Your Body is a Temple: Physical Wellness

In the last couple weeks we’ve discussed the importance of emotional, social, and occupational wellness. This brings us to physical wellness. Physical wellness encompasses physical activity, diet, nutrition, and sleep. We all know that great physical wellness wards off illnesses like certain cancers, diabetes, and cognitive problems while also bringing about a greater sense of fulfillment. We all have reasons for wanting to achieve physical wellness so let’s discuss some great goals that may assist you in achieving what it takes to have great physical wellness.

Physical Fitness Routine
Ideally, your goal should be to have a regular routine of activity that you truly enjoy. Do you like hiking, biking, tennis, gardening, or basketball? This isn’t to rule out traditional exercise routines, but if you can truly enjoy HOW you are exercising, it will be that much easier to stick with a routine that promotes healthy exercise. In addition, physical fitness isn’t all about how much you exercise, but also includes maintaining a healthy weight, and muscle mass.
The CDC recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week. This would be broken down into 30 minutes a day, 5 times per week or about 21 minutes per day for a whole week. Here are some ideas that could help achieve this:

• Pick out 5 activities you can do for 30 minutes at a time and assign each one for a night of the week.
• Long hikes or a bike rides
• Enjoy a competitive sport with a friend
• Swimming with the family
• Take your dog to the dog park
• Gardening and Yard Work
• Change up your jogging routine by changing locations
• Classes your local gym offers
• Various clubs you could join that are exercise based such as a hiking club.

Diet/Nutrition
If you look online, you will quickly see many diets and supplements that advertisers claim will help you take off weight quickly and effortlessly. The truth is a healthy diet should help you maintain weight and provide a balance of nutrients that keeps you healthy. Generally, this means eating small amounts every 3 hours throughout the day. This helps keep your metabolism burning strong for weight management, helps you get all the nutrients you need, and helps you feel fuller longer. If you need to lose weight, you can simply reduce the size of your small meals to achieve a lower calorie intake.
Within the scope of eating less more often, you can integrate other lifestyle eating choices such as a low carb eating plan, vegetarian diet, mediterranean diet, etc. By being mindful about what you put in your body while measuring your weight regularly, you can fine tune your efforts.

Sleep Health
Not getting a full night’s sleep on a regular basis, for many, can sabotage all efforts at making substantial health improvements in general. A tired person has the potential to be a very unmotivated person. If something is preventing you from getting a full night’s sleep, it is vital to understand and remediate whatever is preventing you from getting the sleep your body needs. This can be as easy as going to bed earlier or cutting out habits that keep you up late.

Conclusion
If reading this makes you feel overwhelmed, considering not only the spiritual aspects we’ve talked about, but also physical wellness routines you could employ in your life, know that full transformation is a lifestyle. You start with a few things and develop a small routine. Over time, you can add more and more healthy habits into your life, mastering them as you go. Understand this, a transformative lifestyle is about the journey itself, not the destination. The small improvements you make are the reward. You may have a destination in mind, but there will always be new ways to grow and improve yourself so take time to enjoy the scenery and find fulfillment in the process.