Strive to take care of your body from a place of self-care, rather than self-loathing, self-hatred, or deep rigidity. This ensures a more sustainable and positive relationship with your health journey.
Practice self-compassion, as it acts as a cleaner, more sustainable fuel for self-improvement than self-hatred or subtle aggression. People with self-compassion are more likely to engage in positive behaviors like exercise without burning out.
Set fitness goals but approach them with flexibility and self-kindness, avoiding stress and negative self-talk if you don’t always meet them. This fosters sustainability and consistency in your health journey.
Recognize that many beauty standards are arbitrary and may not correlate with actual health, and avoid trying to force your body into a specific shape based on these standards. This can be hugely liberating and foster a healthier self-image.
Pay attention to the judgments that arise when you encounter people with different body types, as this exercise reveals your conditioning. Over time, you can challenge these unfair assumptions, which not only benefit others but also improve your relationships.
Seek out and engage in forms of exercise that you genuinely enjoy, such as paddleboarding or indoor climbing. This shifts motivation from obligation to desire, making workouts something you look forward to rather than a chore.
Listen to your body’s intuition, eat what you want, stop when full, and release the idea of ‘sinful’ foods, while gently holding basic nutritional facts. This approach offers a healthier and more sustainable path than restrictive dieting.
Before eating, ask yourself ‘How do I want to feel?’ and use the answer to guide your food choices, rather than rigid rules or guilt. This helps you avoid foods that might negatively impact your sleep or energy levels.
Allocate your weekly exercise time by dividing it into tenths: four tenths for low-intensity cardio, one tenth for high-intensity cardio, four tenths for strength training, and one tenth for mobility. This balanced approach helps with overall fitness and healthy aging.
Try to achieve 8,000 steps per day, often by taking work calls or other activities on a walk, distinct from your structured exercise. This practice, rooted in research, can significantly impact overall health and even help with sleep.
Eat slowly and mindfully, potentially in silence or without screens, to become more aware of your body’s satiety cues and avoid overeating. This practice helps you take the right amount of food and finish your plate appropriately.
When faced with a craving, consider the gratification, the potential danger of overindulgence (e.g., feeling bad later), and then rationally reflect if you’re willing to pay the price for immediate pleasure. This Buddhist-derived exercise helps manage impulses and make conscious choices.
Dedicate specific days to intentional rest and ‘doing nothing,’ similar to the ‘Lazy Day’ practice in Plum Village. This allows your body and mind to heal and recover, rather than constantly striving for improvement.
Consciously try behaviors or foods you perceive as ‘forbidden,’ like eating a whole bag of chips or running excessively, while being fully present and honest about your experience. This allows you to learn through direct experience what truly feels good or bad for you.
Recognize that behavior change, especially around exercise, is linked to community and relationships; if you’re struggling, lean on friends who have momentum, and if you have momentum, help pull others along.
Instead of formal exercise, live in a way that naturally occasions movement, such as walking to work or friends’ houses, accumulating around 8,000 steps daily without conscious effort. This is observed in Blue Zones for longevity.
Whenever possible, take your walks outdoors to simultaneously gain exposure to nature and sunlight. This practice offers huge benefits for happiness and overall well-being.
If experiencing insomnia, increase your daily walking, as it is prescribed as a first intervention in the U.S. military to help improve sleep.
Identify situations where you habitually eat without true hunger, such as prepping food late at night, and modify your environment or delegate the task to avoid putting yourself in that position. This helps prevent eating when you’re not actually hungry and improves sleep.
Develop the ability to tune out the latest food trends and dietary noise, reducing pressure on yourself to eat ’exactly right.’ This helps maintain a more stable and less anxious relationship with food.
Opt for exercise activities that genuinely enhance your daily life and mood, rather than rigidly adhering to specific routines or chasing an ‘optimal’ spread. There are many ways to achieve health and mood benefits from movement.
Be mindful not to fall into orthorexia, an unhealthy obsession with getting healthy, or engage in insane, obsessive tracking of health metrics. This can be unhelpful and detract from a balanced approach to well-being.
Download the 10% with Dan Harris app to access guided meditations for stress, anxiety, sleep, focus, and self-compassion, and participate in weekly live Zoom community sessions for meditation and Q&A. This helps with various aspects of mental and emotional health.