Elvis' Ten Rules to a Happier and Healthier LIfe
Simple steps you can take every day to improve your Life
It's not just about living longer but being happier and healthier
Chief Instructor Elvis Sinosic has spent years training, competing, learning, and being involved with the Martial Arts in the Health and Fitness industry. Over those years Elvis has developed a set of hacks or rules that he follows to live a healthier and happier life. People want to increase life span but forget it’s also about health span. If you want to live a longer, happier and healthier life then you need to improve all the different aspects. Here are those hacks, hopefully they can help you live a better life!
1. Move more
Walk, exercise, lift, run, wrestle, kick, punch, be active. Movement is key to a long and healthy life. Movement and exercise are key to strong muscles and strong bones. Find something you enjoy doing and try and do it regularly. Be consistent. Whether it’s taking your dog for a daily walk or turning up to your BJJ class, make sure it’s habit you make a routine in your life. When something stops moving it stagnates, don’t let your life stagnate, keep moving! The more challenging it is, the more fun it will be, and the more likely you'll be to turn up. Whether it's doing BJJ, Muay Thai, Boxing, Wrestling, Basketball, Soccer, or a myriad of other sports, make sure you get involved. It that's too much for you, then start with a daily walk. If you have a dog, grab your leash, if you have a baby, grab the stroller. Remember the old proverb "A rolling stone gathers no moss". Keep moving, don't gather moss!
2. Breathe
Take deep breaths, do Yoga, practice Wim Hof, do Oxygen Therapy, learn to sing. Oxygen is life. Breathing is life. Learn how to breath in more oxygen. Take the time each day to focus on your breathing as it’s something we take for granted. If we stop breathing, we die, yet knowing this many of us don’t try and improve our breathing. Learn to breathe through your nose. Learn to take deep breaths. Practice holding your breath. There are many ways to get more Oxygen in your life, find what works for you and focus on your breathing!
3. Grounding
Get in contact with nature, walk on grass, stand in the dirt, lean on a tree, appreciate the world around you and stay in touch. Make sure you take your shoes off, feel the dirt, grass, and rocks on your feet and between your toes. Get in touch with the earth. Get out and do your gardening! Take your dog for a Walk. Go out and sit in the park.
4. Hot/Cold Exposure
Cold Exposure... Cold showers, Ice Baths, feel the cold. Don’t be afraid of the cold. Start with a warm shower and finish with 15 seconds of cold. Do this for a week and increase the cold by 15secs each week until you can sustain 5 minutes.
Heat exposure... Hot Showers, Sauna, Hot Yoga, exercise... feel the heat, feel your skin tingle. Doing regular Sauna sessions has been shown to reduce All Cause Mortality. Try and get to the Sauna 2 – 3 times a week, if you have access jump into the Sauna after training. If you don’t have access to a Sauna a good Hot Yoga class will produce the same results with added benefit of exercise.
5. Light exposure
Sunlight, red light, Infrared, UV... we need light make sure you get it. Light up your life. Try and get outside every day for at least 15 minutes. The Best time is the early morning or late afternoon where you’ll get good sun exposure without being overwhelmed. Try and expose as much of your skin to the sun to get the most benefit. If you have access to a Red Light Therapy device (replicates the red light seen at sunset/sunrise) try and do it once or twice a day for about 15-30 minutes either in the early morning or evening (or both) get the most benefit. There are numerous benefits to sun exposure with improved mood, well being and most importantly vitamin D production.
6. Eat whole foods
Eat what mother nature provided. Stay away from or minimise processed foods. If it has a label it's not the best choice. Eat mostly animal foods, garnish with plants. (Also drink more water). Even though many of us eat for pleasure our bodies want food for nutrition. The most nutritious foods are meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. They have high nutritional content as well as high bioavailability. The main part of your meal should be these foods and then add your squashes, tubers, and cruciferous vegetables to complete your plate and nutrition.
7. Fast.
Intermittent fast, daily fast, extended fasts. Avoid food, let your body recover and heal. Autophagy and Apoptosis are a good thing. There are different ways to fast and all provide benefit. The normal “intermittent fasting” also known as “time restricted feeding” is where you set a window for your meals. An example is the 16/8 where you fast for 16 hours and then have an 8-hour window where you have your meals. Keep in mind this isn’t an excuse to binge or overeat. Eat healthy and until you fill satiated, don’t over do it as you counter the benefits of the 16 hour fast. If you can once a month try and a 24 hour fast. This is a great way to reset the body. Same as with intermittent fasting, when you break the fast, be sensible. Now if you’re doing great with that every 3-6 months is good to do an extended fast that lasts for 48-72 hours. It has many healing and health benefits. Once again, as with the other fasts, be sensible when you break the fast. The more you fast the easier you’ll find it gets. To make fasts easier try and drink just water. Add some sodium/potassium/magnesium to your water to make it easier. You can drink tea or coffee if you feel you need it but make sure nothing is added to make the most of your fast.
8. Socialise
Interact with the people around you, friends, family, work mates, teammates. Be part of the community. This is one of the most overlooked health activities for improving life and health span. Socialising with family, friends, team-mates. Being part of a community is associated with people who live longer, healthier, and happier lives. Socialising helps improve your mood and that affects every part of your life. Don’t just hang around, get involved, tell stories, jokes and interact with those around you. Make sure you laugh, laugh at yourself, laugh at life, laugh at jokes (even if they’re not funny). Laughter is one of the best medicines and it’s always best done when socialising with those around you. Everyone knows that success is always greater when shared with those around you just like laughter.
9. Solitude
Spend time with yourself to review, reflect, relax, recover. Being alone is as important as being part of the community. You need to be comfortable with yourself. As important as socialising is solitude. The ability to spend time with yourself, to reflect on what you’ve done, what you’re doing and what you’re going to do is an important part of growth. Before you can be happy with anyone else, you need to be happy with yourself. That doesn’t mean everything has to be perfect but it’s important to know where you are, where you’re going and what you’re doing to get there. The only person who decides what your life will be like is yourself, so spend some time with them and find out.
10. Set difficult goals
To grow you need to struggle, you need to overcome obstacles. Failure isn't fatal and success isn't final. When you fail, pick up and start again. When you succeed change your goal. Goals keep us moving forward. Life is about falling down and getting up. It’s about learning new things. It’s about remembering old things. Change keeps us going, knowledge keeps us growing. Take up new activities, learn new skills, play different games, up the level of what you’re doing, make a commitment to improve at something. Get in there, get your hands dirty and your mind occupied. An easy life is a boring life, hardship builds character, you need to experience the bad to appreciate the good. Life is ups and downs, challenges, when this stops happening so do living. Go out and live your life to the fullest!
As Bruce Lee said... take what is useful, discard what is not. Make it yours.
It's not just about living longer but being happier and healthier
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Kings Academy of Martial is the Premier Martial Arts Academy servicing the Liverpool and Greater Western Sydney Region with classes in BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu), Muay Thai, Boxing, Wrestling and MMA (Mixed Martial Arts)
