Often, it’s the simplest things that have the greatest impact on our health and wellbeing. While there is a huge awareness of the importance of the things that we eat and drink, many other simple lifestyle issues are still ignored when it comes to recovering from ill-health.
Consider the way that our’ not so distant ancestors lived and you will see just how far we have changed in our modern life. With the arrival of electric light, we can now stay up until all hours of the night and our natural sleeping rhythm of waking up with the blue light with the morning sunrise and falling asleep with the red light of the evening has been completely disrupted. While our phones do have the option to follow this cycle, lots of people don’t know how to set them up, so people are watching Netflix with blue light at midnight, and wonder why they can’t fall asleep.
We no longer grow and harvest our own food; the local supermarket has replaced our freshly picked food with something that was growing a week ago in a country on the other side of the world. Lettuce loses 95% of its vitamin C within 30 minutes of being picked, but most of our vegetables are picked and packed and stored for weeks in our shops and in our fridges at home. No wonder we struggle to get the best nutrition, and many people display signs
Many of us eat alone in front of the TV, yet a community in the US who had much lower rates of heart disease than their neighbours, drank wine, smoked cigars and ate red meat, but they did so at the dining table with the rest of their extended family. It’s not just what you eat, but how you eat and who you eat with!
The exercise we used to do travelling to work by foot, or by bicycle or on horseback, and the physical work we did in the farms or while making things, or by fishing and hunting, has been replaced by a very sedentary lifestyle where we sit for 10 to 12 hours a day or more, and often curled up like a pretzel and not in a way that is comfortable or supportive for our body. The 3-5 hours a week we spend in the gym, doesn’t come close to compensating for the 70 hours of sitting we do travel to and from work, and sitting in front of our computer in the office and at home.
So simple changes to our lifestyle can have a huge impact on our wellbeing.
Start by going to bed before 10.30pm and waking up between 6.30 and 7am. Eat meals at a table, not standing at the fridge, eat with friends or family whenever possible, and eat fresh food as soon after picking as possible. Many frozen vegetables are frozen in the field soon after picking so that may be one of the best ways to get a few portions of freshly picked vegetables into your system.
Stand up at work and walk around when on phone calls. Do stretches and breathing exercises every day. Walk outside at lunchtime – even if it’s raining – the fresh air is as beneficial as the movement.
Set your phone or tablet or laptop screen to switch to night time setting at 8pm. The red light will signal your brain that it’s time to start winding down and get ready to sleep.
Reset your circadian rhythm at Les Mariannes. Our regular routines and outdoor location will help your body settle into a healthier rhythm. Our local grown food is served at regular mealtimes and our pool and yoga classes encourage your body to stretch and flex too.
