sleep, and eating right. Even though these are important, there is so much more to it. We should be looking at ourselves holistically, focusing on our physical and mental well being in unison. They almost always influences the each other, anyways. So why do we tend to only focus on one at a time?
Let’s talk about our physical self first – this seems to be the easiest to take care of and improve in our lives. A few simple lifestyle changes will usually work wonders on how your body feels from day to day. Staying active, eating healthy, and more sleep are just a few. These seem easy enough, but how do we cram all of these into our already overbooked lives? This is a DAILY struggle for me. Trying to squeeze in working out, cooking healthy meals, and sleep into my already full schedule of working 40 hours, errands, house chores and spending time with a new baby is HARD. I get overwhelmed just talking about it.
I am sure I am not alone in this struggle. Honestly, I think a big part of this being so hard is the work/life balance in America (I mean are we working to live or living to work?). But that is a topic for another time.
Along with exercising and eating healthy, we need to look at ways we are taking care of ourselves when we aren’t feeling well. I am talking medications people. We all have heard about the opioid crisis…that’s real. Don’t get me wrong – medications are needed sometimes. But the key word here is SOMETIMES. There are other times when a more natural approach to solving our ailments may be a better option.
I have also spent years (yes years now) researching and trying out new personal care products that aren’t filled with the traditional toxic junk. What we put on our bodies is just as important as what we are putting in them. The skin is our first line of defense from toxins. Let me tell you, it is not easy to find something that seems to work as well as those conventional, toxic products.
The Positive Footprint will look at all of these topics. I will post meal plans, natural remedies, exercise routines, recipes…etc that I have found to work well with my lifestyle. Most importantly, they will be REALISTIC. So many times healthy recipes involve hours of prep and exercise routines take too long. Nobody has time for that!
Now onto mental health
This is usually the aspect of ourselves that gets overlooked. It is honestly the hardest to talk about and take care of (but is the most important).
We have to start from within in order to build a strong foundation.
For some reason in today’s society it is somewhat taboo to talk about our current mental state. If you seek help of a therapist it often makes you seem unstable. Heck, people (especially children) even get made fun of for seeing one. We should view therapists in the same lens as our primary doctors – professionals we go to for help when we aren’t feeling well mentally. It takes a lot of strength to realize we need help healing our mental state; that we can’t do it alone.
The health of our mind affects all aspects of our lives, including our body. Stress can create heart problems, weight loss/gain, and a variety of chronic illnesses.
I struggled with serious anxiety since I was a child. I remember in 4th grade worrying myself sick – literally. I didn’t realize how serious my anxiety was until I was in college. I developed pretty bad acid re-flux and heartburn my sophomore year and I truly believe it was due to my anxiety (and probably my poor health habits at the time too…hello college life). I began to realize just how much my anxiety was affecting my life.
Once I started placing focus on taking control of my anxiety and improving my overall mental health, my health problems started to disappear. I realized that I actually had complete control over the thoughts that were going through my head and whether or not to let them control my life. This was a light bulb moment for me. Since this moment (and some serious self discovery time) I rarely have anxiety anymore and am overall much happier.
Keeping a positive attitude is also another aspect of mental health that is important (so important it is part of our name)! Staying positive in each and every situation is something we do have complete control over. If you start thinking of life this way – looking for the positive in all circumstances – you will realize that a positive aspect is always there…just waiting for you to discover it!
I always like to think of it like this: negative mind = a negative life. Life is far too short to be negative. I would challenge anyone to give me a good reason to be negative about something. It does no good and is pointless, honestly. Negativity only drags us (and others) down, while positivity lifts us up! I am striving to live life looking for the positive in all situations…definitely not an easy task!
I don’t want to give the impression that this change in mental health was easy for me, because it wasn’t. It was hard, really hard. But it was worth it, so worth it. I have so much more clarity now that I know that I have control over my mind and know ways to keep it healthy. I have not mastered complete mental stability – I don’t think anyone ever does. It is something we consistently have to work on and think about.
The Positive Footprint will dive into all aspects of mental health. How to stay positive, meditation, self improvement, and anything else you all want to learn about! This is a tough topic that I am learning more and more about each day, but an important one.
Body and Mind are two important aspects of living a truly sustainable life in a positive way. The health of both directly influences our environment around us – the planet and the people on it.