Make a Pledge for Your Health

When people find out what I do for a living, they often ask me to help them choose a certain style of yoga, recommend a DVD and/or teacher, or offer them a brief yoga practice that helps them with whatever they are suffering with. Over the years I've been enthusiastic to help and offer up suggestions, referrals, practices, etc. I'm sad to say that while some are appreciative, the great majority ask and then are unresponsive to the suggestions offered. If I had a dollar for every person who asked me for help and then failed to even try what I suggested, I'd be writing this from my very own private island.

<SIGH>

Change Is Hard

I'll admit that it's frustrating. I've had people beg me for help and then fail to even respond to a follow-up email asking how they're doing with the practice I gave them. Am I a fan of asking for help and then failing to even try the suggestions offered? No. But I do understand that change is hard for many people. Adopting healthy habits and sticking with them can feel like a next to impossible task. Sometimes it's still frighteningly easy for me to start eating poorly. Well over a decade ago, it was hard for me to stick to an exercise regime. Yep, forming new, healthier habits is hard.

You Don't Know What You Have Until It's Gone

But do you know what's harder? Being unhealthy. Just ask anyone who struggles with his/her health. Remember a time when you were sick -- wouldn't you have given just about anything to feel better? Waiting until you're sick isn't the time to start adopting healthier habits. The time is now.

National Women's Health Week

May 9-15 is National Women's Health Week. This year's theme is “It’s Your Time,” and this nationwide initiative is encouraging women to take simple steps for a longer, healthier, and happier life. Important steps include:

• Getting at least 2 hours and 30 minutes of moderate physical activity, 1 hour and 15 minutes of vigorous physical activity, or a combination of both each week
• Eating a nutritious diet
• Visiting a health care professional to receive regular checkups and preventive screenings
• Avoiding risky behaviors, such as smoking and not wearing a seatbelt
• Paying attention to mental health, including getting enough sleep and managing stress

Making Your Health a Priority

We shouldn't need a week-long event to inspire us to get healthy, but it sure doesn't hurt. Think of it as New Year's Eve -- a fresh start and the perfect time to make a change. Today is the perfect day to make a healthy intention and stick to it not only from May 9-15 but for a lifetime.

Set an Intention to Make a Small Change

A great way to solidify your intention is to write it out. The folks over at GE are offering the perfect way in which to do this via their Pledge for Better Health Web site. It's simple -- go to Pledge for Better Health and write in your pledge along with your first name and your zip code. If you're looking for inspiration, check out the interactive map and see what women from all over the country are doing to improve their health.

Make a Pledge and Win a $20 Gift Card

I'd like to get as many people as possible the make a pledge for better health. As a little inspiration, I'm offering a $20 gift card to a random pledger. Make your Pledge for Better Health and then add your pledge link to the comments section of this post. On May 9th, I'll randomly choose one person to receive a $20 GE Healthymagination-themed gift card.

Healthy Suggestions

I need to drink more water during the day, so I just made a pledge to do so. And to help me achieve this pledge, I purchased fresh herbs to add flavor to my water as an incentive to get myself to drink more. What can you do for yourself to be healthier? Why not:

• Add more greens to your diet
• Cut out fast food/Soda/Sweets from your diet
• Meditate for 15 minutes a day
• Practice yoga for 20 minutes a day
• Take the stairs instead of using the elevator
• Do jumping jacks during commercial breaks while you're watching your favorite TV show
• Do a cleanse
• Walk during your lunch break
• Get an extra half hour of sleep a night

Try a 40-Day Sadhana

Just yesterday I started another 40-day Kundalini sadhana. I love this concept of committing to an action for 40 days. Although I have a lot of healthy habits, it never hurts to add one more. Just think of how your life would change if you adopted a healthy habit and continued it for 40 days. At the end of the 40 days, you'd add another healthy habit. Imagine what would happen to the quality of your life if you did that for one year. 

Resources to Help

In addition to the Pledge for Better Health site, there are a lot of resources out there to help you get healthier. Here are some of my favorites:

• Stress chips away at your health and well-being. This should come as no surprise but my favorite ways to combat stress are yoga and meditation. I've tried to make this blog into one big yoga resource, but here are some of my favorite yoga video recommendations if you're looking to jumpstart your yoga and/or meditation practice: The Kriya of Liberation, The 30 Day Yoga Challenge, Daily 10-Minute Meditation, Yoga Videos from Hip Tranquil Chick, Yoga Practices from Sadie Nardini, Yoga with Eoin Finn, and  Kundalini Meditations to Relieve Stress.
• Nutrition and general wellness videos from some of my favorite people: Regenerate Your Life, Dr. Christiane Northrup, Dr. Mercola, and Raw Foods Witch.

And here's a list of books that can help you improve your relationship with food, eat healthier, maintain an overall state of health and well-being:

• Food As Medicine: How to Use Diet, Vitamins, Juices, and Herbs for a Healthier, Happier, and Longer Life
• Doctor Murray's Total Body Tune-Up: Slow Down the Aging Process, Keep Your System Running Smoothly, Help Your Body Heal Itself--for Life!
• Conscious Eating
• The Yoga Body Diet: Slim and Sexy in 4 Weeks (Without the Stress)
• The Yoga of Eating: Transcending Diets and Dogma to Nourish the Natural Self

Make your Pledge for Better Health today and share what you're doing in the comments section. We can all learn from each other. Here's to your health!

Namaste!

Comments

[Patricia]

Great post! The world would be much sweeter if more individuals made health a priority. Doing a 40-day practice can be an amazing experience. I've abstained from alcohol, and have also chanted various mantras for periods of 40 days. Thank you for this post, and here's my pledge:

http://www.bhg.com/healthpledge?pledgeid=654900008

[Rachael]

quite an inspiring post. there is no better time to feel your best than now :) thanks for this and all the wonderful suggestions!

[Sara]

Meditate daily! So important for setting everything else up, to let it all flow.

http://www.bhg.com/healthpledge?pledgeid=643400139

[Emma]

change is hard.. change comes from within :)

[Betherann]

Excellent! I'd love to read more about sadhana in general, and yours in particular.

[Maryam Webster]

Fantabulous Diane!
Love this post, am referring to it at my blog ;-) What I've done is to realize I had a sedentary lifestyle and that a few times a day on the mat and walking/swimming a few times a week weren't making it. For stretching and loosening, yes, but for overall body health, weightloss and happiness - no.

So, I set myself up on a vacation to Paris for a month for my 50th birthday and deliberately did not rent a car or arrange for taxis past going to and from the airport. I walked to shopping, to yoga, to massages, to landmarks, museums and photoshoot expeditions. I walked up and down hills, over bridges, early in the morning and late at night. I felt stronger and more energized than I ever have. And...my pants got looser and looser.

I have a set of recipes for how to best live my life I call my "gospels" -- from Old English, gōd spell "good news" -- nothing to do with religion, just ways I've found to live my life best. These include Stretching, Drinking Water, Yoga, Walking and so on. Lately I've added Walking + Bearing Burdens.

And following your good lead, I've made my Pledge, here:
http://www.bhg.com/healthpledge?pledgeid=639900114

Just plain walking is WONDERFUL for the body, but if you have excess fat to process and endurance to gain, nothing beats walking bearing a burden, such as a full grocery bag - or even better, a half-full bag in each hand. Bilateral symmetry is best for building muscles.

I'd already begun to whittle fat & tone my muscles with exercise but in literally a month, I encouraged still-flabby muscles to firm, lost another inch on my waist, a full dress size, 7 pounds of fat and packed on 5 pounds of solid muscle.

I'm back home from Paris now and am enjoying keeping up this generative and healthy lifestyle by walking to my local grocery store, with two sturdy canvas bags, parceling laundry into two bags and toting it around the house and so on.

I detest the term "work out" and rejected that way to fitness all my life, to my own detriment. But when I put it in terms of "increasing my endurance & sculpting my body" and insert these building and sculpting activities into the flow of my daily life, it's not only easy, but sexy, fun and exciting to just hang out and watch the changes happen, almost as if by magic.

And that's what I'm doing for my pledge. Thanks Diane, for bringing this great opportunity to our attention! :-D

Warm Blessings,
Maryam

[Lisa K]

Cool, I'm not just making a plege for a week. I'm going to extend mine to a 40 day Sadhana (love that idea, thanks!) to be more mindful when I am eating. Mindful of what I'm eating and where it's coming from.
http://www.bhg.com/healthpledge?pledgeid=640500105

[Tiffany @ Moving Meditation]

What a fantastic post - thanks!!