What I’m proposing with this article is to achieve a dual objective: looking after your body and looking after your mind. For me, adopting a healthy lifestyle should always rhyme with living a happy, fulfilled life. To be healthy, a healthy lifestyle is not enough. The mind is just as important, as it is often the source of chronic stress, lack of self-confidence or anger. These are very strong emotions which, over the long term, can lead to pathologies.

So why should we engage in intense sporting activity, eat healthily and, on the other hand, let our emotions overwhelm us and lead a stressful life? In my opinion, this doesn’t fit in with the happy, healthy life we’re all striving for.

With the 10 tips I’ve outlined below, I’d like to help you reconnect with your body and your emotions, so that they become the tools you need to adopt a healthy, happy lifestyle.

1 – EATING RIGHT, THE BASIS OF A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE
Diet is one of the pillars of a healthy lifestyle. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of crash diets or new fad diets (paleo, vegan, vegetarian) unless they are guided by solid convictions.

In my opinion, healthy eating is all about eating the real thing. In other words, vegetables and fruit free from pesticides, meat and fish raised according to the rules of the art, respecting their living conditions and natural environment, and free-range eggs.

It also means forgetting processed products (ready-made meals, over-sweetened and over-salted products) and replacing them with raw, quality products such as those I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Reconnecting with these products also means relearning how to cook and enjoy yourself in the kitchen.

Our body is a complex machine, but it works like a car. If your car needs petrol and you put diesel in it, you’re in trouble. It’s the same for your body: if you give it pesticides, food coloring, additives or sugar that it can’t digest, the machine jams. Giving your body food with real nutritional qualities is the best way to ensure that it functions properly.

But that’s not all!

2 – GET MOVING WHENEVER POSSIBLE
Sport is part of a healthy lifestyle, that’s for sure, but I prefer to talk about movement, because you may not be a great sportsman or woman, and that doesn’t matter. Doing sport is ideal, but moving is already very good. Activity develops your respiratory and cardiac capacities, and boosts your immune system. Which activity should you take up, and how often? The choice is yours!

However, I do have a few tips to share with you to help you get moving whenever possible:
Take the stairs instead of the elevator
Choose to walk rather than drive for outings close to home.
Swap a shopping trip to the mall for a walk in nature (park, forest, lakeside).
Run for just 10 or 15 minutes if you feel like it
If you take public transport, get off one stop before your terminus and continue on foot.
You can start the exercise right away with a sheet of paper and a pen. Write down everything you do in your daily life that you can replace with a little movement.

3 – A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE ALSO MEANS TAKING CARE OF YOUR SLEEP
Sleep plays an essential role in your body. It enables hormonal stimulation, brain maturation, cell reconstruction, immune development, learning and memorization, and mood enhancement.

Take a look at your sleep and ask yourself: Am I getting enough sleep? Do I wake up often at night? Do I have trouble falling asleep? Is my night restless?

There are simple things you can do to help yourself get back to a good night’s sleep:

Get some fresh air when you leave work before going home, to disconnect and decompress from your day.
Eat a light meal
Before going to bed, take 30 minutes for a quiet activity (away from TV, telephone and computer screens) such as reading a book, drawing, meditating or writing.
Opt for calming herbal infusions: chamomile works very well for sleep, as long as you choose it in bloom in an organic store (the kraft sachets) or from a herbalist to enjoy all its benefits.
And if all that doesn’t work, why not try to identify the problem at the root of your sleep problems: anxiety, stress?

4 – GO BACK TO BASICS
The return of vintage is everywhere, and that makes me really optimistic. More and more people are taking part in circular economy initiatives: buying second-hand clothes, reupholstering antique furniture, reintroducing natural products in the bathroom, opting for local food.

Cycles repeat themselves, and I think we’re entering a cycle that’s really beneficial for our bodies and minds. We’re going back to basics, living retro so to speak, giving priority to artisans (butchers, fishmongers, market gardeners), small-scale creators, mutual aid and the sharing of goods. This creates social ties and contributes to our happiness. That’s what healthy living is all about!

So if you haven’t yet joined this movement, I invite you to experiment with a lifestyle similar to that of our grandparents, a time when supermarkets hadn’t taken over our consumption patterns.

Consume differently just to see how it feels, and to allow yourself to ask the question: “What’s really essential to me?”

5 – FROM CONSUMERISM TO MINIMALISM
The society we live in is industrialized, and the food industry offers us processed products with the aim of being ever more productive and profitable. The problem is that the giants of industrialization deliver products that put our health at risk. To adopt a healthy lifestyle, we need to move away from this mass industrialization.

How can we do this?

We learn to change our consumption habits, to live better with less.

Not an easy thing to do, is it? It’s true that it implies shifting our habits a little, but what’s certain is that it also enables us to lead a happier life. Because if we stop filling our homes with useless objects, buying more and more food that ends up in our garbage cans, filling our wardrobes only to use 10% of them, we’ll be able to rediscover our true source of happiness, which lies within ourselves.

Yes, happiness is within us, we just have to go out and find it, and minimalism (living better with less) makes this possible.

6 – TAKING CARE OF YOUR TWO BRAINS
Did you know that we have two brains? There’s the central nervous system, as we know it, and the enteric nervous system, which can work independently and autonomously, and is more commonly known as the digestive system.
These two systems are linked by nerve pathways that enable them to communicate with each other: the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. If the brain is stressed, it sends signals to the second brain, i.e. the intestine, producing an unpleasant reaction (stomach ache, diarrhoea). Hence the importance of taking care of both brains.

The intestine stores many toxins (environmental, dietary but also emotional) and according to recent studies, these toxins could well be at the origin of many diseases and cancers. So how can we take care of our two brains?

So what does it mean to have a healthy lifestyle?

Adopting a healthy lifestyle means taking care of your body as well as your mind, and this takes on its full meaning when we talk about both brains. It’s about giving your body the right diet, without overloading it with toxins, and also taking care of your emotions and stress.

7 – SLOW DOWN AND RELAX
Easier said than done, isn’t it? That’s my life’s quest and yours too, I imagine 🙂

Personally, I managed to slow down and relax when I stopped telling myself “I don’t have time” I’ve got too many things to do”. I started to relax when I stopped putting pressure on myself and above all I really let go when I made the choice to take care of me first.

What do you gain by running around all day, and more importantly, what do you lose if you choose to look after yourself first? From experience, I can assure you that you gain much more than you can imagine. How do you slow down in practice?

Make time for yourself: read a good book on the way home from work, take up yoga or painting if that’s what relaxes you, take time to pamper yourself in the bathroom, read a poem or story aloud. Remember what you liked to do in your teenage bedroom, or when you “had the time”, and make it part of your daily routine.

Change your priorities: cleaning every day isn’t a priority. The priority is to do something for your well-being, to feel good. It’s going out for a drink with friends, it’s working on a project that’s close to your heart, it’s listening to yourself.

It’s about listening to yourself. It’s about taking into account the soul your body harbours, which is just waiting to live to the full. Acting for your well-being, for yourself. It’s by taking action (even the smallest steps) that you develop your self-confidence, recognize your value and unlimited potential.

8 – TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR WELL-BEING
Adopting a perfect lifestyle isn’t just about eating well and exercising. In my opinion, it goes much deeper than that. It’s about making the choice to be well, to live a healthy, serene life.

Sometimes, it’s easier to put the blame on external factors: “I don’t have the time”, “I can’t manage with the kids, housework and my job”, “If I had more money, I’d be happier”. For a long time, I believed that the solution to a healthier, happier life would come from outside, and for a long time, I waited in vain. Why was this?

Because the solution lies within each of us, and we are the masters of our own happiness. It’s up to each of us to decide if we want to be happy, if we want to change our lifestyle, if we want to earn more money. Each of you has value, and if you choose to switch, to be your best friend rather than your best enemy, you’ll begin to touch serenity and happiness.

9 – LEARN TO LISTEN TO YOUR EMOTIONS
Learning to listen to your emotions and your body is the secret to fighting poor health. When you’re stressed, when your stomach hurts, when you feel uncomfortable, your body is speaking to you. Your body and your emotions give you strong indicators. If you learn to observe them, you’ll be able to delve deep inside yourself and cleanse both your brains of stress, emotional wounds and food toxins.

To observe these indicators and improve your lifestyle, you need to reconnect with your body and your emotions. Yoga and meditation are incredible tools for reconnecting with your body.

For those who are reluctant to take up these practices, sometimes it’s simply a matter of reconnecting with your passions and intuition. Alternative therapies such as acupuncture and hypnosis can help with more serious problems such as eating disorders, chronic anxiety and sleep disorders.

10 – ACCEPT IMPERFECTION, OR HOW TO ADOPT A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE!
Adopting a healthy lifestyle can be easier than you think. Ultimately, what we’re looking for in a healthy lifestyle is to feel happy and healthy. It’s a balance to be struck between excess and good habits, and therefore good lifestyle rules.

For example, opting for a healthy diet doesn’t mean depriving yourself of all life’s pleasures. Once again, it’s a matter of choice. People who choose vegetarianism do so out of conviction and live it very well, but it’s not necessarily the lifestyle that’s right for you.

Every body is different, every soul unique. So relax, take things one step at a time, test and listen to your body and your emotions to adjust things. Happiness is not something to be sought at any price; it will come naturally if you act for yourself and according to yourself. Each of us is an imperfect being with unlimited power.

If you happen to have a craving for a pastry, don’t blame yourself (remember, if you blame yourself, your brain will send a signal to your gut and deposit a “pretty” negative emotion in your intestinal flora) and instead ask yourself if this craving is an emotional impulse and why does it manifest itself in this form?

In conclusion, I hope this article has helped you and given you the keys to adopting a perfect, or almost perfect, lifestyle. I wanted to show you, through this article, that the body and mind work together and that they each deserve special attention.

You can put in place all the diets in the world, practice all the sporting activities in the world, but if you don’t take care of your mind, you’ll be missing an essential component of your happiness.

Healing your emotional wounds, reconnecting with your inner self and understanding the light and shadow areas of your soul is as essential as looking after your diet and your body. In my opinion, adopting a healthy lifestyle means accepting your body as a whole and considering it as a tool for developing your personal value.