How I Finally Got Serious About My Health

In June of last year, I wasn’t paying any attention to my health. At all.

I was working eighteen hour days, taking every meeting I could, running an agency, investing, and spending time with my family. But I wasn’t making any time for my health. It wasn’t a priority.

And this baffled me. I couldn’t understand why I attacked every other thing in my life with such vigor, but not this. Why not my health?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized something when it comes to our well-being. With health and wellness, you’re either accountable…or you’re not. And in every other part of my life at that time, I felt accountable.

The things I am best at are things where I am accountable to someone else.

The sense of responsibility, for example, that I have for my businesses, for the 550 people of my agency VaynerMedia, is greater than my own well-being. My sense of accountability comes from the fact that I feel that I owe it to them.

I tried to do the same thing with my health.

“What’s the matter with me?” was something I thought a lot back then. If I don’t fix this, I’m going to die.I’m going to lose.

All the terrible things that could happen were by-products of the process I was living. As a practitioner, I needed to find accountability in the trenches of that world. I was accountable to my employees in business. I needed to find someone who could hold me to those standards in health as well. I needed the same drive that I had in business.

So, what happened? How did I make the switch?

I introduced a person to hold me accountable. I hired a full time trainer.Mike. The reason I work out every day is because I don’t want to let Mike down. I have to be ready to go at 5:45am because Mike will be upset if I’m not.

I hacked away at what made me tick till I discovered, within myself, what would force me to get healthy.

So that worked for me. I succeeded at finding a way for myself to make it work.

But so often these narratives can be frustrating because they leave us with tactics and hacks and ideas…and that’s it. And you’ve probably read a bunch of articles on the best stretches, the best fifteen minute workouts, the best smoothies.

The thing is, there is something we aren’t addressing enough in this space.

Here is the real lesson in my narrative that applies to everyone: it’s all about religion, not tactics.

It’s not about P90X, or CrossFit, or a juice cleanse. It’s about an enormous mental shift. It’s about believing in what you do.

That’s what happened to me. Before I even decided what kind of routine I was going to get myself into, I took a big step back and self-evaluated. I asked myself questions and tried to become as self-aware as possible. I realized my whole accountability thing. I made a switch. I refocused.

The tactic was accountability. But it became a religion over the first sixteen months, when I changed my entire thinking.

I figured out exactly what I needed by being brutally honest with myself: I needed someone to babysit me. Now all I ask is that you’re equally honest with yourself when you answer: What will it really take for you to make the change?

For some, money still may be the bottleneck. To that I say this: Nothing is more important than your health. So before you buy that next 42-inch TV, go on an extra vacation, or buy season tickets to your favorite sports team, it might be worth taking a step back and seeing how you can make a strong financial commitment to your health. I am the extreme. It’s not practical for everybody to go out and hire a personal trainer, but gym memberships are becoming more affordable, fresh produce is attainable, and YouTube has hundreds of free workouts.

Starting now could mean 20 extra years of doing what you love. Isn’t that reason enough? Definitely was for me.

This post originally appeared on Medium. 

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Healthy living is never equal to the dollar sign, and here’re some free but effective ways to deal with your health.

Having no money is no excuse for bad health — 33 ways to upgrade your health for free

“I don’t have enough money to eat healthy or go to the gym.”

I hear and read it all them time.

Welcome to the world of excuses.

I’m not judging you. I have the same thoughts from time to time. But then I remember:

There are various ways to deal with this excuse.

Let’s look at three of them.

1. You live with the excuse. You don’t have enough money to buy organic or grass-fed or any good food. Fine. If you can live with that, you probably should stop reading.

2. You can check how you spend your money. Often this isn’t easy, as people don’t like to admit when the buy something they don’t actually need, but they still buy it.

It’s always the first thing I ask people when they tell me that they don’t have money to buy quality food: “When was the last time you were shopping or get drinks with your friends?” Again, I’m not judging anybody, everybody can spend their money and time the way they want, but then the reason changes from

“I don’t have money for quality food” to “I don’t want to spend my money on quality food”.

Aha. Now we’re talking. From time to time people realize, that instead of getting several drinks a night or buying new clothes every month, they should better spend their money on things that make them healthy, instead of making them drunk or fashionable.

Gladly everybody can decide for themselves.

3. You can get rid of the money part. Have you ever heard of the $5 challenge?

It goes like this: You get $5 in an envelope as “seed funding” and two hours to earn the most money you can. You can spend as much time as you want for planning, but as soon as you open the envelope and use the money you only have 2 hours left.

What would you do?

Buy a lottery ticket? Go to Las Vegas? Open a lemonade stand?

All valid ideas, but the ones making the most money realized that $5 is almost nothing to begin with, so they changed the question to: “What can we do to earn money when we have $0?”

Through this way of thinking, they got rid of the money as a limited resource. You can do the same with your health. Stop using money as an excuse for your bad health. There are a lot of free things you can do.

Below I’ll list 33 things you can do to upgrade your health without spending any money.

1. Once an hour stand up and walk around for 5 minutes. Studies have shown that too much sitting is bad for your health. This also works great with the “Pomodoro technique” which advises to have a 5-minute break after 25 (or more) minutes of focused work. (You can use the “Time Out” app for this, it’s free).
2. Drink your coffee without the sugar.
3. Don’t drink soda.
4. Go outside (in the sun) for at least 10 minutes. Sunlight will promote vitamin D production in your body, which is a good thing since 40–75% of people are vitamin D deficient. Sunlight during the day also helps your circadian rhythm and lets you sleep better at night.
5. Avoid bright lights and screens before bed. They worsen your sleep.
6. Exercise at home. Pushups, squats, planks. You don’t need a gym for that.
7. Floss.
8. Use a nail brush to clean your nails. Nails are often the “dirtiest” spot on the body. Try to keep them clean. (If you don’t have a nail brush, this might cost a few bucks. Sorry :/)
9. Sit on the toilet the better way.
10. Think of 3 (or more) things you are grateful for. Write them down if you want to. Try to list 100.
11. Once a day give your eyes a break and only look in the distance for at least 30 minutes.
12. Install f.lux on your PC. (Since there is a chance that you are using a PC or mac to read this, you can install f.lux (it’s free) which decreases the blue light (which is bad for your sleep) in the evening.)
13. Take a walk or go jogging/running.
14. Laugh. Did you know that kids laugh around 300 times a day and adults only 5 times? What happened? Laughing is very good for your health, so do it more often! Watch a youtube video or read a joke.
15. Meditate. Studies have shown that meditating is good for all aspects of your health.
16. Do a breathing exercise. 4–7–8 is a popular breathing technique. 4 secs in, 7 secs. hold, 8 secs. out (with a noise).
17. Eat slowly.
18. Eat only until you are 80% full. This a popular advice from the Blue Zones and they seem to be healthy.
19. Fast. This will not only cost nothing but save you money and time. Do it for 12 hours, 24 hours or a few days, but educate yourself before doing it.
20. Don’t worry. Worrying is bad and unnecessary. Think about your most recent worries, weren’t they useless? Worrying gets your away from the present and into the future, which is, as I said, useless most of the time.
21. Don’t stress yourself. It’s the same as worrying: useless.
22. Don’t smoke. (Obvious, but also generic. I admit it. No matter it even saves you money.)
23. Avoid sunburns. You should go into the sun as mentioned above, but at the same time, you should avoid sunburns.
24. Put your phone in airplane mode when going to bed. This decreases the amount of radiation during your sleep and decreases the probability of unnecessary interruptions during the night.
25. Drink a glass of water after waking up. It gives you energy and restores the fluids you lost during the night.
26. Hug somebody for at least 6 seconds. This releases oxytocin, a chemical in our body, that lets you feel good and promotes health.
27. Play. Whatever you like: play a game (you can borrow them somewhere), play catch, etc.
28. Take a cold shower.
29. Walk barefoot.
30. Finally, start using all those spices and herbs you already have at home. Most of them will be beneficial for your health.
31. Switch your coffee for tea sometimes (if you drink coffee. Choose green tea which is really healthy. This also prevents you from getting “addicted” to the caffeine.)
32. Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
33. Drink enough water.

If you do all of these, you’ll be a lot healthier without spending any money. After that, there are even more things you could do but try these first.

This post originally appeared on DailyFoodFacts. 

Featured photo credit: pixabay.com via pixabay.com

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The Reality Of Marriage That You Won’t See People Posting

Marriage and social media

Anyone can post an idealized view of marriage or long-term relationships on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. However, in reality life is often a little different. Read on to discover five ways in which real-life marriage doesn’t always quite live up to the cute photos and quotes posted online.

Arguing is an art form

When you live together, arguments are inevitable. Spending hours every day in the same space is a recipe for inevitable conflict. It doesn’t matter how well you get on or how much you love one another, there will be times at which you end up yelling at your spouse for the most ridiculous and trivial of reasons. Most petty arguments are over within minutes and forgotten within days, but they feel pretty important at the time. You are especially likely to engage in petty fights if both of you are the type of person who always feels compelled to have the last word. Arguing over whose turn it is to take out the garbage can become a matter of supreme importance.

Falling asleep together comes with its own soundtrack

What could be more romantic than falling asleep next to your spouse at the end of a long day? Well, as peaceful and idyllic as the image might be, the accompanying noises and other nuisances aren’t so romantic. Behind every cute photo of a couple cuddled up together in bed lies the very real probability that at least one person snores, snuffles, hogs the quilt or is in some way an antisocial sleeper. These aren’t just one-off annoyances either. When you live with someone, you have to tolerate their quirks every night for years on end.

In-depth conversations turn into deep sleep

The idea of coming home to your partner at the end of the working day and spending a few hours of quality time together in the evening is a lovely thought. Couples who post about their cozy evenings in with their beloved seem so blessed! In theory, you can converse on all the important issues of the day, share your innermost thoughts and daydream about the life you want to build together. The reality? You are both so tired from working, looking after the kids and keeping up with housework that it’s easier to pass out into a deep sleep than it is to string a coherent sentence together.

Mess is inevitable

If you ever see a post featuring a couple proudly proclaiming that they have tackled the yardwork or divested the house of all dirt and dust, bear in mind that this doesn’t reflect everyday reality for most couples. Yes, some people manage to team up on a regular basis and cross all those household jobs from the to-do list, but the vast majority of us take a rather different approach to the housework. In all likelihood, those happy couples who appear united against the ceaseless onslaught of domestic duties have those evenings in which they are far too tired to do anything other than come home, collapse on the couch, and resign themselves to living in a state of chaos until one of them finally manages to catch up on their sleep and summons the energy to wield a vacuum cleaner.

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Boundaries Empaths Should Set to Protect Themselves and Stay Mentally Healthy

Empathy is what makes us human. The more we are sensitive to other people’s feelings and needs, the greater the chance of harmony and creating a beautiful world. Every empath knows that love, mercy and hope are the divine qualities that keep our world running.

But sometimes empathy is what slowly and silently kills us. Being a people-pleaser takes its toll. It is tiring to be polite to people who take your love for granted and treat you like a doormat. It is painful to care for someone unconditionally and feel the thorn of betrayal or insensitivity. It kills when your empathy, instead of being reciprocated, is repaid with negative energy.

Letting other people take advantage of our kindness is a trap we empaths often fall into. But there’s a simple way to get out of it. You do not need to change your personality into someone who is harsh and rude. You do not need to swap your soft and beautiful heart for a heart of stone. You do not need to compromise your ethics or beliefs at all.

Instead, you need to direct all that love and kindness and care that can change the world at yourself, at your needs and desires. And the easiest way to do this and emerge mentally and physically healthy is to erect firm boundaries. You need to realize that to make this world a better place, you need to be perfectly fit, happy and satisfied. You need to prioritize your needs in order to remain in good shape and high spirits. By doing this, you create a positive and uplifting frame of mind that allows you to function better  and be attune to other people’s needs.

In short, you need to take care of yourself, to take care of the world. 

These are some of the boundaries you can set to protect yourself from negative energy and emerge healthier and more empathetic than before.

1. Learn to say no

Learn to say no, especially to those who don’t value your time or respect you. Even if you feel duty-bound to help that person, remember that it is you and your needs that must always come first. Ask yourself: if I’m sick, how will I help those who need me? Politely reject people when the going gets tough. Take on fewer responsibilities.

2. Trust your gut

Keep an eye out for those energy-suckers who always sulk and find reasons to complain. Listen to your heart. If something doesn’t feel right, leave immediately. If you feel someone is trying to take advantage of you, dissociate yourself instead of making up an excuse for them.

3. Take a break

Go on regular holidays, shopping sprees and detoxes. If you’re overworking, take the next weekend off and go for a long drive, even if you have made some prior commitments. Find a hobby that recharges your spirits and helps you to think out of the box and assess situations objectively. Every once in while, take a well-deserved break and–for goodness sake–do not apologize or feel guilty for enjoying yourself.

4. Heal yourself with self-love

It all boils down to this. Be more selfish, and less selfless and realize that there’s nothing wrong in doing so. Schedule some ‘me time’ for yourself, every single day, and guard it zealously from energy-suckers. Pamper yourself with treats–whether it’s indulging in Swiss chocolate, going for a bath with essential oils and aroma candles, or simply being in the moment and feeling beautiful for being who you are.

What are you waiting for? Share these tips with your wonderful empath friends and help create the beautiful world that you dream of!

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10 Signs Of A True Leader (Instead Of A Boss)

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Success Is What You Make It No Matter Where You Started From

Jim Carrey has been on our movie screens for decades and, love him or hate him, he has been hugely successful in creating a career based on his natural humour and creativity. But it hasn’t always been an easy path for the actor. When we look at successful people we often see them as being lucky or fortunate, however is this really the truth?

For Jim Carrey, life has been tough to get where he is today and we often don’t get to hear about the courage and determination that lies behind the stories of success. We sometimes judge people who seemingly ‘have it all’ or compare our own lives with those that have what we want, but comparisons only lead to unhappiness and we are unaware of the whole story behind their achievements. Here is why Jim Carrey should be such a source of inspiration and shows us some lessons that we can apply to our own lives.

Positive Things Can Come From Desperate Situations

Our childhoods are a time when our thoughts, beliefs and perspectives are being developed and shaped. So experiencing hard times can have a huge effect on us without realising. When our childhoods are spent in poverty, lack and sometimes desperation, it can affect our outlook on life, creating limiting beliefs for ourselves and what we can achieve.

Despite his huge success, Carrey didn’t have an idyllic childhood. He suffered from ADHD and undiagnosed dyslexia at school that caused him to struggle as well as finding it hard to make friends. His parents were poor and at one time they had to live in a van to make ends meet while Carrey worked a job alongside finishing his school work.

But instead of using his tough circumstances as a catalyst for struggle, he used his experience of desperate times to cultivate an empowered, positive mindset towards his dreams and ambitions. Whether you believe it or not, you have a choice about how you choose to look at life – you can let bad experiences knock you down and influence your beliefs that life is just never going to bring you what you want, or you can choose to use it as determination to make things better for yourself.

Determination Is The Key To Success

When Carrey decided to move to Hollywood to pursue his career in acting and comedy, he wasn’t an instant success. In fact, it took him 10 years before he got his first break. Despite being broke and feeling beaten down, he didn’t give up on pursuing his dreams.

Motivation and determination is something we all have inside of us but sometimes find hard to sustain when things don’t quite come as quickly as we thought they would. If we have a particular goal or dream we want to achieve we have to celebrate the small steps, the continuing of forward motion even if it doesn’t feel like it’s moving in the direction we want. Carrey believed in himself and believed that one day he will achieve what he moved to Hollywood to do.

We can’t predict life and everything it throws at us, but we can have faith that if we want something badly enough, and strive to work towards it, then success will happen. Determination is a powerful determent of achieving our goals in life.

Everyone Is Going Through A Battle You Don’t Know About

Many people would be surprised to know that the funny man of Hollywood has suffered from debilitating depression for a large portion of his life. With many great and inspirational people in the limelight secretly suffering from mental illness, it can seem slightly ironic that success and depression can live hand in hand. But Carrey hasn’t shied away from his sadness and shows that fame, success and being the ‘funny man’ doesn’t mean he’s automatically happy on the inside.

Carrey shows depression doesn’t discriminate but he continues to beat his depression by accepting that life isn’t always smooth, embracing negative feelings and accepting them for what they are, channelling his energy into what makes him happy, changing his perspective on the positive things he already has in his life and appreciating them, together with avoiding stimulants like alcohol and drugs.

Never assume that success equals happiness. Never look at someone else’s life and see them having what you don’t have – assuming they are feeling happy and abundant. No matter how successful or not someone is, a lot of people are going through battles we don’t know about. Stop comparing yourself to others and seeing lack in your own life but instead see the abundance already there no matter how small it is.

Do What You Can To Help Others

Jim Carrey’s hardship in his early life has helped him develop a mindset that cultivates a perspective of helping those in need. He set up a charity called The Better U Foundation in 2005 that promotes sustainable agriculture allowing farmers and workers to earn a better living in third world countries. While it’s easy to say Carrey is a millionaire successful actor and can afford to help others, he doesn’t have to. In fact, none of us have to help others in need but it’s all about the importance of altruism; giving our help to others and expecting nothing in return.

Helping to improve the welfare and happiness of people is an important factor in our own happiness. Not all of us can start charities but charity starts at home with your family, friends, neighbours, and your community as a whole. Putting a tiny amount of time aside to go out and help someone in need is all it takes to make this world a better place.

So whether you’re a Jim Carrey fan or not, it’s always good to take away the perspectives of someone who has experienced the bad times, gained success, suffered and cared for others. Remember, success is what you make it no matter where you started from.

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