A healthy lifestyle beyond diet and exercise
So, got recommended to read a book (in Swedish), The Health Revolution (Häslorevolutionen) by Maria Borelius from 2018. Normally I don’t read a lot of books about health, if it’s not yoga philosophy related, because there’s so much crap out there (sorry, authors 🙈). Maria is a science journalist who by a coincidence tried out an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle. 🌱 She travels around the globe to try things out and to meet scientists who explain their research on nutrition and psychology. It’s not a manual but more of an exploration of the subject of having a long life with healthy body and mind by lowering inflammation.
Maria’s conclusion from all the research and her own journey is that we do have scientific results of that inflammation increases disease and that anti-inflammation not only prevents diseases (please don’t skip your doctor’s appointment) but also increases the general physical and mental well-being. I’ll leave the deep dive to the book, but very very simplified; eat good ”nature-made” food, less sugar, move your body every day, rest and find awe. 🥑🥕🐟✨
I’m not going into details on the anti-inflammatory casues, benefits, diet etc (google’s got your back on that) but I’d love to share a couple of things from the book that particularly resonated with me:
The positive effect of yoga
🧘♂️ As a yoga student and teacher, I’m of course super excited that Maria has looked into how/if yoga (and other ”mind body interventions”) have any scientifically proven effects. Aaaand yes, it’s showed that practicing yoga on a regular basis lower inflammation in the body, on a gene kind of level. Something to keep you motivated to get out in rain and go to that yoga class you’ve planned, right?
One of the articles she’s refering to: 🤓
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2017.00670/full
Beyond yoga and diets
Jennifer Stellar, a psychophysiology scientist, researches the effect on the body of positive emotions and have found that some good feelings lower inflammation in the body. Quite cool, right? Especially the feeling of awe, that something is bigger than yourself, is said to be extra powerful. Want a bit of extra awe in your life? Stellar’s top tips: 🌄 Nature (beautiful wast sceneries or sunsets), 🖼 art, 🎼 music (the goosebump kind), 🧘 meditation, ✨ spirituality or religion (go to a temple, read a spiritual book), 🤲 doing something for others or 🙌 live sports events (for the collective ecstasy).
As I said, I’m always super critical to health books referring to new studies but the idea of that the body and mind are connected in this way is very interesting. 🤓 If I want to try a new health thing it must pass the ”worst scenario test” I have invented. The worst scenario if the science behind this shows to not be reliable, you would only have spent time doing pleasurable things. Worth a try, don’t you think?
General healthy lifestyle wisdom
There’re some points in the book that I really like and think that everyone would benefit from, whether fully embracing an anti-inflammatory lifestyle or not:
➡️ A Healthy life is a sum of its parts, take care of both your body and mind.
➡️ If you fail, just take on from where you are, without judging yourself too hard. No punishment diets or exercises. It’s ok. 💚
➡️ You don’t need to go all in at once. The key to creating long-lasting habits is to take things one step at a time.
➡️ Being too rigid about your healthy lifestyle makes your life hard and a bit less fun. Allow yourself that glass wine or ”unhealthy” food from time to time, with an added bonus effect: It makes it all that more enjoyable. 🍷 Do it in the company of good friends or on special occasions 👭, not by laziness. Planning is key. 🔑
➡️ If it works for you others will be inspired. ✨ Forcing it on people around you will push them away. 😤
This is so important! Common scenario: You want to reduce the harmful stress in your life or/and to take better care of yourself. You decide to implement a big change in your life to get there quickly. You get stressed because the change is too callenging. You beat yourself up because you fail, which causes more stress… 🤯 See? One step at the time my friend.
Atm I’m considering wether to implement more parts of a anti-inflammatory diet or lifestyle or not. Would love to hear more from you if you have tried, your experiences and thoughts!
