14 Jun 3 Pillars of Health and welcoming wellness

Well its been a long journey to welcoming wellness into my life. I sure did not start out in a good place, usually it take a crisis for people to realise the value of health. It took me years to find a happy balance between healthy living and living a realistic healthy life. Its taken me years to develop ways of implementing healthy living in my day to day… I have spend hundreds of dollars on books, courses, visiting and learning from health professionals.

Now I’m not gloating, I’m just being realistic, because when you first started out on your journey to welcoming wellness it is not always going to be sunshine and rainbows. When i started my journey everyone was painting a pretty picture and i wanted that hanging on my wall. Realistically it takes time to find what works for YOU, it takes trial and error and it takes hard work… but you can enjoy the process.

These 3 pillars of health are what i suggest as a road map to welcoming wellness into your life. You need a starting point for the journey to begin, but you also need a compass to keep you on course. Wellness is not a destination, its a journey that needs to be worked at everyday in every way and I personally use this as a guide line for me when I’m slipping into bad habits, or when i need to change up my life it keeps me on track. It has taken me years to figure this out so hopefully it provides some much needed guidance for you on your health journey.

Pillar 1: Mind

Your mental health, your mental wellbeing and your mindset are the keys to the kingdom. You first need to focus on your mental wellbeing because what you think you become. Emotions literally create physiological effects in the body… the emotion or feeling of being nervouse can literally send you to the toilet with diarrhea. Emotions and thoughts are that powerful.

Learning how to implement meditation or mindfulness into your day is important for stress management, stress relief and/or brain health. Stress is very damaging in a silent way. It produces inflammation, it can alter the gut bacteria, it can cause digestive issues, it is a silent killer. Just like the nervousness can cause diarrhea, stress causes physical effects in a negative way.

Pillar 2: Body

When you have decided you want to welcome wellness into your life or if you want to get rid of some pesky health symptoms following its important to improve your diet and enjoy regular exercise. The world of diet and healthy eating is somewhat confusing because there are so many labels attached to diet (vegetarian, vegan, paleo, keto, low carb, carnivore etc) it can be confusing and overwhelming but they actually have a lot in common. A good guide line for a healthy diet is to eliminate foods that everyone can agree are not healthful, things like sugar, limit alcohol, limit or eliminate gluten, limit dairy, don’t eat packaged or processed foods, vegetable oils, food additives and preservatives etc. Focus on eating mainly plants, limit grains, limit gluten, limit dairy, limit sugar and consume small amounts of meat and fish. This is just scratching the surface but a good place to start.

Enjoying regular exercise is a must for any healthy life. I really hope I don’t have to harp on about the benefits or why exercise is so important, its the one thing that most of society is aware of. If you are someone that is going through a rut or trying to welcome wellness into your life, staying active and including regular exercise is a must. Finding ways to add it to your daily routine or to include it into your day will help you stay active, mobile and help you keep a healthy body composition (not overweight / not underweight).

Pillar 3: Gut Health

Gut health is actually the last area I like to focus on… because learning and improving your mental wellbeing is a journey in itself. Once you have addressed the first pillar then you can move onto your diet and lifestyle which is also a giant in itself. Once you have solidified those then you can assess and see if you need to tackle anything specific symptoms or improve your health even more. Improving your mental wellbeing, controlling stress and having a mindful practice can have positive effects on your gut health. Improving your diet/ lifestyle/ exercise routine can have positive effects on your gut health and make the journey less of a challenge. Some people need to only improve a few things to see massive lasting results. Diving into gut health is a whole journey in itself so you need a strong foundation before you can start to rebuild your gut.

Gut health is in my opinion and in many qualified health professionals opinion the root cause of so many health issues. Gut health orchestrates our immune system, our mental well-being, our hormones, our weight, our metabolism, our skin health and so much more. Its a relatively new health discovery and one that we are still learning about, but the jury is out, it IS a very powerful healing tool… I wrote a whole blog post on it HERE if you need to dive into more detail. For the purpose of this post we are just touching on the importance of it being the last piece to the health journey. It can be a long road if you have serious health issues or symptoms that you are trying to overcome so you need to be committed to the journey but once you know the foundations on how to look after your gut health, how to eat for good gut health, what lifestyle habits are in favour of good gut health you are setting yourself up to welcoming wellness into your life daily. Small consistent steps.

Personally I started to improve my diet and exercise first, which was great for a while before I discovered the power of gut health and dove into the world of gut health. Every journey has its ups and downs and set backs and unfortunately I had not yet spent a lot of time or energy on my mental well-being and my mindset so the journey was much much longer and more difficult for me. This is why focusing on your mindset and your mental well-being is Pillar number 1. It is the most important step to start with so don’t skip it!! This info is very simple and that’s why a lot of people never take it seriously or implement the tools… So i have put together this wellness road map to help you implement these simple wellness tools to get you started on your health journey TODAY!!!!