Honing your personal leadership also requires taking care of yourself and managing your energy levels effectively. In this video I share with you 7 tips I learned and relearned about how to have a life of vitality.
Summary:
Have you ever felt tired for long periods of time even after a nights sleep? Have you felt tension in your back or shoulders regularly? Would you like to feel more energised and refreshed and feeling more alive every day?
Following a weekend away at a superb detox spa retreat, here is what I learned and relearned about how to live a life of vitality:
[tweetthis]#1 Keep hydrated – drink at least 2 litres of water a day[/tweetthis] Make sure you sip it throughout the day rather than drinking a pint of water in one go. It is our blood moving effortlessly through our body that revitalises us and it needs water to do that effectively. Seeing this from the live blood test showed me the effects of our blood prior to going into the detox and those whilst we were there. Healthy, well hydrated blood cells are perfectly round and move around freely.
#2 Eat within 1 hour of waking – this helps to get your metabolism working. If you don’t eat at this time, your will metabolism will think it is not going to receive any food and will therefore store any energy it has as fat. If you don’t usually have breakfast or you don’t feel hungry at this time – just have a banana or an apple to wake up your system.
#3 Move your body – ideally with some form of exercise such as a fast paced walk or even going up and down the stairs as you forgot something you wanted for the day – don’t curse yourself, think what great exercise it is to run up the stairs one more time. Moving your body regularly, every hour is the key to feeling more energised. Many of us sit at our desks for hours at a time, engrossed in writing, reading, sending emails or being on a conference call. Set your timer on your phone every 50 minutes and then get up. Move your body. Go get some water or refill the bottle that is sitting on your desk (I am doing to do that right now!). And if you travel to work by tube or bus, jump off a stop before you need to and walk the extra distance to the office.
#4 Include an element of raw food in your diet – yes raw food. Eating raw fruit and vegetables will help you stay well nourished and you will have less cravings for the unhealthy, no-nutrient processed foods. As the summer approaches it is much easier to incorporate fresh salads and I encourage you to be adventurous and try vegetables you may not have tried before. I discovered raw parsnip recently and now I love it. How about broccoli or cauliflower chopped up on your salad. There are some amazing recipes you can find on the Internet and I recommend an excellent website with full of great recipes http://www.alkalinediethealthtips.com where you can sign up for your free recipe book.
#5 Eat slowly and allow your food to digest. This was again evident when we reviewed our blood sample. Those mis-shapen blood cells revealed a pattern of eating too quickly and not allowing our food to be properly digested. Consequently our blood cells become distorted and stacked and then become less efficient as they cannot enter the veins to move around our body giving us energy.
#6 Relax and restore your mind and body. It is critical that you allow your body to restore itself. Like anything that generates energy, it needs to be restored. Relaxing your mind, being free of distractions will help you to be more creative and energised when you are ready to re-engage with your activities.
#7 Detox at least once a year. Allow your body the chance to completely cleanse itself with a detox programme. I usually detox three or four times a year from a weekend to a week. There are several programmes you can find to follow. Again http://www.alkalinediethealthtips.com has a fabulous 5-day detox programme. Jason Vale, the Juice Master has another. Or if you are interested in a weekend away packed full of great tips, wonderful experiences and having it all done for you – treat yourself to a detox spa retreat.
The common mistakes we make when we discover something new is that we start off well with good intentions to keep going and develop new habits. However over time, we let that good intention slip. The key to staying on track is to:
- Have a compelling reason for making these changes – do you want to live an energised life, every day? If so, then follow what I discovered about living a vital life and notice the changes within just two days.
- Develop new habits – start with one or two steps in making these changes, feel the difference and then add the others in too. Be bold, go for it. Staying with baby steps will keep you in the infancy stage, take bigger steps and you will enjoy the benefits of a vital life.
During our weekend, one of the guests, Julia asked me the question ‘where do you live?’ Naturally I replied, in a small village in Essex. She looked at me and smiled and suggested that in fact I lived in my body!
[tweetthis]We all live in our own unique body and that has to last us a lifetime.[/tweetthis] So I urge you to respect and nourish your body with the best nutrients, plenty of water, good exercise and a chance to rest and restore itself and enjoy a life of vitality.
This is such an untapped area of peak performance in the business world. Thanks for sharing – I will give it a go (the coffee is my worst addiction) and let’s see what happens…. JJ