breathe Archives - Family Health Advocacy

I have declared that this upcoming year will be the year of self care for myself and my family. So, this year, rather than having a specific resolution (that I’m not likely to stick to) I’ve decided to explore different ways to really improve my personal well-being through self care. I’m going to let my intuition guide me to figure out what I need at any given time to provide myself with the best self care possible.

What Does Self Care Mean To Me?

There are four major themes I’m going to focus on this year, which we’ll explore together below. My intention is to let my self care evolve as I make changes and become more grounded and focused.

Here are my four main focuses for a better me include;

Become more gentle with myself
Move my body in different ways, everyday
Remove ‘junk’ from my diet
Grow my list of hobbies – try new activities and visit new places

Become More Gentle With Myself

I have begun by allowing myself time to rest (and I don’t mean sleep). By taking time to;

Curl up with a book
Meditate
Connect with my breath
Prepare a healthy meal
Listen to my favourite music
Drink a hot cup of tea

I am providing myself with valuable time to relax and feel satisfied. My goal is to step away from the chaos in the world and work at keeping my life more tranquil and serene. I am working on pushing out the negative thoughts, media outlets, and interactions to maintain a more positive outlook.

I believe that gentleness is the cornerstone of self-care and my mission is to inject gentleness into my daily life, and routine. Even the mundane tasks, to experience them in a more meaningful way.

Move My Body In Different Ways Every Day

My goal is to get off the treadmill (of life) and step into different ways to move my body. I have already begun by incorporating;

I’ve been mindful to listen to my body and really connect with the sensations that are left behind in my body from a good workout. That also includes listening to my body when it is tired and needs a break from exercise.

Remove ‘Junk’ From My Diet

Over the holidays we tend to loosen our grip on our normal daily eating habits. This usually means ‘junk’ foods start to creep in and become the new “norm”. So, I have started focusing on removing the simple sugars, and foods high in unhealthy fats. I’ve also been more conscious of my portion sizes and making good food choices that are going to nourish my body and provide me with a clean source of energy.

Click here to read, “How To Find The Best Diet For You”.

Remember to be gentle with yourself here – we are not always going to make good food choices and feeling guilty about our choices is not a means to be gentle with yourself. Work towards a healthy balance that still allows some flexibility in your diet so you feel fulfilled and satisfied.

Grow My List Of Hobbies – Try New Activities And Visit New Places

This one is like a mini bucket list for me. Trying new things is exhilarating and it can help to strengthen relationships with our loved ones as we try new things together. My intention is to feel more free and alive with excitement to have the opportunity for new experiences.

Hopefully during this new year, you too will find ways to improve your self-care and infuse gentleness into your daily life. Let’s make this year more fulfilling, successful, and joyful than the last.

Jo-Anne Richardson, RHN

Jo-Anne Richardson has almost a decade of experience managing a chiropractic office and educating patients on how chiropractic can allow your body to express optimal health. She is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and holds a Degree in Communications. She loves to experiment with raw vegan recipes, loves to salsa dance, travel and learn new holistic health information to share tips with everyone who visits the office.

Everywhere you turn, you hear about detoxifying your body. But what are you not being told?

What do you need to know to detoxify safely without re-toxifying your body?

You can think about it like you would a traffic jam. There are potentially hundreds of cars trying to make their way down the highway but there are only three lanes and when you have so many more vehicles than there is room for on the road, you end up in chaos.

So what happens is that when you are adding in intense detoxification methods, it can sometimes wreak more havoc on your body than if you had just left things alone. So the answer to not re-toxifying your body starts with a very gentle process of a gentle detox.

The main forms of detoxification for your body are through your intestines, kidneys, lungs and skin.

Intestines:

Your intestines rid you of food toxins that you are finished pulling out the nutrients from. This is also a place that bodily toxins are dumped for removal. But often, your digestion can be sluggish from eating too much meat, grains and dairy products. (You should be pooping at least twice per day… if you’re not, you can be sure that you have serious toxic build up in your digestive tract). So the first thing we need to do to start a gentle detoxification is to start moving out those old toxins that are stuck there before we start delivering a whole bunch more toxins for it to process and be overloaded.

Start by increasing your water intake – and add lemon to it to add a bit of a added clean-up assistance. (I love to peel a whole lemon and throw it in my high speed blender with a litre of fresh water, and then strain it to remove the tiny pit pieces that break apart). This will help to start gently encourage movement of toxins out of your intestines.

Then start adding in more fibre to keep your intestines moving. The fibre acts like a broom and sweeps up the toxins and helps to move them out. The best forms of fibre are fruit and vegetables! Eat more than you ever have before!

Kidneys

Your kidneys filter your blood continually, all day long, and never rest. They pull toxins from your blood supply and deliver them to your bladder to be removed from your body in your urine. So yes, you guessed it! More water! 3-4 litres per day and more if you are super active.

Lungs

Your lungs are always delivering fresh oxygen to your body, but they also help to expel toxins on the exhalation. So take a few moments several times through the day to do some deep breathing exercises. AND move that body!! Breathe hard, make it work and make it sweat! We were built to move.

Skin

We chatted about moving that body! Your sweat will help to move toxins out of your body, so try to get some joyful movement into your schedule every day.

Additionally, dry skin brushing is an excellent way to encourage the release of toxins from your skin by using a natural hair bristled brush and very gently brushing your skin from the bottom of your body toward your heart. And from your hands and arms to your heart as well. Use gentle strokes or circles. The keyword is GENTLE – your lymph drainage system is extremely fragile and can only respond and pump the lymph when its movement is gently encouraged.