Improving your health and wellness, both physical and mental, may seem like a daunting task. We associate improving our health with major lifestyle changes, inconvenient exercise routines or complicated dieting plans, but this doesn’t have to be the case!
There are some surprisingly simple ways to feel and look better that can slot right into your current lifestyle, making them easier to adapt to and maintain. You can’t always find the time to pop into the spa for a massage to break your routine or get advice from our therapists, so this blog will outline possible additions or minor changes to your diet, lifestyle and the products you use in your own home. Not all of them may be perfect for you, but that’s ok! You can adopt as many tips as you like, or use them as a first step into making bigger changes.
Boosting Your Diet
Your diet doesn’t only affect your skin and body, but your mental wellness as well. Eating well helps you feel and look better, but we often try to change our diet dramatically; cutting out the foods we love and eating only carefully meal-planned dishes. This can make diets hard to maintain, and demotivate you quickly.
Instead you should start with smaller diet changes first, that can benefit you a great deal on their own, or help transition you into more major changes. For example:
Herbs and Spices
Herbs and Spices don’t just make your food taste amazing, they also have some major health benefits:
Sage: True to its name, sage is a medicinal herb that’s great at boosting your brain function and memory. It’s also great at fortifying your immune system since it contains antioxidants and is suggested to help reduce blood sugar levels. Sage retains its flavour when dried, so fresh or dried sage can be incorporated into pasta sauces or in meat dishes to give an earthy flavour.
Turmeric: This spice contains curcumin, a powerful antioxidant and has great anti-inflammatory properties. This makes it a great spice to add to your food if you have chronic pain or diseases, want to boost your immune system or want to slow down health problems associated with ageing. Turmeric is a common ingredient in curries, giving rice a characteristic yellow colour. If you prefer milder tastes, fresh turmeric has a softer taste than its dried and powdered variety. Turmeric leaves a yellow tint on your hands or plastic cookware, so use glass containers to store any leftovers!
Cayenne Pepper: Cayenne is a type of chilli pepper that contains Capsaicin, an ingredient that reduces appetite and increases fat burning so this may be a good ingredient to add if you wish to reduce your food intake in a natural way that doesn’t leave you feeling unsatisfied.
Garlic: Garlic is a very powerful ingredient to include in your diet, as it contains allicin, which is surprisingly effective at lowering blood pressure and cholesterol. It’s also great at combating sickness, so it’s well worth adding or increasing the amount of garlic you use in your food.
Side Dishes & Fermented Foods
Adding a side dish or small addition to your existing food favourites can also be a great way
to boost your diet. I’ve focused on sides that require very little preparation, to have as little of an effect on your routine as possible.
Western Diets are lacking in foods that support your gut health. Fermented Foods contain beneficial bacteria that help with digestion, immunity, weight and mental health, so including them in your diet is a great idea. But what are these probiotic boosting foods? Kimchi, for example, is a popular Korean dish that goes well as a side dish or with dishes that are a little bland. It’s usually made from fermented cabbage, garlic, ginger, spring onions and seasonings. It can be found in any Asian food store in containers of various sizes, so it’s easy to pick up a small packet if you’re not sure if you’ll like it.
Yoghurt is definitely a familiar food, but it has many benefits you may not be aware of. It can reduce your risk of heart disease, contains a great deal of nutrients and like kimchi, boosts your gut health. Adding Yoghurt to baked goods or breakfast dishes is a great option if you prefer not to eat yoghurt on its own.
Kefir is another fermented drink that’s great for you. It’s common in Eastern Europe and Russia, but you can even make it at home by adding grains to a glass of milk and letting it sit for 24 hours. The grains will prevent it from spoiling and ferment the milk, leaving you with a smooth drinkable yoghurt smoothie! You can strain out the grains before drinking, and they remain healthy and ready to make more Kefir!
Small Lifestyle Changes
Adding or making little changes to your routine can dramatically help your physical and mental health. In this section we will take a look at a few simple tips you can adapt to your lifestyle:
Epsom Salts: Epsom salts are readily available (and low cost) from pharmacies. By adding them to your bath, they can break down and be absorbed into your skin. The health benefits are endless; reducing swelling, bruising and sprains, helping with insomnia, reducing muscle soreness and chemotherapy discomfort and soothing pain from sunburn.
Getting a Regular Amount of Sleep: Sleep can make or break your health, and can really bring your mental wellness down. Setting aside at least 8 hours of sleep at the same time each day is especially important. Many people tend to stay up later on their days off, and this can throw off your body’s natural rhythms. Of course getting to sleep may be easier said than done if you have sleeping problems like insomnia, so you may want to consider our blog post on getting good, restful sleep.
Planning Your Meals: Planning your meals in advance can save you last minute stress or problems with missing ingredients. You may want to set a little time aside each week to plan a few meals, or even make meals in advance if the food can be stored in the fridge or frozen. This also helps you avoid eating takeout or unhealthy snacks when you are too tired to cook at the end of the day.
Set and Track Your Goals: Staying motivated is hard sometimes, so track your progress and reward yourself! You can write down your goals and milestones, and set rewards when you achieve them. Achieved your daily goals? Reward yourself with some self-care time like watching a movie or taking a long bath instead of a shower. Achieved a major goal? Treat yourself to a trip to your favourite restaurant, or a relaxing afternoon at the spa on your day off. Rewards can be as large or as small as you want, but remember that it’s healthy to keep your motivation up.
Using the Right Products
Many people use skincare and body care products that are popular, or recommended to them by others, without first ensuring that the products are suited to their unique needs. It is important to use products suited for your skin type, otherwise these products can do more harm than good.
Identifying Your Skin Type
Determining your skin type is straightforward if you know what characteristics to look for. First, wash your face with a cleanser and dry your skin. Take note of any of these features that may occur after 30 minutes:
Dry Skin: You may have dry skin if your skin feels tight and parched. Throughout the day, people with dry skin may also notice a little flaking. Moisturising soon after washing your face, with an intensely hydrating moisturiser, is therefore very important for this skin type.
Oily Skin: If you wait an extra 30 minutes and you can observe a slight shine all over your face, your skin may be oily. Identifying oil is easier if you have sheets of skin blotting paper that you can use to test for oil. It is still important to nourish your skin with products, so you may want to use products that are not greasy or oily. Exfoliants or peels will also help get rid of any clogged pores that oily skin is susceptible to causing.
Combination Skin: If you only observe shine on your nose, chin and/or forehead, you may have combination skin. Your cheeks, on the other hand, may feel a little dry. To meet the needs of all areas of the face, you may therefore prefer to use gel products, so as not to dry out dry areas and over-hydrate oily ones. It is still important to moisturise after you strip your natural oils away when washing your skin.
Wrapping Up
Improving your health doesn’t require a complete change to your lifestyle. It’s better to take small steps, and build upon them, than take a giant leap and struggle to maintain it. But at the end of the day, making small changes for yourself can lead to better physical and mental wellness.
other blogs your may be interested in
Tackling Dry Skin
Having a Spa Day at Home
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