10 Ways To Live A Vibrant Life

When it comes to living your best life our choices of food, drink, exercise and daily activities make all the difference. No surprises there but sometimes we need a quick check-in to see how we’re doing and a gentle reminder of how to do it well.

Here are 10 habits to get into in order to be your most vibrant self.

1. Keep Hydrated

When it comes to hydrating our bodies, it’s vital to choose liquids that serve your body well.

You’ve heard it before: ‘drink at least eight glasses of water (good old h20) daily’. Its good advice and a pretty universal number that applies to most of us – high-performance athletes aside – as a high percentage of our makeup is water. Look at the image on the left to see the percentage of water in our major organs!

Adding smoothies to your daily routine is a great idea too. It’s a good rule of thumb to use more veggies than fruit – that way you get more vegetables into your diet and keep your blood sugar nice and balanced – happy you, happy weight, happy hormones! A simple smoothie might consist of ½ banana, 1 handful of rich greens like baby spinach or kale, 1 tsp chia seeds, ½ cup berries, and 1 cup of water or almond or coconut milk. But throw in whatever floats your individual boat. 😀

We also love – love – love drinking infused water. To make it, simply add fruit to pure water and have it ferment in the fridge for a couple of hours until the nutrients penetrate the liquid and are ready for use. Delishimo.

2. Nourish With Nutrients

A nourished body creates a balanced, happy mood – it’s a simple equation.

So every time you eat ask yourself if what you’re about to consume will nourish your body. An easy way to ensure you’re ticking all the boxes is to choose foods in their most natural form. Foods that are mostly raw, not packaged, not fried, not “fast” served, and foods that if labeled – are completely and totally understandable when it comes to the ingredients.

Staying on the outer aisles in the supermarket is a good trick because that’s where you’ll usually find the fresh produce. Most of the products sitting on the shelves of the inside aisles are processed and contain a plethora of additives and preservatives.

If budget permits, organic fruit and veggies are ideal choices and other food items that are free from pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics. If you eat meat it’s a good idea to try and go for free-range varieties from farms where the animals are cared for and loved.

3. Relax & Dream

Relaxing and allowing the body to sleep and refuel is so important. Imagine driving your vehicle around non-stop for a week – at some point, the engine will let you know it’s had enough. The same goes for our bodies, they are our vehicles. Our bodies need sleep of at least eight+ hours, and our body needs time to relax and let go of all that is confining our mind.

We say ’relax and dream’ because even if we are getting the right amount of nighttime shut-eye we also need to take the time to let the energies within our body calm and find a centre throughout the day as well.

Think about what relaxes your body and how you can include those relaxation techniques in your daily routine. Breathing exercises, mindfulness, meditation and yoga practice are all brilliant choices for this.

Related: 5 Reasons To Stretch Every Day

4. Dance Like Nobody’s Watching 💃💃💃

While this step sounds pretty simple when was the last time you let your body flow in thoughtless movement and pure joy?

All too often we create a workout routine that involves timed movement and scheduled routines. There’s no argument that this is absolutely excellent for your health, your mood, your hormones, and your weight because you’re moving your body and muscles and boosting endorphins to lift your mood.

But – if you allow yourself to go back to childhood and freely move and dance as if nobody else is around how will you feel? Not only will you release tension, but you’ll also have a good time! Try it. Dance around by yourself to some great music and see how fabulous and stress-free you feel.

5. Indulge In Key Foundational Supplements

Our body runs on vitamins and nutrients and our digestive system runs on good bacteria to function properly. Taking a good quality multivitamin, 1000mg of Vitamin D, especially during the months when the sun is barely showing face, omega 3’s, and a multi-strand probiotic is a great habit to get into. And if you’re over 40 and experiencing hormonal changes I also recommend 40+ and/or 55+ by MenoMe to bring you back into balance.

When it comes to supplements you get what you pay for – cheaper brands tend to contain a lot of inexpensive fillers. Choose quality over quantity with everything in life including supplements.

6. Fearlessly Dream

Now we get to the good stuff. These steps fuel our mood by nourishing our soul as we take a holistic approach to our life and happiness. This step is vital for mood-boosting. Too often, we stop dreaming when we become an adult and our responsibilities get in the way of our child-like free-thinking mind. Write down your top three dreams – without fear, and without any thoughts of objects or circumstances that you think may get in the way.

Do it now. We’ll wait. 😉

7. Plan Your Dreams With Easy To Take Steps

Now that you’ve written down your top three dreams without worry or care you’re actually going to implement them. That’s right – forget the routines, the schedules, the responsibilities, and PLAN to make your dreams come true. You can plan for one year, two years, three years or more – do it now. We’ll wait again. 😉

Whatever you do…

DON’T GIVE UP.

Remember,

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE.

Know that,

DREAMS DO COME TRUE.

It’s time to stop putting the dreams that fuel your soul on the back burner.

8. Find Time To Explore And Play

take-time-to-play

When was the last time you played? If it was when you were 10 years old it’s time to make a change. Playing shouldn’t end just because we’re older. We need to create a balance between work and play and priorities some time to explore life and play with it.

Here are five tips you can take to play a little bit more:

Book a dinner reservation at a local restaurant.
Make plans to enjoy the movie that just hit theatres.
Take a walk in nature.
Just get in the car and GO somewhere, anywhere the wheels take you.
Take the time to indulge your non-work talents: singing, dancing, playing a musical instrument, painting, cooking, designing.

Life is too short to stop playing and too vast to stop exploring.

9. Create Time For You And For Self-Care

This could seriously be the most important step we take to enhancing our mood.

Enjoy self-care with indulging in a pedicure, going on a shopping spree, spending an hour alone in the quiet and reading, enjoying a cozy Epsom salts bath with lavender essential oil, taking 30 minutes to meditate…

…time to just be you and care for YOU.

10. Laugh – It’s The Best Medicine

It’s not good for us to take life too seriously. We need to laugh whether it’s for fun or through our tears. We need to surround ourselves with people who lift our spirits and help us enjoy life.

At times it can be a tall order but sometimes you just need to laugh and live.

Laughter is a known healer as it produces “happy” chemicals in our body. It’s long been known to be the best medicine and it’s well documented that it’s helped many people through chronic illness like cancer.

So, let’s live as vibrantly as we can and…

….Live. Love. Laugh.

Main photo by Lidya Nada on Unsplash