Self-care practices
Healthy change for your bodymind changes everything. Scroll through these 12 preventive self-care practices to assess where you’re doing well, where you need improvement, and where you need a U-turn.
OXYGENATE
Oxygen is life. If we want healthy lungs, heart, brain, blood and gut, we suck in fresh air and breathe it down to our microbiome. Aerobic microbes need oxygen to thrive; anaerobic microbes that can live without oxygen make us sick. Hypoxia and acidosis cause fatigue and depression and create illness, whereas oxygenation makes us alkaline and feeds healthy cell metabolism for energy. Breathe, walk in nature, and be a steward of clean air. Learn about ozone and O2 therapies.
HYDRATE
Chronic dehydration increases the risk of every chronic illness. It's bad for our brain, gut, heart, and even our teeth and gums. To hydrate, drink more clean water and skip the plastic. Filter kitchen tap and showers. Get enough electrolytes like magnesium, calcium, potassium and sodium in the right ratios to carry water into cells. We need twice as much potassium as sodium, and most Americans have the reverse. Find the cleanest water sources in your area, and conserve.
EAT SMART
Take control of your food to give yourself the nutrients you need for vibrant lifelong health and wellbeing. Our best medicine is organic whole foods sourced from farmers we trust. Choose foods high in bioavailable nutrients and low in toxins like pesticides and herbicides. Take control of your kitchen. Eat enough good fats, be strategic with key vitamin and mineral supplements if needed, and say goodbye to inflammatory foods like refined sugar, refined wheat flour and pasteurized dairy.
MOUTHBODY CARE
Think mouthbody connection. Choose an oral-systemic, biological dentist for holistic treatments of tooth decay and gum disease and to free your mouth of root canals, mercury fillings, and toxic invasive dentistry. Floss and brush with antimicrobial neem or xylitol toothpaste, but remember to eat a healthy lunch in the sun as well to trigger Vitamin D metabolism. Teeth are bones; you need calcium and Vitamins D & K to get calcium from your blood into your teeth. Keep your mouth moist between meals by sipping water throughout the day. Skip drinks with refined sugar.
GUTBRAIN HEALTH
The gut and brain are connected via the Vagus nervous system and the messenger hormones and neurotransmitters by which the gut and brain communicate. An unhealthy gut can cause inflammation, tics, compulsions, anxieties and depression. Food absorption through our gut is our main source of essential nutrients to sustain life. Nurture healthy microbes with prebiotics, probiotics, essential fats and raw vegan foods. A healthy gut mucosa and gut microbiome are the foundation for mental, emotional and physical health and wellbeing.
BODYMIND DETOX
When our gastrointestinal tract isn’t digesting food, it’s busy detoxifying toxic substances we’ve consumed and eliminating the waste. Manage your own waste and toxic emotions by fasting when you need to to empty, cleanse and restore your intestines, colon, liver and kidneys. Detoxifying these organs takes stress off your heart, clears brain fog, elevates the moods of feel-good hormones, strengthens your immunity, and helps you self-regulate healthy cholesterol and blood sugar. By cleansing and restoring your microbiome for better gutbrain health, you shift the emotions the gutbrain regulates. Clean up your waste to move yourself from OCD, anxiety, fear, depression, anger and resentment to relaxation, calm, faith, happiness, acceptance and reverence. One of those vagal tones feels better.
HORMONE BALANCE
Keep your hair on your head, your feet warm at night for a good night’s sleep, your metabolism burning lean, and your reproductive system healthy. Pineal, pituitary, thyroid, thymus, pancreatic, adrenal and gonad glands all communicate with your body via messenger hormones to sustain physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Our endocrine glands are compromised by herbicides, pesticides, plastics, petrochemicals, EMF and radioactive isotopes. Good nutrition helps, including enough good essential fats, proteins, and minerals. Healthy colon elimination and liver detoxification help balance and protect. Learning to unstress helps you shift your Vagal tone from adrenaline & cortisol to the feel-good hormones of rest-and-connect: serotonin, prolactin, oxytocin, dopamine and endorphins.
NATURAL IMMUNITY
A healthy immune system is your best defense against colds, flu and chronic inflammatory conditions like Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, allergies, asthma, diabetes and arthritis. Chronic inflammation is a sign of an immune system under stress. At the end of the day, no amount of antibiotics, vaccines or steroids can make up for a compromised immune system. We all need the best natural and adaptive immunity we can nurture. Get enough Vitamin D, Vitamin C, zinc, magnesium and healthy fats like oleic acid in virgin cold-pressed olive oil to help yourself live well by resisting infection and inflammation.
UNSTRESS
Think “Om Shanti Shanti” is for new age gurus? Chronic stress spikes cortisol levels, increases inflammation, depletes your adrenal glands, acidifies your gut mucosa, weakens your immunity, and stresses your kidneys and heart. Take a deep breath. Slow down. Take a nap. Meditation is a good way to get a grip on stress. So is decalcifying your pineal gland to get a good night's sleep and visions of a future worth living.
REDUCE TOXINS
It’s inevitable. You are your environment. Pesticides, herbicides, petrochemicals, PCBs, plastics, mercury and plutonium were never as safe as we humans pretended. All of us have a responsibility to clean up our personal and collective ecosystem to reduce toxicity and prevent chronic conditions like mental illness, autism, cancer, arthritis, Parkinson’s and dementia. Be a conscious consumer. Read the labels. Read between the lines. Read the fine print. Read your rights. Then make informed choices that matter.
MOVE YOUR BODYMIND
You evolved to move. It’s why you have a nervous system. Because you are a body, some body, your body. Embodied consciousness moves. Moving is how you respond in a moving changing world. How you adapt. It’s also how you sustain health—because our lymphatic system depends on movement to excrete waste. Feel stuck? Sweat. Not sure where you’re going to or what you’re capable of? Find out by getting out of your chair and moving. When you synchronize your body, mind and emotions in daily movement—what you feel, say and do come into healthy manifestation.
SEX, FERTILITY, CHILDBIRTH
From birth to falling in love to sex, your relationships define you. They are the ultimate test of self-care—because to care for others you need to take care of yourself first. Nurture healthy relationships as part of your overall wellbeing. Reach out and touch someone. Touch stimulates all the feel-good hormones you need to open your heart with empathy and connect.