My brand focuses on developing and committing to self-mastery.
The purpose of my work is to inspire people to master their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, so that they can have an extraordinary life.
That is why I wanted to invite Sheila C., the brand executive at PureScienceSupplements, to write a guest post about the 7 positive changes that you can make in order to improve your wellbeing.
Take it away Sheila!
Everyday life can be stressful and can take its toll on our general sense of wellbeing. We are often sleep-deprived and driven to work under extreme pressure, with limited opportunities for healthy food and exercise.
We hear the messages about balance and the importance of taking care of our mind and body. However, sometimes this is easier said than done. Here are 7 positive changes that you can make in order to improve your wellbeing:
Change 1: Work on your hormonal balance
Our body is a complex balance of hormones. When these hormones are in balance, they can help us feel mentally and physically fit. Every man and woman is a balance of testosterone, estrogen, dopamine, serotonin, GABA, adrenalin, and cortisol, to name but a few.
Then, there is inositol, the body's transport system for hormones. When these hormones and transporters work well, we feel awesome. When they go slightly out array, chaos ensues. Too much estrogen and testosterone become depleted. Cortisol levels rise with lower testosterone, meaning stress levels rise.
For women, too much estrogen increases the risk of breast cancer and osteoporosis, and it can also lead to a loss of sex drive. Women need testosterone for that too. For men, too much estrogen means aromatize, the process of lowering testosterone levels, meaning lower fertility, poor libido, erectile dysfunction, baldness, weight gain, etc.
Hormonal balance is crucial to many aspects of our lives. Therefore, supplementation with a testosterone booster, such as Tongkat Ali is beneficial, for both women and men.
Change 2: Consider how to improve your relationship
There are huge differences in the way that men and women show love for one another. For women, this might mean physical touching and holding, whereas, for men, this might mean active sex life. This is a generalization, and one only made to illustrate the importance of communicating with your partner.
This difference in viewpoint, if it exists, could be the most reason for the end of a relationship. As we age our body changes and it protects itself against the weakness that time delivers. Also, with age, the body assumes that reproduction becomes less relevant, so the processes of being fertile, irrelevant.
In broad terms, sex means babies in nature, so your body stops working to help you reproduce. Women feel this earlier than men. Generally, men have more testosterone, and therefore, more sex-drive than women, which may mean that there is a time when men desire sex more than women.
This is not the end of your attraction for each other. This is just the time when nature is not playing fair, in terms of libido. Therefore, the wellbeing of your relationship may mean that you want to bolster your body’s libido. Think about ways that you could connect with your partner on a deeper level. Communicate your needs and make the effort to work at your relationship.
Change 3: Understand how to reduce your anxiety
Some anxiety is helpful. Sometimes we need to feel fear and pressure in order to take action. Our body produces cortisol and adrenalin for just such occasion, which gives us our fight, flight, or freeze response. It is how our ancestors managed to survive in a hostile world and explain how we when faced with an attacker, can run faster or fight stronger than we have done before.
The production of cortisol and adrenalin at inappropriate times produces inappropriate responses for a given situation. In other words, we can appear anxious or we can have a panic attack, which can become debilitating. Anti-anxiety meds and anti-depressants come with high-risk side effects.
Some of these meds work for some and not for others, therefore there can be a period of trial and error that is physically and mentally challenging. Therefore, looking at your lifestyle and finding ways to balance work and life is crucial to improving your wellbeing. Our bodies are not designed to maintain stress for long periods of time, and the result can be an imbalance in our hormones.
This can bring about physical illness, as well as mental ill-health. Take a moment to consider your current lifestyle and whether you need to address this balance in order to avoid taking medication that might do more harm than good.
Change 4: Exercise effectively
Exercising can help to boost your self-esteem and help make you feel physically stronger. Too much exercise can lead to fatigue and injury. It is also difficult to fit a lot of gym time into a busy workweek. Therefore, it is important to make the most out of your workouts, so that you feel the full effect on your body and your overall sense of physical wellbeing.
An appropriate diet, balanced with carbs, proteins, and fats – all measured against the glycaemic index, as opposed to calories or nutritional make-up – should help your body to recover after a workout and boost its effectiveness. Some experts in nutrition and fitness prescribe intermittent fasting and a cycle of rest and intense workouts. This routine is meant to maximize the effect of the times you exercise.
The intermittent fasting also makes use of your body’s rhythms, so it no longer feels the need to store food as fat. Do some research on workout cycles and intermittent fasting in order to understand how to get fit, without suffering from workout fatigue!
Change 5: Get the right balance of vitamins and minerals in the food you eat
Your body needs a mix of calcium and magnesium, Vitamins A, B, C, D, K, along with iron and selenium, and many more elements to work effectively and optimally. These vitamins and minerals occur naturally in our food, but the more processed the food, the less likely that there are to be nutritious elements available.
This is why there has been an upsurge in interest in the paleo diet. To be honest, there is no need to go so extreme as the paleo diet but instead, understand the influence that processing can have. Buy raw foods, which you cook yourself, and you will find that your balanced diet is going to include all of the vitamins and minerals that your body and mind need in order to function well.
Change 6: Take control of the aging process
Aging is a fact, but a decline in age doesn’t have to be. There is a lot of research now that suggests that the way we choose to live – how much stress we have, how many toxins we take in, and how much we exercise – all influence the actual age of our bodies and our minds.
You can take tests now that reveal how old you really are, that look at your cholesterol, the fat around your organs, your blood sugar levels, your hormonal balance, etc. It is these factors that really determine our age, not the number of years we have been alive. Being aware of your body’s age might help you to seek out better ways of living in order to keep yourself feeling and looking younger.
Change 7: Understand how to sleep well
Finally learning how to sleep well is going to make a massive difference to your wellbeing. It is not just the quantity of sleep that matters, but also the quality. Taking sleeping tablets is no way to make sure that you get the quality sleep that you need. It is likely that you still wake up feeling groggy.
Search for the term, ‘circadian rhythm’ and understand the routines that will help you to fall asleep naturally. A good routine of natural sleep will ensure that you maintain your mental and physical wellbeing. These changes that I have suggested are not going to give you immediate results, nor will they work without effort.
However, these changes will support your efforts to feel more balanced, especially if you consider each of these seven changes holistically. Together, reducing stress, improving your sleep, working on your relationship, eating well, and exercising effectively are the basic ingredients for a happy life.
Any process that can help improve and enhance your wellbeing is well-worth understanding and adopting!
About the Author
Sheila C. is the brand executive at PureScienceSupplements, a biotechnology research company specializing in the research and application of herbs found within the lush tropical rainforests and highlands in the Asia Pacific. To learn more about their products, feel free to email her.