Research has shown time and again that good relationships are just as important as having enough sleep, a healthy diet, exercise routine, and even not smoking.

We know, and we have seen that people who have satisfying relationships with their friends, family and their community around them are happier and live longer. Cultivating a network of healthy relationships is like regularly watering your plants or your garden. It isn’t just healthy for the person who receives the nurturing, but it is also healthy for the one who is nurturing.  Relationships can also reduce stress. When we have supportive relationships and we are supportive in our relationships we grow. We become better people who interact and socialise which enriches our life experience. February 14^th is not the only day to set aside to honor your relationships, but we should be mindful of  honoring our relationships all year long.

What do you do when you know its time to take a break?

Recently I was at a wellbeing talk by Gaynor Parkin from Umbrella at the Wellington Chamber of Commerce Westpac Smarts Series where she used the term “Recovery”. She asked our audience when they took time to recover.  Most spoke about what they did to relax after work. She said that we must also focus on recovery time during work. That we need to recognise when we have gone beyond our peak performance and it is time to Stop, Pause and Recover.

1. Set aside 30 minutes per day for your well being. This could be 2-minutes of stretching and strengthening movements every hour at work plus a brisk 15-minute walk at lunch time.

2. Set a time 5-10 minutes when you sort your important activities from urgent for the day. This might be at a quiet in the evening if you are a night owl or in the morning before breakfast. Important activities are the ones that move you toward your life goals – family, career, leisure, relationships. Urgent are the events or activities that pop up that need to be dealt with but are not moving you toward a goal you have set for yourself.

When we decide that we would like to make some changes to eat healthier we are immediately discouraged by the price of vegetables. Then we are told it is best to eat organic and when we see those prices we give up all together thinking that is impossible so there is no point. It is like thinking about climbing the Everest mountain in one go rather than just focusing on the first stop.

I have some relief for those of you who are frustrated with the price of organic produce, there are things we can still buy non-organic that won’t be full of pesticides and run havoc on our digestive systems. It is quite easy to figure out, there is a list that is called the dirty dozen and another list that is called the clean fifteen.

Good Health Gut

Our gut is the key to a healthy balanced lifestyle. It affects our emotional state and whether we are happy. It isn’t enough to just eat healthy but rather to make sure what we are eating doesn’t disagree with our personal biochemistry. It is important to maintain a diet rich in whole foods. This means cutting out processed foods, sugar, refined flour and cooking more real food. Fermented food, bone broths and plenty of vegetables feed our gut bacteria and give us a healthy gut biome along with good digestion.

Learn To Say No

Sometimes we feel out of sync because we are too overbooked. We don’t know how to say “no” to an engagement because we don’t want to disappoint someone. We must know our limits and ask ourselves do we need to do this? When it is just too much we must simply say no.