Happiness does not depend on external things; it is built and lived inside. To be happier every day, start by creating serene, positive inner life, to inject every day a little more happiness to your daily life.
Here are some simple and practical ideas for your physical and mental well-being on a daily basis:
1. Drink lots of water
Water is very essential for physical well-being. Hot water with lemon, ginger, or herbal infusions is better than tea and coffee. Drink hot water and lemon every morning: this is the detonating cocktail to start a healthier day. This beverage could not be simpler to make hydrates the body on waking. It starts the digestive system and provides vitamin C.
Lemon is what we call a superfood that is both good for the complexion, the liver as well as the digestion. A daily reflex that purifies and brings a nice tone to the body!
2. Healthy eating habits; fresh vegetables and fruits
Avoid preserves, prepared dishes, frozen foods, and industrial products that require more work on your digestive system and are nutritionally poor.
A good healthy diet, organic fruits, and vegetables whenever possible, will limit fats and sugars. Enrich your diet moderately with certain plants or spices such as Curcuma (with black pepper), ginger, cinnamon: these substances have anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, etc. Curcuma would even be «anti-depressant. » For example, make a drink with hot water, organic honey, organic lemon, and cinnamon.
Eat well and healthy foods, vary pleasures, and intakes. Don't starve yourself, but don't eat too much either. Make sure you get all the nutrients you need while pleasing yourself. Avoid dishes that are too rich, too salty, or too sweet so as not to disturb your digestion and avoid overweight. Focus on fresh fruits and vegetables, vary the flavors and textures, play with colors.
3. Reduce sugar and salt
Your body will thank you! By reducing sugar in your daily diet, you will bring fewer calories to your body. And so, you’ll ask it for less digestion. If you like the sweet taste, prefer honey with refined white sugar. As for salt, know that there is enough on our plate, no need to add more! Don’t add salt until you’ve tasted your dish. Often, we have the reflex of adding salt without tasting our dish. When we know that salt is not a friend of our arteries, that it causes water retention and cellulite, it makes us want to put back the salt shaker.
4. Walking
For your physical health, consider using the stairs instead of the elevator. Jump a few minutes on site to activate and detoxify your lymphatic system. We recommend taking 10,000 steps a day. But no matter how many steps, as long as you walk a little every day. Of course, we often keep up the pace, we run right and left, and we feel that we don’t have time to do anything. By walking, you kick your legs, start your circulation, and you clear your mind and therefore a good mental health. Stop before work, go up the stairs, go shopping a little further to get back on foot, everyone and his method!
5. Good breathing
Give yourself some fresh air. Take time to inhale and exhale deeply to do good to your body and mind.
Do some micro-breaks. Slow down for a few moments your breathing, steps, gestures
Indeed, breathing is the first vital element. Optimizing your breathing is, therefore, essential for your physical health. Who among us thinks of optimizing the breathing every day? At first, the ideal is to learn abdominal breathing. Then, the ideal would be to breathe, deeply and consciously, 100 to 200 times/ a day out of 20,000 daily automatic breaths. This makes it easier to oxygenate. Respiratory checks and cardiac consistency are also very useful.
6. Smile and laugh
Think of your emotional health, smile in front of a mirror, smile as wide as possible, exaggerate, activate 10 times your zygomatic muscles to stimulate your brain positively;
Do you feel worried, stressed, annoyed? Are you frowning and suffering from tension? A simple little trick to take a step back and force yourself to smile: raise your eyes to the sky by raising your eyebrows. You cannot stop smiling or even laughing. With this simple muscle relaxation, letting go and de-dramatization is guaranteed.
Smiling makes us feel good because the body language is directly connected to the way we think and act. For example, try to smile and to get angry at the same time, you will see that this is incompatible, if not impossible. Besides, think about LAUGH during your day, it will have effects on your health:
Smile and laugh; it costs nothing. You will do yourself a good, as well as the people surrounding you. No need to illustrate the health benefits of laughter.
7. Sleep well and pamper your sleep
Get enough sleep and organize yourself and your hours of sleep, sleep earlier, and in good conditions to wake up in a good mood and physically active. There is nothing better for the body and the mind than to enjoy a complete and a quality sleep. Avoid long wakes, heavy meals, and alcohol consumption before you go to bed.
Sleep is essential to get up on the right foot and be in a good shape! It is not important to sneak in before midnight because those are the most resting hours. But it is also necessary to create in one’s home a place of healthy rest. Clean your room, take care of your decoration, air the room well, and make your bed a small nest to relax thanks to breathing, relaxing infusion, etc. For example, choose a bed linen that you like, with flower, animal, stripe, or even plain patterns… According to your tastes and desires! And bet on comfort with an American pillow, for example, that will support your neck well or a new box spring that accompanies you in your movements.
Finally, A good and steady sleep is one of the healthy habits that you should follow. Think about lying down for 5 to 10 minutes a day but no more (at lunchtime, for example). Just lying down without sleeping allows the body to regenerate, relax, recover, letting go, etc.
8. Be positive
Perform a moderate, appropriate, and playful physical activity. Sport and daily exercise are essential to stay healthy. If you don’t have “time” to practice outdoors, try doing some moves at home.
Exercise moderately but get a regular physical activity. Regular exercise like walking, jogging, cycling, swimming... It’s up to you to choose the discipline that suits you and gives you pleasure. It is both good for your wellness and helps you to maintain a healthy weight - Reconnect with nature, take walks in the countryside, in the forest, by the sea, or on heights. Go away from the city for a while so that you can reconnect with nature and rejuvenate yourself.
Don't take life too seriously. Laugh at yourself, laugh at events that happen to you, and inject lightness into your activities. As it is said, "Every cloud has a silver lining," try to see the glass always half full, even in hard times… especially in difficult times.
Step back, allow yourself the time to "digest" an event without sticking a "good/bad" label on it, and focus on the positive aspects that can result, sometimes even surprising.
9. Be gentle with yourself
Don’t waste your time judging or comparing yourself to others. This wasted time and energy are counter-productive; you will never find them again. You’re the most important person in your life. Take time for yourself every day, engage in activities that make you feel good, follow the passions that speak to you. Take care of yourself, be demanding, but not a perfectionist.
Be forgiving in your learning and weaknesses, as a child who learns to read, and know how to forgive yourself. By being more attentive to yourself and your desires, you will be more attentive to others.
A scrub on Sunday, a shampoo on Monday, a mask on Tuesday, a manicure on Wednesday… Each day, give yourself a little beauty ritual that will make you feel beautiful and good.
10. Connect to “Nature”
Collect some positive emotions, positive psychology, and have positive mental health. Walk in nature is a stress relief and allows you to disconnect for few moments from the new technologies: e-mails, internet, etc. In the end: relaxation, letting go, healthy daylight, better oxygenation, and walking activates the lymphatic system (related to the immune system). The color green would also have an impact on us!
11. Excellent mental / Good psychological resources
A good self-confidence, good stress management, and emotional management, letting go, good concentration, motivation, seeing things in a positive way… These are all psychological elements that contribute to our well-being, and that can develop as well as sports training. Practice sophrology, meditation, yoga, relaxation, or other methods that will allow you to develop these psychological resources. Scientific studies show that 8 weeks of daily meditation training can affect the functioning and structure of our brain, especially by increasing the sense of well-being. Relax with yoga, meditation, or sophrology. Learn to travel deep within yourself while boosting your confidence.
Think also of other methods such as massage, a Do in, Taï chi, yoga, etc., if it suits you better.
12. Maintaining a Work-Life Balance
Don’t let work invade your private and family life. Give each thing a moment. Problems in the office should not come home.
13. Focus on what connects and not on what separates
To ally with nature, to be as much as possible in contact with the soil, the earth, to feel the bond of interdependence between all living beings.
14. Consume media and television in moderation
Limit yourself to essential information, find more nourishing sources for the mind. Constantly bombarding the mind with images, sounds, information disrupts the nervous system and reinforces mental agitation. A brilliant, very inspiring video explains it: The Police of Love.
