Did you know that improving your health is a choice? It’s true. We make the choice many time a day to move toward better health or to move away. The more conscious we are about the power we have to live a healthy life, the more ability we have to make the right decisions. When we don’t understand how each action is a direct impact on well-being, then we are more likely to head toward actions that don’t serve us.

Here is a list of behaviors that people might take in any given day. Do your best to rate these as either beneficial to health or detrimental. Then note if you do any of these actions, or similar ones, and note if your actions are a positive or negative influence on your well-being.

• Skipping meals
• Morning meditation
• Daily exercise
• Planning the activities for the day
• Eating prepackaged, low nutrient foods
• Rushing to meetings, work and activities every day
• Feeling frustrated in traffic
• Belittling yourself quietly or in front of others
• Gossiping about someone
• Sitting all day with no exercise
• Feeling sorry for yourself
• Disliking your appearance
• Rewarding yourself with your favorite activity
• Visiting with friends
• Appreciating your natural skills
• Planning your meals for nutrition
• Telling someone how much you appreciate them

Most of us can see that some of these activities are good for us and others are not. More importantly, all of them are a choice; a decision we make that we have control over. It may appear that food and exercise are the two important winners when it comes to overall health. But in fact, every action we take, each day, impacts our wellbeing. If we think one bad thought about our body, mind or abilities, this has a negative impact on our own welfare and directly impacts how our body processes the water we drink, the food we ingest and the hormones that are flowing freely through our systems. Positive thinking is not just a phrase to help us feel happiness, it is a law for creating the best health possible.

Criticism of yourself or others, including gossip, feeds emotions such as fear and worry, blame and powerlessness, self-doubt and victimhood which all steal away energy that could be used to build new cells, cleanse the body, empower and energize the body to help us move more, have strength to plan meals and cook good food or visit loved one that feed our need for love and appreciation. Negative emotions can make us crave bad food, drop our mood and keep us doing bad habits.

Here are a few ways to sail in a good direction, even when wind and waves come at us:

• If a person is bothering you, feel compassion for that person and what they might be going through. Remember a time when you may have annoyed other people. Realize that we all make mistakes and can’t please everyone all the time.
• If traffic is causing you to move slower than you expected, feel gratitude for the roads, your vehicle and the people around you sitting in their cars who will deliver your mail today, make you a cup of coffee, make Google Maps work, repair the powerlines and grow your food.
• If your body doesn’t look exactly the way your desire, feel appreciation for your systems that are working, whether that is your legs that take you to where you want to go, your eyes that help you see, your fingers that work fine detail, your mind that helps you accomplish so much and your mouth and stomach that allow you to ingest nutrients. Then note that not everyone enjoys these great benefits.

We can easily focus on what we lack, or what we have. We can appreciate what our body can do, or belittle what we judge as inadequate. We can grab a bag of chips and a coke, or we can grab and apple and some pineapple juice. The power is completely within ourselves.

What I have noticed as I’ve made the transition myself, and coach a hundred others along this path, is that, like a boat moving on the ocean, we don’t usually jump from one island to the next. We sail from one place to another, occasionally returning to a familiar port (meaning bad habit). The important thing is to have the correct heading, sailing towards the place you want to be. If you know your goal, and chart your path, then daily you improve your choices, and that is making headways on the rough waters of life.

Every choice has an impact! You are either heading toward your desired destination or your heading is off toward another. Check your course direction often to stay on the path toward paradise island where great health abounds.

“Money comes when we follow the path of least resistance for us. When we indulge in our passions with an open heart and a positive intent for the world.”

So that begs the question: If I just love chocolate and bathe in it every day and eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner and make my house out of chocolate and have the positive intention that chocolate can help everyone in the world – will the money come in?

Well, imagine if you did have that obsession with chocolate – you’d be a guru! You’d have people coming to visit your chocolate house, your genuine lust for the perfect chocolate would see you start a business of making chocolate from the finest ingredients. Your business would flourish – with your positive intent, you’d support fair trade, environmentally friendly packaging, you’d preserve the environments for growing cacao, and all the other ingredients you used. You’d be seen as a positive inspiration and be invited to share your story. Someone would write a book about you, you’d speak at engagements if you wanted to. Your family and community would feel your passion and be inspired to follow theirs. You’d attract the people who wanted to be around you and share your passion and your life would be awesome! (Of course, chocolate is healthy for this person!)

So how does that relate to your BODY?

Well, we’re all unique. Our bodies are made for different tasks. And the way your body is made, helps you to do things easily in certain ways. For example, someone with strong sturdy bones and large muscle mass is much more suitable for heavy manual labour than a person with fragile bones, little muscle and fat mass. Put a twig of a person out on the farm and sooner or later, they’ll break!

The key is knowing what comes easily to your body. And thanks to tools like ph360 and the revolutionary new Shae^TM, this is becoming second nature.

There are 3 key steps in utilising the wisdom of your body to allow money to flow:

1. Find out the easiest way for your body to do something. We are all a different cocktail of the same essential ingredients. Some will thrive on achievement others will thrive on social interactions, creativity, or nurturing. Funnily enough, that difference is derived from your body and the naturally occuring level of hormones. Knowing how your body is made up, what your natural strengths are and the way your body responds best is the key to being in your state of flow!

2. Combine it with your passion. Imagine doing something you love, that comes naturally to you – every day! That’s what happens when you combine your passion with your natural talents – an explosion of creativity and productivity that sets in motion a cycle that continues to produce incredible results.

3. Set a good intention for you and the people you influence. If your actions are based on good intentions for you and the people around you, you will find that others will notice and be drawn to you. That’s the universe’s way of sending you support and reward.

When you’re riding that wave of passionate flow, you’ll notice the money starts to come in. It may not be in grand ocean waves, but it will come. When you align yourself with what nature has given you, add that to your passion and good intentions, abundance is naturally attracted to you. All it takes is listening to your body and when simple tools like ph360 or the new Shae^TM can do it for you – you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

We have more abundance and opportunity available to us now than in any other time period with the knowledge from thousands of years of the written word. Despite living in the greatest prosperity of all times, we are not gaining in health or quality of life. Most people suffer from some type of health issue, the most common of which are heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol or blood pressure, and overweight or obesity. That last one, obesity, affects 2 out of every 3 Americans!

Is Tech the Problem or the Answer?

People often blame existing health issues on busyness, convenience food, lack of motivation, and/or lack of accurate information about what will make them healthy.

Modern life has in fact taken us away from nature, where we were inherently active and inherently understood food from working on a farm. Sure, technology can, in part, be to blame for our less active lifestyle, but this same technology just might be the answer to our current health crisis. New technological advances are now on the market to make health a part of our daily routine. While some of it may appear cumbersome and inefficient at first glance, the learning curve is fast and before you know it you have at your disposal an easy, quick solution to your health woes.

Can recent technological advancements really improve your health? The answer is a resounding “yes.” Below we explore just how it is possible.

Here are the ways that technology can help you to get healthier:

• It can track your lifestyle habits easily so you can monitor your activities and progress. Fitbit tracks the distance you travel, the calories you burn and your heart rate throughout your activity. MyFitnessPal is one of many calorie-counting apps that help you track your intake for easier weight loss. As you monitor your activity, you may feel motivated to improve your numbers over time.
• It can motivate you. See How You Eat is a new app that keeps a photographic record of your meals. Just the act of photographing your food can encourage you to make smarter choices. Then you can review your meals in an easy photo diary. The app also reminds you about meal time and has other features to encourage good habits. ShopWell is another great app for motivation – it allows you to scan the items you buy in the grocery store and suggests healthy alternatives.
• It can order your groceries or find a recipe for you in a snap. Instacart is an app that allows you to order your groceries from your phone and have them delivered to your door in one hour with a minimal delivery fee in many major cities. Sidechef provides recipes, videos, photos and voice instructions to teach you how to cook new recipes. With the help of technology, feeding ourselves is getting easier and more convenient.
• It can tell you the diet that is best for your body and develop a health plan personalized to you. Personalized health apps contain a vast base of knowledge, allowing them to know all about your body type, digestion, health issues and level of fitness, and to customize a diet and health regime specific to you. ph360 is a sophisticated health app that is able to do more than your average diet program. After you complete a short evaluation of your measurements and health history, it runs algorithms based on 15 known health sciences to tell you everything from the best diet to the ideal fitness regime and best place for you to live to maximize your health. Shae^TM is a mobile app that will use these personalized health insights to tell you, in real time, what and when it’s best for you to eat, when to drink more water, when and how to move, or when to go to sleep so you can be at your healthiest. It will even ask you if you want to have the ideal dinner meal for you – both in terms of health properties and taste – delivered to your door.

The options of technologies that exist to help us be our healthiest range from simple to complex, and without a doubt they are influencing how we think about and manage our lifestyle. Technology is here to stay and we can embrace the tools available to make life easier, such as those that tell us what is best for us to eat, give suggestions for how to reduce stress, or let us know the ideal external environment for us. With the growing understanding of how lifestyle choices impact how well we feel, more people want to make good choices and find practical ways to fit wellness habits into their busy lives. Health apps and devices are here to assist us with this challenge and to provide answers to the many questions we have about how to feel our best. Give them a try.

Think. Think. Think. It’s what our mind does. Some thoughts feel good. Some feel not so good. Some help us devise solutions. Others appear to create problems. Some last a few seconds. Others a few minutes. And many – especially the negative ones – latch on to those like them and create long chains of cyclical thought patterns scientists refer to as rumination.

Rumination, it turns out, isn’t just something that happens in your head. Sure, it’s been shown to exacerbate psychological stress, impair problem solving, and even produce more frequent depressive episodes, but it’s also been shown to prolong the stress response by increasing cortisol and blood pressure levels, thereby impairing the health of the heart.

The following is a list of simple ways that you can break the cycle of rumination and avoid overthinking. As you read, remember that while your mind can be like a speeding, runaway train full of all sorts of unpleasant thoughts, it can also be the source of much wonder, delight, intelligence, and unlimited possibility in your life.

1. Do something else. It’s easy to sit on the couch, legs crossed, and overthink. It’s less easy to overthink if you are passionately and exuberantly engaged in something that feels good to you. So get up and do something you love. Let new action give you new perspective. Get your mental juices flowing by starting a new creative project, go outside and get in touch with the wisdom of mother nature, or take a walk or do some exercise to transform the mental activity into physical activity. When you do something differently, it’s no surprise that your mind will respond differently. So you may find, as you move your body and creatively or masterfully engage your mind, that you are able to turn your attention to a new point of focus – whether a project, person, or situation. Congratulations, you have interrupted your overthinking process and from this neutral state of mind can now direct your attention as you wish.

2. Change topics. When something’s not going quite right in our lives, we oftentimes begin to have tunnel vision. All we can do is think about this one thing and nothing else. But if we change the topic of our mental chatter to something that feels just a little bit better and just a little bit clearer, suddenly our way of being changes. Now this might seem counterintuitive and you might find yourself saying “But if I’m thinking about a different topic, aren’t I still thinking?” And the answer is yes. Surely, you are still thinking. But once you start to think about something that feels less “messy” and not so extravagant and in desperate need of your attention (the reason you were overthinking in the first place), you create space. And from that space, any number of things that divert overthinking can take place – whether an inspired action, a creative stream of thought, or simply a generally lighter feeling.

3. Stop talking about it with everyone you know and meet. Oversharing is a common relative of overthinking, and it often doesn’t help. In fact, as your thoughts turn to words, they gain momentum. They become more real. So, if you want to share (and we do encourage sharing and seeking social support if you have a problem that needs to be addressed), be mindful with whom you share. Do you want your thoughts to gain momentum in the direction of more stress, worry, and overthinking? Then share them with someone who might make you feel better temporarily by agreeing with your concerns, but who may or may not be in a mental and emotional space themselves to help you, and may even confuse you. Do you want your thoughts to gain momentum in the direction of more clarity, peace, and resolution? Then share them with someone who can offer a new perspective on what’s happening, someone who can see a glimpse of something you haven’t considered before, someone who can dish out a dose of honesty and sincerity to help you grow.

4. Acknowledge what you are afraid of. Beneath every stream of endless thought lies a decision that needs to be made, and beneath every decision that needs to, but isn’t ready to, be made lies fear. So ask yourself, “What am I afraid of”? “What am I afraid will happen if I make this decision, or the other?” “What do I stand to lose (my status, self-respect, self-worth, freedom, power, friends, money, etc)?” Then question the validity of your fear by asking yourself “Will that really happen if I make this decision”? “What are some other options for what might happen instead?” and “If what I fear does happen, what will happen next?” By asking yourself these questions, you will stop your mind in its tracks. Where it once was catastrophizing and expecting the worst, you will now see the possibility of a good outcome. Where it once secretly predicted that you wouldn’t be able to handle the outcome, you will now notice resilience. There is no outcome that your decision can produce (within reason, of course) that you cannot handle and deal with. And when it comes to the things that you hold within you (your self-respect, self-worth, freedom, power), no one can ever take those away from you. And when you have those things, you don’t need the outside approval that comes from the things you irrationally fear to lose (status, friends, money).

5. Know that you can always go back and change your mind. We tend to overthink because we think we have to get it right, we have to get it perfect this time or else … (insert the fear-evoking thoughts your mind resorts to here). In actuality, no decision is ever final. You have made good decisions in the past and can make the best one for you right now. And if you don’t like the outcome of what happens, you can move forward and try a different route. If you all of a sudden see new options and possibilities, you can change your mind and easily go in that direction. In fact, that’s exactly what we often do without even realizing it. We make a decision and because we’ve done so, the thoughts in our mind begin to slow down. We usually know what our mind is saying, but less often do we know what our heart is saying. But now that we are no longer constantly thinking, we can begin to hear the voice of our heart – the voice that usually presents us with a whole new slew of possibilities that feel oh so good. So we pivot, switch gears, and decide to follow along with those new nudges. This is why any decision – our own or another’s – that appears to have been a one-time choice most likely actually took 4, 5, or infinitely more turns to get to.

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