Seven Easy Things You Need To Do For Your Health Right Now

Eat Salads

Medicine is entering the age of the microbe. We are just beginning to find out how incredibly important our tiny symbiotic friends are to the health of mammals. Your well-being is regulated in large part by the food you eat because your microbial chemical reactions define your health. There is no better way to foster a diverse and beneficial gut-ecosystem than to eat a salad every day consisting of many different vegetables and herbs. Think of your body as your family, and your gut microbes as your children. The health of those kids will completely dictate the health and success of the home. These aren’t just any salads though. We’re not talking a bag of bleached lettuce and some carrot shreds. These salads promote a diverse and beneficial ecosystem because the salads are made that way: here’s a recipe.

Must Read: How To Heal Your Gut

Drink Cranberry Lemonade

Water is wonderful, and chances are, you should be drinking more of it. Let’s take it one step further, though. Cranberries reduce inflammation and keep our kidneys running at peak performance. Lemon juice is said to help clean the liver, and lemons are known to help with digestion and PH balance. Try making cranberry lemonade with stevia, and drink a half gallon or more a day. This counts as your daily water intake too, so you don’t need to drink this and water. It’s super easy, all done to taste, and here’s a recipe. There is probably nothing else easier to do that can beneficially impact your health as much.

Eliminate Toxins

The toxins you breathe in are not inconsequential. Cleaning products may do as much damage as a pack-a-day habit. Perfumes, air fresheners, that new car smell, and fragrances in body care have been proven to be highly toxic to the body. Open your windows whenever possible, don’t trap yourself in areas that do not have fresh air circulating, and use non-toxic cleaners like this.

Squat

In many parts of the world, squatting is common while cooking, eating, birthing, and relieving oneself. We used to squat all the time. We are designed to squat. We would squat constantly in the wild. In nature, to navigate life and stay alive, we foraged all day. We would squat down, pick a leafy green, and eat it, likely while still in the squat position, staying low and looking around for trouble or more food. We would squat to track our prey, squat to defecate, and we would squat to relax because we didn’t have chairs. Our bodies have been squatting for a long time, and we are still evolved to squat. Squats even help detoxify the body and regulate our hormones! Click here for more on squats. If squats aren’t possible right now, try “get-ups.” What are “get-ups”? Anything you want them to be, just get up, get back down, and get up again! You may need to start in a chair, or maybe your starting position can be laying on the floor. Just get moving up and down and build up to squats.

Must Read: Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones

Walk and Run

Us humans were meant to walk and jog and sprint on a daily basis. We should be walking, squatting, and running sporadically all day. Jogging can be particularly hard on a body with a heavy toxic load, but it has tremendous benefits too. If you suffer from knee pain, read this. If running or jogging isn’t something you can do yet, walk. If you can run, walk some anyways. Walking is a kind of meditation even when one is not trying to mediate. Take the stairs and park farther away. Walk and jog and sprint every chance you get.

Go Outside in Nature

Have you read the studies about this yet? Nature is really important to our health. We need it and we do not get enough of it! If you are near the woods, take a daily walk. Breathe in the nature around you. Do some grounding by walking barefoot or sit on a rock and meditate. Whatever you do, just get out there and get some negative ions.

Breathe

Speaking of breathing, this is not a small thing. One can radically improve their health and their mental well being immediately by eliminating shallow breathing and learning to naturally take deep, full breaths. If you lie down on the floor and breathe in, does your stomach rise or fall? If it’s sinking in as you take a breath than your breathing is all wrong! Here’s how to breathe properly.

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14 Benefits of Squatting, Why We Should All Be Doing It, and How to Squat Right

In many parts of the world, squatting is common while cooking, eating, birthing, and relieving oneself. We used to squat all the time. We are designed to squat. We would squat constantly in the wild. In nature, to navigate life and stay alive, we foraged all day. We would squat down, pick a leafy green, and eat it, likely while still in the squat position, staying low and looking around for trouble or more food. We would squat to track our prey, squat to defecate, and we would squat to relax because we didn’t have chairs. Our bodies have been squatting for a long time, and we are still evolved to squat.

Squatting is a fundamental movement that every human being is designed to do. But due to a combination of weakness and immobility from a lifetime of wearing restrictive footwear and sitting in a chair, many of us in urban industrialized societies have lost the ability to squat properly.” – Rui Li, a certified personal trainer

The Main Benefits of Squatting

1. Flexibility

Squatting regularly and properly can help improve range of motion and strengthen muscles throughout the lower body including the glutes, hips, ankles.

2. Body Alignment

Squats can correct body alignment. When you first do a squat (if it’s been a while), not only will you feel stiff and tight, you will also notice that certain joints just aren’t moving right. Things are “out of place” as they say. You could go to a chiropractor, but most would benefit from just doing daily squats. As the body’s joints become used to stretching, get more limber, and as blood flows in areas it was not getting to well previously, the body will usually start to align itself back into place.

3. Testosterone

Squats work most of the largest muscles in your body, such as your hips, glutes, abductors, and quadriceps. Other muscles engaged include your hamstrings, calves, and all your core muscles as well as most other stabilizer muscles. Doing squats naturally produces testosterone and builds muscle, not just in the legs.

4. Detox

Squats move organs and bodily systems, which gently massages and stimulates organs, lymph, and glands. Squats increase blood flow. As the organs get massaged and stimulated, the body gets more flexible. and the joints ease up, you’ll notice an increase in blood flow all over the body.

Related: How To Heal Your Gut

5. Improve Circulation

The circulatory system needs bodily movement to function properly. Doing squats will stimulate the glands, the organs, and help get the blood circulating better.

6. Energy Boost

When you open pathways, you stimulate glands and get the blood flowing you also increase your body’s electrical charge, meaning, you literally have more energy. When scientists talk about the nervous system sending ‘signals’ to the brain, or when they talk about “synapses firing,” they are referring to the flow of electricity in the body. Once squats become easy, nothing else will give you the same energy boost.

7. Eliminate Lower Back and Knee Pain

Doing squats the wrong way can lead to permanent lower back and knee pain, but doing squats with good form can reverse and heal such injuries. For those with knee pain, check your arches and then push your knees outward while you squat.

Related: Running Without Knee Pain

8. Reduce Cellulite

Cellulite is deposits of fat under the skin. Squats can help reduce the appearance of cellulite and help tighten and tone the skin. Some “spot-reduction” can be achieved with squats, but diet is going to play a bigger factor in cellulite reduction.

9. Decrease Risk of Injuries

Who do you think is more likely to be injured by bending over to pick up something? The person who can do 100 squats or the person who can do 5? The increased mobility and strength that comes from squats are realized within just a few days of starting them. Stairs become easier, bending over to pick things up feels like less of a strain. Life becomes less of a strain.

10. Build Core Strength

Squats use almost all of our muscles, and it hits the core hard. You use your abs, lower back, and obliques when doing squats, which also work the internal organs and glands as mentioned above. A weak core is a very weak link in the chain that makes up our musculature system. The strongest legs in the world will not squat much without an awesome core to carry and stabilize the weight.

11. Lift and Tighten the Butt

The bigger the gluteus maximus the higher, firmer, rounder, and sexier the butt is.

12. Fix Posture

If you find yourself slumping, slouching, or generally just looking like you’re fighting gravity just to stand, a few weeks of daily squats can fix that.

13. Improve Confidence, Mood

Improved posture generally improves one’s mood. It’s like forcing a smile when you’re unhappy. Standing tall, fully upright with ease, of a sign of confidence; people with better posture have a leg up in the confidence game.

14. Improve Libido

With the glandular activity, energy boost, more confidence, and an increase in testosterone, it’s pretty easy to see what squats can do for you in the bedroom.

How To Squat

The goal is to be able to feel relaxed and comfortable in this position:

The image is from an excellent article called Interesting Facts About the Natural Squatting Position.

There are bodyweight squats and there are weighted squats, and there are countless various methods for both. For this article, we’ll stick to bodyweight squats. There are many schools of thought on how best to do squats, but I highly recommend you mix them up. Here are a few to try:

Prison Squat

This is like a power squat without the weight if you are familiar with barbell lifting. Stand with your feet slightly beyond shoulder-width apart with your toes forward and your knees pushed outward. Keep your hands on your head or otherwise unable to assist. Squat down to parallel or a little below with a tight core, flex the core hard on the way up keeping the lower back stable and stiff.

Narrow, Close Stance, Legs Together Squats

When you put together the legs you work the leg muscles differently. Where before you will feel a lot of abductor work and core activation, with these squats you’ll find more quadricep use and a need for increased flexibility. I prefer to take these squats all the way down, and I will bend at the ankles at the very bottom, but attempt to do this less and less as the ankle joints loosen. You will want to flex the core hard on the initial phase of the come-up. I prefer to let my arms swing a bit on this exercise.

Chinese Wall Squats

For those who are graduating to more difficult squats, but still want to stick to bodyweight exercises, there are lunges, there are pistol squats, and then there’s my favorite, Chinese Wall Squats! These are much harder than they look, but if you can do them then you have very strong legs and a strong core and excellent mobility.

GetUps

I have certainly been so sick before that any squat recommendations would have been laughable. For people who can’t do squats yet, I recommend getups! They’re easy. Just lay down on the floor, and then get up. The trick is to notice how you stabilize yourself and to alternate each time. For instance, if you get down on your right knee, and push with your right hand on your leg, and get up with your left leg first, you need to alternate all of these leverage points with your body so you don’t get too strong on one side which can throw the body out of alignment and actually reduce mobility.

It’s important to note that on a severely toxic body, physically demanding squats can lead to more damage. Even with perfect form, if the body is in an extremely inflammatory state, doing squats with knee or back pain can cause more inflammation of an injury and the entire body. If you’re someone who is dealing with chronic pain, take it slow, watch the video below and work towards that, start with just a few, build up slowly, and read the first few articles below the video in the “Must Read” section!

If you’ve ever watched a toddler play, they squat easily and often,” Dr. Jasmine Marcus, a physical therapist with McCune and Murphy Physical Therapy in Ithaca, New York, told MNN. “As we age, we stop performing this motion and tend to lose hip, knee and ankle range of motion.” – MNN

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