27th January – Choose healthy snacks
I think snacks are one of the biggest challenges to healthy eating. Finding something that is easy to have to hand, that can be carried in your bag for whenever needed without getting squashed or gooey, that doesn’t melt or leak, or that doesn’t have lots of crumbs and bits to drop all over, and that can be eaten without getting sticky or messy… It’s almost impossible to buy healthy whole foods from most places that are easily accessible for snacks. The average cafe/takeaway offerings are sugar-laden cakes/cookies/baked-goods or highly processed pastries. Most quick snacks from convenience shops are brightly coloured shiny packets – crisps, sweets, chocolate and similar. Packets…
26th January – Daytime Sunshine
☀️Get some daytime sunshine. Exposure to natural light in the daytime, especially in the morning, can help improve sleep. Exposure to light signals the brain to reduce and stop producing melatonin, which is the hormone that makes us sleepy. The less melatonin in our system, the more awake we are. Normally, as the day progresses into evening, melatonin levels build up and make us feel ready for sleep. 🌤Getting bright light in the morning helps drive melatonin levels right down, and helps keep the sleep-wake cycle going. ☁️Even on a cloudy day, natural light is over 10times brighter than even the brightest indoor lighting. 🌥When we don’t get enough bright…
- 30 Days of Healthy Living, Lifestyle Medicine, Living Lifestyle Medicine, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Stress Reduction
25th January – Do something you enjoy
Do something you enjoy. Just because. De-stressing, relaxing, chilling out… it sounds like it should be so easy, doesn’t it? Just do… well, nothing, right? But ‘just relaxing’ is not as easy as it sounds for some people. I am definitely not very good at doing nothing. And, ironically, the more stressed you are (and therefore more in need of relaxing) the harder it is to settle and turn off. This is because when we are stressed our brains are busy churning out lots of stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline for example. These stress hormones put our bodies into “fight or flight” mode so we are revved up, jittery,…
