While I was making my smoothie over the recent July 4th weekend, it occurred to me that there is a powerful parallel between our choice to exercise our own personal independence and choosing health as a high priority, leading to freedom through Wellness. Isn’t that exciting?!
You can choose better health each day, versus simply having a sandwich, bag of chips and a soda for lunch, then seeing how that plays out over years of those same daily dietary choices. You could commit to being better hydrated, versus ignoring your body’s many signs of needing more filtered drinking water. You might be surprised to find you have fewer aches and pains from drinking more water.
Options
We have countless options and choices (freedoms) for living our best lives. Maybe you suffer from allergies or asthma and decide this is your summer to overcome and win your personal battle against these life-limiting health conditions. By the way, these are in the top complaints for new patients I see in practice. Wouldn’t it be great to live without needing tissues, allergy medications, or fearing a sneezing or wheezing attack? You could choose to eliminate dairy or wheat – both are HUGE allergens and known to exacerbate immune response – allergy and asthma, from ingestion. Perhaps you decide to purchase and use a handheld aromatherapy inhaler to open your nasal passages and help your sinuses feel better or use a Neti pot to clear your sinuses. Imagine how great it would be to breathe freely!
Investment
What we eat and drink is so important to our health and wellbeing. I like to think of daily dietary choices and good hydration as sound investing. They have aggregate effects over time and net you enormous payoffs later in life. And best of all, you get to choose! You have the freedom to choose how you feel, how you live, if you must rely on a hospital, nursing home, loved one or multiple medications to stay alive later in life. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t feel like freedom to me. I want to be able to go for a long walk outside, dance or simply sit with someone I care about and enjoy a pain-free talk when I’m in my 70’s and 80’s.
Future
How about you? What do you want to be able to do when you’re older? I encourage you to think about all the positive and health affirming choices you can make on a regular and frequent basis to feel better now and set yourself up for success in years to come. My other two favorite health choices to improve your quality of life are: 7-8 hours of sleep each night and regular physical activity. Both will help you build stronger immunity, hormone balance, and a healthier brain.
Wishing you many years of independence and freedom from having your best health!
