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Nourishing Input Yields Healthy Output

Preparing fruit and chia puddingHave you ever given serious thought to what you put into your body physically, chemically, and emotionally and how that affects your output, productivity, and joy?

How does it affect your health and how you interact with your family and your view of life?

From the minute we wake up in the morning we are making decisions about what we will put into our body … coffee, tea, toast, and whatever else makes up your choices for nutrition before work or school.

Is Your Routine Feeding or Starving You?

We may start our day in a rush driving through traffic, getting kids to school, then hitting work with the full force of emails, and job lists—we tend to lurch from one “to-do” list to another, only then to complete the reverse process of the morning later in the day. Get back in the car, collect kids from school, think about dinner, baths, bedtimes, and supposedly spend some relaxing time in front of the TV watching a suspense or drama—only to flop into bed exhausted.

Is this routine feeding you?

Do you feel like you are operating out of your sweet spot?

How can you tell? Ask yourself the following: Does your body ache? How do you feel—tired, depressed, or angry? Your body will be telling you! But are you listening?

Your Emotional Health Drives Everything

A friend recently told me about how she spent years with hip pain and she just soldiered on—only one day realising that she needed to do something about it upon seeing a photo of herself with her partner where she could see the pain on her face. She realised how the pain had started to eat away at her inner spark.

There are many “emotional” scales you can refer to on Pinterest or Google for example. If you are ticking off many of the “below line” emotions then take a look at your inputs—especially your emotional input as your emotional health drives absolutely everything (and has a huge part to play in your resilience and ability to cope with rush hour traffic, the kids, and work).

Check the Quality of Your Inputs

It also can be helpful to reflect on the quality of your inputs. Think about inputs in terms of these three categories:

  1. Emotional (TV, news, social media, interactions with people, music, books, etc.)
  2. Physical (how you move your body, sleep, posture, body self-care, etc.)
  3. Chemical (What food and drink am I consuming? What products and chemicals am I being exposed to? What things am I putting into my body?)

Add the obvious things: more water, more live cells such as fruit and vegetables, and more exercise (I know, I know—time you say), but 15 minutes here and there all adds up throughout the week.

You Can Always Change the Channel

What music or movies do you find emotionally fulfilling for you? Any media should be uplifting. If you find yourself angry, disappointed, or sickened by what you are watching, change the channel. Your body and your future will thank you!

Our brain is processing all the time; it’s up to you to feed it well.

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