Hey, what’s up everybody, in this post, I’m going to be talking about Health Tips: 5 ways for you to improve your health by living on the edge. Let’s go ahead and get started.
My Experience
So I’ve been involved in health and fitness for about 35 years now. When I was 16 years old, I was an aerobics instructor at Victini health club. Not sure if you’ve heard of it, it’s up in Wisconsin, I don’t even know if they’re open anymore.
Then I spent 20 years as a Navy SEAL, and eventually earned my Master’s in Health and Human Performance. And all along the way, I seem to always hear contradictory information on what you need to do to be really healthy.
What I want to do here is kind of clean up some of that confusion with my five ways that you can improve your health by living on the edge. I’m sure you’ve heard people say everything in moderation, right? Well, what they don’t tell you is that mediocre and moderation are synonyms. So if you’re looking to be mediocre, then exercise in moderation, do fitness in moderation. But if you want to be excellent, then you need to live and operate on the extremes of health.
5 Health Tips
#1 Exercise Do/Don’t
Let’s start off with exercise. A lot of us are taught that walking is a good way to stay in shape. And if you’re looking to gain muscle or lose weight, that’s actually correct, because you will stay in the same shape that you are in right now.
Don’t:
You’re not going to lose weight, and you’re not going to gain muscle. And the repetitive movements on your joints are going to just cause damage and not give you any gain for that pain.
Now, this goes for any steady-state cardio exercise that you want to do. Even going back to teaching aerobics when I was 16 years old, bike riding or jogging any of these things, they can be fun, if you’re doing it for fun, if you’re doing them to get outside. That’s great, but they can’t be what you’re doing to get in shape.
Like I said, you’re going to stay in the same shape you’re in. Your body is going to compensate and accommodate for whatever you give it. So if you’re doing steady state cardio, if you’re walking, your body is going to accommodate for that. And it’s going to keep some energy in reserve and the way that energy is stored in men it’s the tire around the belly. And for women, it tends to be in the hips.
Do:
So health tip #1 is to lift heavy weights to exhaustion, and then focus on recovery and sleep. So you’re either working really hard, or you’re not working at all giving your body time to rebuild and grow those muscles.
If done properly, this can be done in as little as five to ten minutes per day.
#2 Temperature Regulation
All right, next up is temperature regulation. Now for most of human existence, we didn’t have air conditioning, and we didn’t have heating. And our bodies had to compensate for the differences in ambient temperatures.
Hormetic Stress Response
This is what causes hormetic stress response which is just a low-grade stress-like exercise that’s been studied for many, many years. Now the problem is that most of us live in a controlled temperature environment, some of us only being exposed to temperature differences from 68 to 72 degrees, which is actually making us weaker.
Contrast Bath
So health tip #2 is to get comfortable with hot and cold. And a very easy way to do this is to do what I do every morning. And every night before bed, I take contrast baths or showers.
You can just get in your shower, turn it on as cold as it’ll get, go for a minute, and do a minute of hot and then back and forth, do that three to five times.
This is really going to supercharge your body and give it that hormetic stress that it needs so much to thrive.
#3 Breathing Methods
Alright, in these Health Tips, #3 is your breath. Now everybody knows obviously that breath is pretty important if you enjoy living. But how many of us really think about it unless we have a problem with our breathing.
How you breathe determines how you live. And if you’re a mouth breather, this one tip will change your life.
So health tip #3 is to focus on your breath. You either want to be breathing really hard or really soft. An easy way to work on this is to do some Wim Hof, or other breathing methods multiple times a day.
Wim Hof breathing, If you haven’t done it before, very simple, you do 30 very deep, very quick breaths. You blow out all your air on that last breath, and you hold it for as long as you can. Then you breathe in and hold that for about 15 seconds. Then do it two more times three more times, and call it a day.
Now, the rest of the day when you’re not coughing it up. Focus on keeping your mouth shut and breathing through your nose. Unless you’re eating or drinking or kissing. And this applies when you’re sleeping too.
And if you have a hard time doing this, it may sound extreme, tape your mouth shut. You just need to put a little piece of scotch tape or masking tape. I wouldn’t recommend duct tape or something like that. Don’t use superglue. Not a good idea. Just a little piece of tape. Just remind yourself to keep your mouth shut when you’re sleeping.
Why Is Your Diet Extremely Important?
Next up on the list is food. And this one’s pretty simple. You should either be feeding or you should be fasting. The mediocre mortal is usually on a two-hour carb cycle. And that means you can’t go for four hours on a plane ride without thinking that the pretzels are some form of medical intervention.
Really up until 100 years ago or so, we didn’t eat three meals a day. And if you go further back in human evolution, we didn’t eat on some days, we were either feasting or fasting.
We would look for food, and when we found it, we would eat it. What this does when you’re fasting is it gives your body a chance to rest and digest. And it helps with cellular turnover, something called autophagy, that it actually makes you healthier, it helps with stem cell growth, it helps in so many ways. And you just need to give your body a rest.
#4 Intermittent Fasting
Why is Fasting Important?
So this health tip #4 and why is fasting important, is to start practicing what’s called intermittent fasting, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s also called time-restricted eating or eating during a feeding window. But you want to get to where you’re eating your meals, all your food, all of your calories during a six to eight-hour feeding window.
An easy way to start doing this, especially if you’re on that carb cycle, and you can’t go for two hours without thinking you’re going to die is to simply start with breakfast, break-fast, and just break your fast a little later each day.
So you wake up. If you normally eat at six o’clock every morning, wait until seven. And then when you’re comfortable with that, go to eight and when you’re comfortable with that go to nine and then you know I could keep going. But this is what you want to do.
Scientists have done many, many studies that show when you eat, is more important than what you eat. And I know that sounds crazy, but they’ve done studies where they’ve fed the people the same foods with the same amount of calories, and the ones that did it during a restricted feeding window were much healthier, they lost more weight than the other groups.
So start practicing intermittent fasting.
Circadian Rhythms
Control the light around you. Now just like food and temperature for most of human existence, we didn’t have control over the light. Today we’ve allowed light to take control of us and wreak havoc on our circadian rhythms.
Circadian rhythms are physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. And this is like an internal clock. And it’s controlled by light and darkness, and it affects almost every aspect of our life.
Most of the time, if you’re feeling a little off, that’s your internal clock telling you it needs an adjustment.
#5 Control The Light Around You
So health tip #5. In the morning, wake up, get up, go outside, and get at least 15 minutes of sunlight, and don’t wear sunglasses.
How to Prevent Blue Light
And then in the evening, make sure you control blue light, especially from electronics. Turn off your TV at least an hour before you go to bed. If you have to stay up late to binge-watch something on Netflix or whatever it is, make sure you wear some good blue light-blocking glasses and that’s how to prevent blue light.
Alright, so that is it for today. I hope you got some value out of these Health Tips and I hope it helps you live a healthier and happier life. Please share and comment on this post if you haven’t already, and keep paving your path to perfection!
