Being healthy is a multidimensional process, it extends from our minds to our bodies should. Body & mind health should be in balance. If you think the other way being healthy can affect both physical and your mental function. Our lives are precious so is health. Overall health gives a person the opportunity to live his best life. A good and healthy lifestyle is the path to achieve what we want.
Speaking with Angela Lee Jenkins, she shed some light to our thoughts. Angela shared her point of view as she was an exercise physiologist who then moved into functional diagnostic nutrition & holistic lifestyle coaching. She has explored a lot of different stuff around epigenetics and getting more into the emotional mindset and spiritual side.
Which are the 5 top secrets for being healthy?
Probably the biggest lesson that I have learned is that health and wellbeing is a lot more than the physical side of things. I think over the years we focused a lot on the physical side, the person sitting in front of us is not just a physical human being, he has mental, emotional, spiritual parts. Based on that it is really important looking at the person as a whole human being. It’s way more than physical. For the physical perspective I guess one of my top secrets is about working in. We are so obsessed with working out & pushing ourselves really hard, causing more stress as oppose to working in and balancing our bodies a lot more. I think we can do a lot more on that work. The other secret is really that we are all unique. We all have different genetics, so it’s not a one size fits all approach. Having generic approach to wellbeing doesn’t work for everyone, it’s really personal. There is technology that someone can use the last few years that allow us to do that.
As I am saying is that we are only as healthy as our weakest dimension. Some people might be really strong physically, but then they may really lack in their mindset. Having practices when you are doing real mindset work, about reframing your mindset and knowing that you have the power to control your mindset, is crucial. Giving that power to people is really powerful, because if you don’t have that you don’t have the other thing. Then looking at it from the emotional point of view as well and thinking that we are all emotional beings, it’s not about ignoring those emotions and there is so much we can do from a physiology perspective and exercise and lifestyle, which can swift our emotions. There is the spiritual side as well where we are actually connecting to our energy to our wellbeing and our purpose, because there are so many people, they might be really good mindset, they might be physically well and they are emotions are ok. But they are not connected with their purpose and they are really unfulfilled. That is why I take the personalized 4-dimensional approach. I think my approach encounters all of those things. It really encompasses I guess a lot of that.
How do you think we could implement working in (mindset) and working out (physical Activity)?
I think from a trainer’s perspective, them having awareness and understanding of some of the links is important. So even some of the basic stuff, understanding for example that if you are dehydrated, when your nervous system is less than 1% dehydrated it can lower your mood and affect how you are feeling.
Understanding some basic things that we can do, good fiber whole food, looking up variety of foods, looking up our gut health, because that actually impact our mental health. Understanding that we can do little things, like breath work & breathing work and knowing that there are different types of breathing that can affect our nervous system and change a stressed day. All of these different things that are really powerful, just having that awareness. Understanding some of the basic lifestyle things and how the physiology impacts our mental state. Also, what I have done a lot with epigenetics is understanding that we are all different. We are all respond different to stress and we have different mindset, how we see the world is very different. Getting a greater understanding of the person standing in front of you, it can lead you in greater understanding for the reason that they might be reacting some way, or you might coach them slightly differently to help them with their mindset.
That’s an important starting point and then there are lots of little things that I get people to do. Just little daily habits. For example, write down 3 that you went well today. Studies suggest that if you write down 3 things that went well within 6 months you can go from low pessimistic states to low level optimist. We get what we focus on. When people are coming in wanting to lose weight, I swift the focus to go like What do you want to feel like, where do you want to go. Not just what you want to get rid of.
You have to have the feeling, I often use a technique for a lot of people to get them describe in detail what they want in 6 months and actually create that feeling in them, and the difference that makes them and actually bring it more into the reality. Bringing in the present life what do you want in your future life and start leaving like that. I am always saying be that person. If you want to be that person, start acting & behave like that person today.
As Angela’s passion is to bring in a very personalized and four-dimensional approach to wellness, she totally gave us plenty food for thought. Looking at a person as whole and unique, is really a game changer.
