10 Simple Steps to being well

Carve out quiet time for yourself every day. This can just be 5-10 minutes of undisturbed, deep breathing, centering time to clear the clutter of the mind.

Get the chemicals out. Buy clean home and body products and buy organic produce.

When possible buy directly from farmers at the market. This ensures the most nutrient-dense (supporting local growers), cleanest, truest, and most loved food. If it’s processed, skip it. This includes boxed, bagged, canned, hydrogenated, modified, homogenized, chemicalized, colorized, and fortified. Look for items that are clean, with two or three ingredients that you understand, and are labeled GMO-free.

Skip the sugar! It’s possible to still eat sweets and keep the processed sugar out. There is a wide array of alternative sweeteners that are very good, agave, brown rice syrup, stevia, and honey, to name a few. If you go to a health food store, there are alternative baked goods with softer sweeteners for kiddos!

Get slow. Fast food is very, very scary when we look at what it is made of and how. I remember seeing a post on Facebook that showed this pink play doe looking stuff coming out of a big machine and it was the “stuff” they make chicken nuggets out of, byproducts that go through a bleaching process and then they add back in the pink coloring. Commercials may be alluring for children, but this is not food. If we look a tiny bit into this, we would have no problem avoiding fast food forever more!

Avoid GMO foods. Not the simplest thing while there is still no law to label, however avoiding processed foods and sugary snacks and sodas will help a lot because one of the biggest culprits is high fructose corn syrup (which is pretty much in all processed foods, juices, sodas)! Please be aware and choose wisely.

Avoid artificial sweeteners! Aspartame is poison! It kills ants. It is poison for our bodies. Sometimes we forget that artificial sweeteners are sweetening most chewing gum, and I know children love to chew gum. Please be aware. There are some healthier gums around, check the labels!

Get connected to the Earth! Many of us run around disconnected and busy, missing moments in nature. Nature, and in particular the earth’s electromagnetic field is very healing. Studies show that touching the earth with our bare skin lowers blood pressure, calms nerves, is anti-inflammatory, reduces stress, cures jet lag after long travel, and is joy-producing, healing, and calming (just to name a few ; ). Get connected.

Exercise. Find some activity that brings you JOY. Dance, walk, hike, bike, surf, climb, paddle, swim or do yoga! There is something for everybody but find what makes you happy and then do it 3-5 or more times a week. Think of it like eating or brushing your teeth (because it is just as important ;).

Finally, choose love over fear and kindness over being right. We have such a short time here. Relax, celebrate the people you love, and let them know. Extend random acts of kindness towards yourself and strangers. Be in a state of gratitude for what is working, and celebrate this moment. -For more simple strategies for living well, loving well, and being well, check out my book; Be Well: 100 Ways to Heal, available on Amazon.