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It’s interesting how as you keep moving down the road of becoming healthier and healthier you take on daily practices to achieve those goals.
I get asked all the time what I do on a daily or weekly basis to maintain good health. I do believe real health and vitality is in your mind. How you perceive things and what kind of world you create inwardly is what can be manifested as outward “health.”
Somebody once asked a naturopathic doctor what his definition of health was. His response was classic, “To be able to eat, poop and have sex, with energy left over to live your dream with passion.”
It’s pretty simple really isn’t it?
So here are some things I do each day to help maintain a level of health. This doesn’t include weekly activities like lifting weights, yoga, surfing or even daily lifestyle habits like going to bed early, brushing my teeth, juicing or even drinking urine.
Yes you read that right. 🙂
So here are some daily disciplines I do that are more focused on the “physical activity” side of things.
Walking (30 min per day)
I don’t know if there is a better exercise on the planet than good old fashioned walking. It increases endorphins, provides fresh air, enhances your mood, increases circulation and oxygen, builds muscle to some degree and is amazing for your lungs and heart (assuming you don’t breathe in car exhaust in the process). It also helps to reduce stress and enhances your mood.
Walking is so simple yet so amazing. I usually walk to the gym 3 days per week which accounts for about an hour and a half a week. Plus I walk my dog once or twice per day for about 15 to 20 minutes per time.
I used to be a big runner but realized I have nothing to prove and I believe after running for 30 years my joints would really take too much of a beating. Humans aren’t designed for long distance runs. It’s too hard on the body. According to Dr. William Wong, after 26 minutes of straight cardiovascular training it starts to become a detriment to your health, especially to your heart.
There’s just no need for it. Walking is easier and healthier for your long term health. Sometimes I take my ipod with me and listen to lectures or interviews. Sometimes I like the sounds of nature.
Whenever I can I try to walk barefoot as well to stay grounded to the earth.
Rebounding (10 min per day)
The power of rebounding is incredible.
It helps to detoxify the lymphatic system by opening and closing millions of one way valves that helps to flush toxins out. Your lymph system is responsible (among other things) for storing toxins and poisons we accumulate throughout the day. We have more lymph fluid in our body than we do blood.
Amazing huh?
The one problem is that the lymph system has no pump like the heart. It can’t move this lyphatic fluid out without help. Rebounding is the #1 way to do this.
Rebounding is also good for exercising every cell in the body. It’s the only internal cellular exercise on the planet. On top of that, it helps to increase bone density.
It’s amazing. If you want to read more about all the health benefits of rebouding feel free to read that article. You can also listen to what experts have to say about rebounding in our store.
I do my rebounding in 1 minute increments all throughout the day. With my torn ACL I cannot sustain 10 minutes of bouncing so I do it every time I get up from my desk during the day until I reach a total time of 10 minutes. 🙂
In case you’re interested we recommend people get the Bellicon rebounder as it’s the best one on the market by far.
Inversion (7 min per day)
An inversion is anytime your hips are above your heart. Most of the yogic tradition has to do with inversion. The king of the poses is the headstand which is an inversion. When you’re inverted you’re going against gravity. All of the gravitational forces are constantly pulling us down all day long.
This happens week after week, and year after year. Inverting yourself increases the qi (chi) flow of your body, increases energy and circulation and thereby increases oxygen transfer to areas of your body that would otherwise be stagnated.
It’s sold as way to let gravity pull apart the discs in your back and create better posture and spinal health.
I love inversion therapy. I do it for 3 and a half minutes in the morning and 3 and a half minutes before bed. In case you’re interested I bought the Ironman Gravity 1000 Inversion Table
Qigong (20 min per day)
Qigong is an ancient Chinese practice similar to Tai Chi that was developed thousands of years ago. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been around for many thousands of years and this ancient art helps to cultivate your qi (chi – life force energy) as opposed to depleting it like just about every other exercise.
Basically it’s energy work and it helps you to move the energy around in your body. As we now know the body is more like an ecosystem enveloped in a plasma energy field than it is a mechanical machine that doctors and personal trainers would like you to believe.
If you’re interested in the qigong course I recommend you can check it out here.
Meditation (10 min per day)
Meditation has been used for thousands of years and I use it as simply a way to calm the mind and to release stress. It’s a great way to let everything go and focus on breathing and relaxing. I usually do this at night before bed and I’ll play some soft music and just sit, close my eyes and be quiet for about 10 minutes.
During that time I’ll focus on my breathing and not allowing myself to “be in my head”. We all have thoughts that can take us captive and dominate our inner terrain. You know what I’m talking about right? You can ruminate for hours on scenerious that may or may not happen. It’s crazy.
David from the Bible meditated. It’s been used throughout all of time to calm the mind and spirit.
I do it every day and it’s been amazing. There are lots of health studies indicating that it’s a very healthy practice to do.
Sauna (20 min per day)
Sweating is absolutely critical for detoxifying the body of poisons that get stored mostly in our fat cells. We accumulate these toxins, chemicals and heavy metals from all over the environment.
As of this writing I do yoga a few times per week to sweat. Kate and I are saving up for the relax sauna that we’re so thrilled about getting.
When we purchase the relax FAR infrared sauna, we plan on both using it for about 20 minutes per day to sweat out toxins and chemicals from our bodies.
Reading (10 pages per day)
If you read 10 pages per day that could be about a book and a half per month. In a year that amounts to 18 books a year. Reading helps keep the mind sharp and explore new concepts and ideas in a relaxed and calm setting.
Reading is something I value and think is really important to continue developing new neuro pathway circuitry in our brains to stay sharp. The brain is just like the body, use it or lose it.
Reading is a great way to become inspired and explore parts of yourself that perhaps you never knew existed.
Stretching (15 min per day)
Even though I do yoga a few times a week I still stretch every single night before bed. It’s a great way to elongate your muscles and it’s very relaxing. It helps me to sleep really really well. I notice a big difference in my sleep depending upon whether or not I stretched right before I hop into bed.
I have a nightly routine where when I’m done with work I’ll do the inversion for a few minutes, then I’ll read and after that I’ll do my meditation and breath work. Once I’m done with that I’ll usually watch a documentary from Netflix while I stretch on the floor and use my foam roller. Typically I’ll do the foam roller first and then stretch out the muscles after that.
Foam Roller (5 min per day)
I got one of these little guys for Christmas because I would use it all the time after my gym workouts to help circulate the lactic acid in my muscles from my workout. By not letting the lactic acid stagnate in your body you actually can recover quicker from a workout.
On top of that there have been studies indicating a connection between lactic acid and cancer. I first heard of that from Peter Ragnar. This is why you’ll sometimes see people who are really fit and workout by exercising every day get a freak diagnosis of cancer. According to Peter Ragnar there’s a connection between how much lactic acid you build up and developing cancer.
I mainly use the foam roller
So that’s about it for my daily routine in terms of physical activities to stay healthy. All in all it takes me about 2 hours per day to do all of these things but because they’re fun and spread out throughout the day, I don’t even notice it!
Question:
What kinds of things are you into? I’d love to hear them in the comments below!
