Pete's 8 Pillars of Health – Air
Let’s start this blog series Pete’s 8 Pillars of Health with a bit about my less-healthy lifestyle choices in my past.
I made some dark choices led me to reflect on my life situation. I use to binge drink and party every weekend, ate processed fast foods like maccas and KFC almost daily felt like crap and was extremely unhappy about my life situation and job. Overall, I was stressed and anxious, but for no apparent reason, It was from that moment in my life, I asked myself what was causing me to feel like this, was I actually healthy, was I happy, was I fulfilled with my life?
Over the last 5 years, I have been on the journey to live my passion of transforming myself, sharing information with other people about health and personal development and helping people change their lives for the better, I have completely changed my thinking about, food, my job, my relationships, my circumstances, I am entering my 4th year fully sober and as a result I can now say I feel much healthier, and am now more calm and peaceful.
Health is one of our greatest assets, we could lose our jobs, and our homes or we could even lose all of our money but if we lose our health we have truly lost it all. Without our health, we have little to no chance of being fulfilled and achieving our goals and dreams.
Even though conventional medicine has its place in assisting in the treatment of some illnesses and diseases, it most of the time puts only a band-aid on our problems instead of addressing the underlying core issues that are actually affecting our health. Natural and simple remedies work - often better than prescription drugs for many health conditions. More and more people are starting to become aware of this.
So what do you do to be healthy?
Over the next couple weeks I am going to post on 8 basic pillars of health that I believe will lead you to a healthy and vibrant lifestyle, these will include some tools that I have used on a daily basis that helped transform my life.
The first pillar I would like to talk about is Air.
Breathing is the first thing we do when we are born and the last thing we do before we die but how much importance do we give to breathing? We can stay alive for long periods without eating, drinking or sleeping, but if we do not breathe, we die within a few minutes.
So, how should we be breathing?
Overall many people are not breathing efficiently, we are meant to breathe into our stomachs, just look at babies, the stomach comes in, and the stomach comes out. A lot of people over time because of stress and trauma become chest and throat breathers, this causes the breath to become shallow, which makes you have low energy, causes fatigue and can cause you to fall asleep in situations.
Most people think when they breathe they are only getting oxygen, but breathing properly has so many benefits. It’s a great way to improve your mood, and energy, reduce inflammation and help with digestion.
People that are depressed have a big outward breath and a little in breath, scientific analysis has shown this actually creates depression. People with anxiety, breathe in more, than actually breathing out.
So I want you guys to ask yourself, how’s your mental clarity throughout the day? Breathing styles such as breathwork, the Wim Hof method, and breath holds, are all effective techniques that we can do on a daily basis.
A simple breathing exercise improves mental clarity, especially at times when we are feeling particularly agitated, our morale is low or when we feel tired.
Do a deep inhalation in through the nose for 5 seconds.
Hold your breath for 5 seconds.
Then do a deep exhalation out through the mouth for 5 seconds. Repeat 5 times.
By taking the first steps in each one of the pillars I will be mentioning over the next couple of weeks, you can be a step closer to uncovering the healthiest version of yourself so that you can live that joyful, long and fulfilling life.
The time is now, so ask yourself, what different areas of your life matter to you the most and where would you like to improve.
If you need some tips or want to know some breathing techniques, message me and I am more than happy to send some info through.
Much Love
Pete Volos <3