Super Simple Nutrition Series: Part 3 - The Top Three Lifestyle Hacks

Woohoo! Part three of four. Today we’re talking lifestyle recommendations! I know the three recommendations I make below might seem obvious, but just as the rest of this series has illustrated up to this point, achieving optimal health is really about focusing on the basics.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty common to forget about these things when we make an effort to get healthy - we focus too much on the little things like consuming this or that miracle food, or doing this or that new workout technique to burn fat fast. Those things can only work if you’ve got a good baseline of healthy habits to begin with, thus, focusing on these seemingly obvious recommendations is where we’re gonna start.

I also went against my trend of choosing five recommendations as I wanted to illustrate the importance of these three in particular. I could’ve added things like spending time outdoors, having a self-care plan, protecting your body from toxins by using natural skin and home care products, or the benefits of infrared saunas. These all play a part in optimal health, but starting from square one is important.

So without further ado, here are my three most important lifestyle recommendations:

1. Sleep smart

As someone who’s dealt with on and off insomnia for the better part of the past year, I know sleep can be a frustrating topic. These days, sleep is pretty far down on the average person’s list of priorities. Even when we resolve to improve our health and fitness, sleep often falls by the wayside - making way for that 6 a.m. spin class or late night cardio session. The fact of the matter is, if sleep weren’t of huge importance for us, we would’ve evolved out of needing our eight hours of Zs per night.

The vast majority of adults need seven to nine hours of sleep every night, with only a small population on either side of the bell curve who can operate on less or need more to be at peak health. Despite what you may think, one cannot “catch up on sleep” on the weekends or any other day by sleeping in. In fact, “social jet lag” is a huge issue these days for our circadian clock; the system by which our body stays on a rhythm that keeps us feeling balanced and keeps our bodies performing optimally. When you suddenly shift your sleep schedule on Friday night by staying up two to four hours later than you normally would, it ends up disrupting your internal clock just as much as a flight across the country would. Come Monday morning, you’re exhausted, irritable, your hormone levels are disrupted, and even your immune system is in a compromised state.

So the first tip to be mindful of when it comes to sleep is stick to a consistent bedtime and wake up time. Weekdays and weekends. I know it can be challenging, but it’s worth it for your health and well-being. It’s especially crucial if you suffer from sleep problems or insomnia.

Good sleep hygiene is also incredibly important, especially if you have trouble falling or staying asleep or if you often wake up in the morning feeling groggy and poorly rested. Here’s the ideal schedule for a good night’s rest: Before noon, get outside for a walk in the sunshine. Try to exercise earlier in the day and stop drinking caffeine by noon. One to two hours before bed (depending on how sensitive your nervous system is) power down ALL electronics - that means no more cell phone, tv, or computer. Do something relaxing like packing your lunch for the next morning, hanging with loved ones, reading, writing, drawing, taking a hot bath, or anything else you like to do to unwind. Ideally, you shouldn’t eat within three hours of your bedtime to ensure your body isn’t still trying to digest your dinner as your lay in bed. Your bedroom should be cooler in temperature (16-18 degrees °C), pitch black, and free of electronics.

If you’ve tried the recommendations above and are still having a tough time falling and staying asleep, I’ve been there. I’ll be writing another post that talks about my experience with insomnia and what finally worked to get me back to my normal sleep schedule in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for that.

2. Unwind: Increasing Heart-Brain Coherence

If you apply one new thing you’ve learned from this entire blog post series, let it be this.

We all know that stress levels are at an all-time high these days and that finding effective stress coping mechanisms is SO important to live a healthy life and to prevent disease. Enter heart-brain coherence, and the research done by the HeartMath Institute in California.

The heart and brain are in constant communication via several different pathways in the body. Believe it or not, the heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain does to the heart! The stronger the connection between the two, the more balanced we feel.

When the heart-brain signal is weak, noisy, or slow, that’s called incoherence, and that’s when we feel stressed, anxious, scatter-brained and overwhelmed. Those of us who are always trying to multitask, work or live in high-stress environments, or depend on stress to keep us going, likely have an incoherent heart to brain connection. This isn’t ideal as it keeps us prone to reactivity, more susceptible to stress, it increases mood lability, and feelings of anxiety.

To be in heart-brain coherence means we’re grounded, stable and more likely to observe and assess our situations rather than immediately react. People in coherent states are more kind and compassionate. The coolest thing about the heart-to-brain communication is that as our heartbeats become coherent so does our brain; resulting in sharper focus, more mental clarity, better emotional composure, and heightened creativity.

So how does one get into coherence, you ask? Well, the HeartMath institute sells heart monitors that you can hook up to your smartphone, and using an app, observe your own coherence. If you don’t feel like buying a heart monitor though, there’s a free and easy was to do it called the quick coherence technique! Check out this 4 minute video to see how it’s done. I recommend using this technique every morning and evening and before entering any situation that typically triggers feelings of stress, anxiety, or are overwhelming for you.

Of course, there are other forms of meditation that one could use to unwind, but I find that most people are more receptive to the scientific, community-backed coherence technique. I also prefer it for a beginner because as you continue to use the technique, you’ll start to get a good sense of what it feels like to be in coherence (and out of coherence) and any course corrections needed throughout the day is simple.

3. Move your body

Notice how I’ve called this section move your body, and not “hit the gym”? That’s because long before there were Stairmasters, spin classes, and 30 day Pilates challenges, there was us and the great outdoors and a whole lot of physical work to do. From the dawn of mankind to as recently as eighty or so years ago, movement was part of the daily routine of all humans (though I’m mostly just talking about North Americans at the moment as there are still many cultures in the world where this lifestyle is preserved). The hunter-gatherers hunted and gathered all day. Farmers farmed, housewives walked to the market everyday, cooked, cleaned, etc.

Nowadays, the majority of us have desk jobs and spend over eight hours per weekday just sitting. As Dr James Levine says, “sitting is the new smoking.” Yikes.

So my point here is that if you want to optimize your health and fitness, the first step is to incorporate movement back into your day! Walk as often as you can. Take the stairs. Park as far away from the mall as you can. You know the drill. There are other ways you can move more in your day-to-day like dancing, chopping firewood, picking up and carrying heavy things, playing with your pets and kids, etc. If you want to get fancy, a treadmill desk is fantastic for an hour or two per day.

Once you’ve incorporated the basics into your routine, then it’s time to start talking about the gym! The Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines say that adults should be doing at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week, which is 30 minutes five times per week. So strive for that. I like to do a mix of strength training with heavy weights, high-intensity interval training, and a couple days of fasted cardio per week.

There you have it! What do you think about these three most important aspects of a healthy lifestyle? Do you agree, disagree? Let me know in the comments below!