Many of us would agree that in order to be healthier, one of the main things we need to pay attention to is the food we eat. We are undoubtedly what we eat, so if we eat fresh food from the garden, we maximize all of the nutritional benefits that our food provides. Eating the proper food can really be a tool for achieving greater health. Nutritionist Samantha Gladish explains that in her practice, she always starts assessing her clients’ health status by looking at what they eat.
One of the things she noticed about many of her clients is that even those who try to eat a healthy diet are commonly guilty of consuming animal products that are full of antibiotics and hormones, including synthetic ones. These animals may also have been fed with genetically modified feed. She says it defeats the purpose of trying to be healthier if what we eat is full of these unnatural substances. For Samantha, even though buying organic food can be significantly more expensive, she still recommends it for her clients because the extra $30 you spend weekly will be worth it for your health, especially when it comes to your own hormones. Achieving hormonal balance is one of the keys to proper health, so it really makes no sense to be ingesting chemicals such as antibiotics and animal hormones from our food if we want to be healthier. Go for better locally-sourced organic food. If you are eating meat, get only the higher quality meat that comes from grass-fed animals.
Apart from our food, Samantha says we also need to look at how we go about our daily activities in terms of our professional and personal lives, as well as the boundaries we set between them. How we deal with regular issues gives us a clue about our self-management skills, which are affected by our daily stress levels and our ability to manage stress. You might be filling up your schedule with too many things, thinking that you are just being passionate about what you do and trying to maximize productivity. But then you fail to set proper boundaries and let your professional life take over your personal life, including your relationships with your loved ones. You then stress out about little issues and some of them even get blown out of proportion. Even if you try to shut out everything you feel to be inconsequential, you might find yourself fatigued late at night and still not able to finish what you intended to finish earlier.
It is very important to set boundaries in our lives. We need to learn when and how to unplug and focus on other things. Samantha suggests setting a fixed time at night where you shut down your computer and set aside your mobile phone. She does these things at eight o’clock every night. She also dims the lights in order to help facilitate the production of melatonin, which will help us achieve a good night’s rest.
With regards to setting boundaries, Samantha says that saying no can be a very powerful thing to help us manage our stress and thus balance our hormones for better health. A lot of times, we say yes because we think that’s the way to be kind and professional. Before we know it, we have loaded up our schedule for a whole month, and when it is finally over, we feel like we just ran a marathon and we had no time for ourselves or our families. It is really vital to identify how much you can take on and then say no to anything extra.
After you have shut down your computers and gadgets, you can then find time for some relaxing but still enriching activities. It can be a simple thing such as a taking a hot bath or reading a good book. If you are the artistic type, maybe you can draw, paint or play an instrument. You can write in a journal or just share stories with your friends or loved ones. Samantha suggests that we should set aside a little time for ourselves both in the morning and in the evening. That way, we can guard against getting too caught up in our daily rush of checking emails, replying to phone messages, meeting deadlines and doing other chores. Setting boundaries makes us slow down and take some time for ourselves. This is very important when it comes to our pursuit of our personal health.
The last equally important thing we need to think about is how we sleep. This is because our bodies recover and regenerate when we are sleeping. It is during this time that we produce human growth hormone, which acts as a powerful antioxidant that helps retard the aging process. Also, our bodies manage our cortisol and insulin levels when we sleep. These are what we can be considered as fat-storing hormones. Samantha correctly says that our inability to sleep effectively disrupts the way we manage these hormones, such that it is no surprise why many people who suffer from insomnia or poor sleep quality also develop problems with their blood sugar and overall weight.
According to studies, the best time to sleep is before ten o’clock in the evening because the ideal time to get the best REM sleep is between eleven in the evening to around two in the morning. To ensure that you comply with this for the benefit of your health, you need to really unplug everything so there will be no distractions. In other words, stop watching Game of Thrones at one o’clock in the morning and go to sleep!
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