The Healthy Lifestyle Way

THE LONGEST JOURNEY STARTS WITH THE FIRST STEP  

I just wonder if you’ve ever experienced the following situation. That when your morning starts badly for you, everything seems to go downhill from there. You end up being in a negative frame of mind most of the day, you lose control of your healthy eating intentions and end up eating more food and making wrong choices, and the whole day feels like a losing battle. Just because you had a bad start to the day. So is this something you’ve experienced. If not, congratulations, you’re pretty unique. But if you have, isn’t it time you took control of your day.

Facts are, if your morning starts well, the rest of the day will follow through with a positive outlook. So what can you do about it?  The first action is simple. No more lying in bed in the morning, fighting off your alarm, grabbing those extra few minutes in dream land, and then rushing around like a headless chicken, trying to get everything done before you fly out the door. Let me make this extremely clear. Even if I know I’m sounding more like my mother every day. Waking up tired to the sound of an annoying alarm clock, hitting that snooze button multiple times, and then rushing out the door without even having time to fuel your body, that’s the purpose of breakfast, you are creating the problems that will now face you for the rest of the day.  

So what am I suggesting instead. I want you to create for yourself a happy, relaxed, productive day, where you have a positive mind and an energised body right from the start.  The magic is to programme yourself to get up one hour early. Yes that right, one extra hour in the morning can and will make such a significant difference to your day ahead, as well as your life.Getting up an hour earlier than you normally do. Now don’t pull that face! I don’t know you but I do know what your initial reaction is. You are questioning my sanity! You’re about to give up reading my blog, because I’m suggesting something so impossible! But am I, or perhaps am I giving you the key to unlock your potential, to now be able to achieve so much more than you ever have before. Am I not giving you an uninterrupted one hour ‘MY’ time! At this time of day you will have your own private time.  This is the time of the day that is truly your own private time ‘Me Time’.

You will now have one hour, every day, to programme yourself for success.   You have to make it a priority in your life. A great start to the day will make a huge difference to you. Eliminate any excuses, give it a go, and get started creating your perfect morning each morning. I call it my Morning Power up Session. Give it a try and see the difference it can make to your day  

OK SO I’M UP, WHAT DO I DO NOW?  Your overall health improves when you treat your body to habits that stave off stress and support a balanced lifestyle. Here I give to you the first step of my morning power up session:   GET INTO CENTRE – Tune in your mind and body. It’s like pressing the starter motor of a car. Within five minutes of waking, you will have gone from the early morning brain fog, to an alert, powerful fully functioning brain, with a strong and powerful body. You’re going to feel like you can walk through a wall, internally in an excited voice you’re going to say ‘come on, bring the day on!’  

BREATHE – Breathing correctly will flush out the bad energies and inhale fresh and positive energy. Every cell and organ will benefit from you breathing in fresh oxygen and removing all that nasty stuff. Concentrate on your breathing. You have to breathe to live. When was the last time you noticed, how you breathe? Breathe in deep through your nose, exhale it completely out through your mouth, Bring it in and out from your diaphragm.  

MOVE – Get your muscles and joints fully oiled. Give them a stretch. Neck, arms, shoulders, chest, back, move down to your butt and your legs. . Now how about getting out and do a power walk, or go out on your bike, maybe even pull out your exercise machine in your garage. Get your heart and lungs pumping. Move your body. Purposely, with power. You’re now a winner no more slouching, no more ambling.   

GRATITUDE - The act of focusing with gratitude on everything you have in your life. and then using those positive thoughts to create a happy, productive day will calm your mind and create energy for your day ahead. Cut out the negativity, we can all find troubles in our lives, things not going as they should. We’re the best at seeing these. But now find the good things. You found one a minute ago. Your breathing, so you’re alive. Now start to live, make each and every day better than the one before.  

AFFIRMATIONS - use positive affirmations. Tell yourself positive things, such as “I am a winner’, ‘I am a great person’ whatever words that will highly charge you, motivate you, that will get you into a confident and positive state.Please don’t tell me you like telling yourself, how you can’t do this or that, how you weren’t meant to …, how you’ll never … Stop! That’s no longer you! Get positive, compliment yourself, be who you want to be.  

VISUALISATION – Get a mental picture of you achieving your GOALS. See the day ahead working out brilliantly for you. Hey, your choice, morning television, yawn, or watch a video in your own head of your new wonderful successful life. Welcome to the big screen. Step on and watch yourself go.  

MULTIVITAMIN - Nutritional supplementation is a good source to ensure you receive all the vitamins and minerals you need for a correct daily allowance.   

DRINK WATER - Your body needs to re-hydrate, especially after being without fluids all night. And just tell yourself you love the taste of water, keep telling yourself and eventually you will. How do I know you don’t. Because as a fitness trainer I’ve heard it 1000’s of times, and once upon a time, I thought wrongly that I didn’t like it either. Your body needs water right through the day. So get started.  That’s all there is to it. So achievable in 30 minutes, an hour if you want. What a difference it will make to your life. .I spend 30 minutes doing that, then I still have time to do three more things before I start my ‘normal day’ 

“The tipping point is defined as the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point. It is the point when everyday things reach epidemic proportions“ —Malcolm Gladwell

So as you can see from my previous article, stress is not essentially bad. Stress is a healthy and necessary part of all of our lives, giving us motivation, excitement, purpose and efficiency. “Without stress, there would be no life.” Hans Selye. At the right level stress can be a great motivator. We all have a level of supportable stress, a personal stress threshold.

When we go past this point we become worn out, frail and weak, entering a dangerously overwhelming level, often incapable of carrying on with your normal every day life. With too much stress (distress), we reach overload. Our ability to cope becomes limited, and we feel burned out. At this point it is essential you take action, before you experience health problems.

While everyone has, and needs, a certain level of stress in their lives, when that stress reaches a point that it begins to negatively effect aspects of our lives, it ceases to be healthy. Everyone reacts to stress differently and with a different threshold of distress, but common clues to distress include feelings of being constantly overwhelmed, alienation of family and friends, poor academic achievement, lack of interest or performance in extra-curricular activities and/or changes in sleeping patterns and appetite.

There is no single level of stress that is optimal for all people. What one person may find distressing, another may find quite enjoyable, and even if two individuals were to agree on a stressful event, their physiological and emotional responses to it would be quite different. As such, it is not the events or circumstances themselves, but rather our unique perceptions, thoughts and reactions toward them that make them stressful. Every individual has his or her own “stress threshold”

Stress can easily become distress as it begins to affect our lives negatively, reducing our motivation, negatively affecting our relationships and performance, and poses significant health risks!

The relationship between pressure and performance is demonstrated by the Yerkes-Dodson Principle. This shows that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, up to a certain point. When we pass this point, and the level of pressure becomes too high, performance diminishes.

The above inverted U-shaped curve illustrates how performance increases, and then decreases with increasing levels of arousal.

At the beginning part of the curve, where your stress levels are low, you will see that your performance is also low because you are not being challenged and could be bored, under stimulated, lacking concentration and motivation. (Astress).
The upward part of the inverted U is the stimulating effect of arousal. This is the zone of best performance called “optimal stress.” Within this zone, you are aroused to the level that gives a high quality performance, at the same time as not being over-stressed or discontented. So as pressure increases, you enter the “area of best performance”. There is enough pressure on you to focus your attention completely on the tasks at hand, whilst finding yourself energized and performing at your best, but not so much that it disrupts your performance. This is a powerful, creative, and rewarding state of mind. (Eustress)
The downward part is the negative effects of arousal or stress. Where stress is too high, lasts too long, occurs too often, or is too severe, your performance can suffer and you experience many of the negative symptoms of stress, reaching stress overload. (Distress).

What this is showing, is that as stress increases, so does performance, up to a point which is the top of the curve, but once it passes this optimal point, the stress becomes chronic, and performance decreases.

You can conclude from this, that:

When you aren’t experiencing sufficient stress, your performance dips because you find yourself unmotivated, and bored with your life.
To a certain point, a specific amount of stress is healthy, useful, and even beneficial, in that it can increase performance.
When stress exceeds one’s ability to cope, this overload contributes to diminished performance, inefficiency, and even health problems.

If stress is beginning to have a negative impact on any aspect of your life, reducing the level of stress in your life and/or improving your ability to manage it will help you to be productive in and your enjoy your everyday activities.

The goal should therefore be to control our level of stress and establish a good balance in our lives, rather than striving to eliminate stress entirely.

When anything causes a shift in your mental stability & pushes you to a form of unrest or discomfort this constitutes pressure. Pressure can help you to reach your full potential, or it can make you feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders.

When most areas of your life are running efficiently then the pressure from one single event or area of your life can often be managed without trouble. Yet the exact same event can be overpowering for an individual who is dealing with lots of different situations in their lives, which are already placing them under a great deal of pressure. This final event, is like the last straw that breaks the camels back.

In these modern times in which we live the pressures that we have to deal with are often unrelenting. Frequently this constant barrage of pressure around an individual becomes overwhelming, leads to stress which then can become potentially damaging. As the level of pressure becomes too much, stress ultimately exceeds our ability to deal with it in a positive manner. Clearly when we are under to much pressure, or the pressure upon us is long-lasting, the negative effects of stress start to show up in our life affecting both our mental and physical functioning. As this pressure becomes too much, then the fear of failure and not coping add even more pressure.

Too often the demands placed on you mean that on a daily basis you are having to deal with more and more stressful situations. Your stress response is constantly activated, and this takes a heavy toil on you eventually resulting in various common physical symptoms of severe stress which if left unattended, will eventually affect your overall health in a negative way.

These negative effects of stress are seen physically, mentally and emotionally. Everyone responds in a different way to the pressure to which they are exposed, but when this pressure reaches excessive levels for them, it can have the consequence of various
physical and mental symptoms.

These symptoms differ extremely for each person, but may include: headaches, stomach disorders, sleeplessness, irritability, backache, neckache, muscle tension, anxiety, nausea. Unless dealt with can lead to major health problems including heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, depression, digestive problems and sleep disorders.

So have you reached the point of burn out, where you are stressed to high heaven, and find yourself at your wits end? Are you like an over-inflated balloon, where the slightest pinprick cause you to burst?
Is the pressure you are under making you act in ways that you are not proud of but find yourself justifying this behaviour by blaming it on your situation or someone else that you blame?

If you answered yes to the above, you are obviously lacking effective ways to challenge and beat the stresses that are wearing you down. You are certainly not alone. With the growing pressures every one faces including work pressures, family commitments, financial pressures including mortgages, credit card payments, utility biils, rates and your other financial obligations, and the lack of time needed by all the demands on you, stressful situations appear to wait for you at every turn, even those small daily hassles—like rush hour traffic, queuing at the supermarket, and so many more. All these pressures and demands prove too great for many people to handle.

With the way modern day living is, the sad facts are that nobody lives without stress. The constant pressure associated with living in a fast-paced world has created an environment where nearly everyone feels the effects of stress. And our stress load keeps increasing.

There is no one definite, significant moment when you reach the unhealthy level of stress. In fact it is normally an accumulation of small stressful situations that gradually balloon and get out of control.

It is my wish to bring to you practical solutions to deal with stress and help you to minimize the stress you encounter, helping you deal with stress in an effective way. I will offer you solutions and provide you with the tools in your arsenal against the ravaging effects of stress.

One very important point I bring to your attention, that knowing will help you in your stress management, is that it is not the external events or situations that do harm to you, but your response to these events. It is your emotional reaction that is the source of your stress, not the event itself. Your emotions and your feelings have a powerful impact on you. Negative feelings are stressful and damaging to your health. Positive feelings bring about health and well being, as well as boost your performance.

Much of the pressure you feel is caused by the thoughts you hold in your mind. The way you talk to yourself, the way you talk about yourself, plays a major part in how you feel. You have to improve your ability to handle pressure. You must let go of the things you cannot control.

Let me offer you a solution that you can adopt right now. To step out of the constant cycle of stress, you must direct your mental focus away from your problems (things you don’t want), and on creating positive solutions instead (things you do want).

Here are some simple steps that you need to take.

1. Decide to be positive from now on, no longer allowing your negative self talk to lead your mind.

2. Know what you want, the results you are after. Get 100% clear on what it is you want and be in no doubt whatsoever that you will receive it!

3. Know why you want it, the compelling Purpose that gives you the drive to follow through. This creates a laser-like focus within you, arousing your desire and commitment to achieve your goal.

4. See a mental image of the life you want. Design and embrace a mental image of the life you want, fill this with emotion, and excitement.

5. Design an Action Plan that will get you there.

6. Break your action-plan into the smallest possible daily steps

7. Begin to take action — one step at a time.

“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure” ~ Peter Marshall

When we talk about stress, generally we are referring to something that we deem to be negative. Many of the articles you will read simply focus in on it from a harmful perspective. Yet in fact stress can actually be helpful to us as well as motivating. Life would be dull and boring without challenges to push you along. If you never faced changes in your life you would find life mind-numbing. You need new and exciting experiences to stimulate you. Imagine nothing new happening in your life. Day to day everything stays the same. This may be alright for a short time, but not for long.

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future” ~ John F. Kennedy

The challenges and changes we face in our lives provide opportunities for us to learn and grow, presenting us with momentum in our lives. I remember as a Kid when I learnt to ride a bicycle. I kept falling of, got battered and bruised, but my Dad told me to keep going, remember the outcome I wanted, and know soon I would achieve it. It was probably the first major challenge I faced, and of course I succeeded. The most important lesson from this was, that no matter how difficult the challenge, if I kept the end in mind, I would find a solution, every time.

The right balance of pressure leads to a productive and healthy life. Too little pressure leads to boredom and lethargy; too much pressure leads to physical and emotional breakdown.

Having a little pressure in our lives actually is beneficial to us. It helps us to grow. It gives us that push we sometimes need to keep going, and to excel. It keeps us alert and on our toes. So in this respect pressure is good for us. We need some stress to get us up in the morning, without it why would we leave the comfort and warmth of that lovely bed. Also it is essential to have some pressure to get us motivated to take action to make something out of our life day by day. It gives us the drive we need to make effective use of our time. It helps us to be our very best.

Our body’s stress response increases our ability to perform efficiently under pressure, it creates that buzz to get things done. We use it as fuel for peak performance.

In fact we have been created to be able to use pressure to our benefit. Our automatic stress response is the fight-or-flight reaction our bodies produce in reaction to threat, insecurity or change—it has evolved to help us survive. This stress response can energise us, revving up our systems to enable us to deal with everything we need.

This is positive stress, and is known as Eustress, and it provides us with extra physical and emotional resources when it is triggered, and enables us to perform at higher levels when needed.

Eustress as defined by Dr Hans Selye as stress that is healthy, or providing a sense of fulfilment or other positive feelings. It is the positive, pleasing stress that makes life exciting serving to motivate and enthuse us. Good stress comes from events such as going to university, beginning a new job, getting married, studying for exams, buying a house, or having a baby. Although these are happy, positive events, they still bring with them stress.

When our brain perceives physical or psychological stress, it results in our heart beating faster, our blood pressure increases, our senses sharpen, and we experience a rise in blood glucose, all which goes to invigorate us and gives us a burst of energy. It stimulates us. Its our inbuilt red bull, lucozade, and powerade. Our performance is often at its best when we are under pressure.

Stress can actually increase our performance. When we have the right mentality we can use stress as an impetus to achieve success, and not wilt under the constant pressures.

There are innumerable instances of athletes rising to the challenge of stress and achieving the unachievable by pushing themselves to the limit. Let them be the demonstration to you, that stress doesn’t have to necessarily be bad.

The peak stress level is the physical state that athlete’s perform at their best. Top performers reach a peak state in response to pressure which they see as a challenge and brings out their best intensity of performance. When they come under pressure they go into a focused, positive mental/emotional state.

So for you to achieve peak performance in your life, you do have to overcome adversity and difficulties, and use stress to raise the quality of your life. You can thrive under pressure. Let it make you sharp and ready for action.

Let me offer you one solution that you can adopt right now. To step out of the constant cycle of stress bringing a negative impact to your life, you must direct your mental focus away from your problems (things you don’t want), and on creating positive solutions instead (things you do want).

See any difficult situation you face as just a positive challenge which needs to be overcome. Use the pressure to motivate you, and get you to focus on solutions for the challenge you face. Let this pressure be your driving force. This is a vital element to living the healthy lifestyle way.