6 Ways to Care for Your Body

Most of us are aware that our bodies can affect how we feel. 

But we often underestimate just how much our bodies influence our emotions.

What we eat, how we move, how we sleep (or don’t sleep!)—all these things are deeply connected with our state of mind.

For those who want proof, there’s plenty of science that supports the power behind the mind-body connection. In a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers found that our diets can directly affect our mental health, especially when it comes to depression.

As for exercise, researchers at the American College of Sports Medicine found that doing cardiovascular workouts for thirty minutes a day, four days a week is the chemical equivalent of taking an antidepressant.

Why do we resist what’s good for us?

Understanding how important it is to take care of our bodies is one thing. Choosing to take care of our bodies is another.

Why is it so hard to do what we know is good for us?

It goes back to the negative mind. Also known as our survival instinct, the negative mind still functions as if we live in the jungle. Even though most of us no longer have to worry about day-to-day survival, the negative mind still thinks we need to sit still and consume as many calories as possible in order to conserve energy. 

In other words, our minds haven’t evolved to match our circumstances. 

How does this affect our physical health? Whenever we decide to do things like exercise or change our eating habits, the negative mind automatically resists.

But here’s the good news: simply being aware of where that resistance is coming from makes it easier to move through it. 

How to take good care of your body

When I work with clients who want to feel better, these are some of the strategies we include on the body side of our action plan: 

1.      Start with baby steps. The number one reason diets (or any growth-related routine) fail is because we try to do everything at once. Instead of taking a baby step, we start with an impossible goal and get down on ourselves when we can’t follow through with it. 

The truth is, the tiny decisions we make over time can add up to huge changes in our lives. When we learn to break things down into manageable, bite-sized pieces, it’s easier to keep moving toward our goals.

When I decided to change my eating habits, I didn’t go straight from eating cheeseburgers and drinking six Diet Cokes a day to a strict Paleo diet. I started by ordering a dinner salad to go with my cheeseburger.

2.       Give yourself credit. It’s easy to undervalue your effort when you take a baby step toward your goal. But when you give yourself credit, you feed your motivation to repeat that positive action.

It may feel unnatural at first, but you want to develop your ability to celebrate every step you take, even if it’s “just” ordering a dinner salad. (“Great job, Self! You ate fewer fries and more salad today.”)

In other words, it’s not about the size of the step you take. It’s about learning to acknowledge yourself for taking the step in the first place. 

3.     Mix it up. It’s not just important to move the energy in your body—it’s also important to move that energy in different ways. If you get stuck doing the same kind of exercise all of the time, your body adapts to that routine, making it more challenging to release stuck emotions. 

Mixing up your routine also makes exercising more fun, which makes it easier to stay motivated.

The same goes for food. If you’re having trouble finding ways to vary your diet, schedule some time to look for recipes that sound exciting to you.

4.      Tell a friend. Asking someone to hold you accountable to healthy choices can make it easier to stick to them.

When I want to make sure I follow through on taking care of myself, I have my friend Sarah check up on me: “Hey, Sarah, will you ask me tomorrow if I did that Pilates class?” Knowing she’s going to ask me about it increases my motivation to do it. 

5.       Schedule it. If you’re having trouble motivating yourself to exercise, add it to your calendar like any other appointment. You’re much more likely to do it if it’s on your schedule. 

6.       When you fall off the wagon, be kind to yourself. Even if you’re baby-stepping it toward your goals, you’re probably going to fall off the wagon at some point. The truth is, falling off the wagon is part of the process.

Falling off just means you’re going after something challenging—and you deserve credit for that. 

So when you fall off the wagon, try not to get down on yourself. Instead, try to shorten the amount of time it takes you to get back on. 

Do you want to learn more about how to take care of your body? In my new book, Life Launch, I write about how to build healthy habits, along with other practical yet profound ways to feel better. Download a sample chapter here.