Is Achieving Wellness Possible

Achieving a lifestyle of wellness is something I used to be frustrated with and felt was unreachable. I realized I was trying to check wellness off my to do list instead of making it part of my routine and way of living. Because our bodies are always changing, achieving wellness is not something I strive to complete anymore, or treat it like a finish line that I long to cross over. Instead, it is how I choose to live and support my body daily!

Wellness is much like the kitchen tools in our homes. To make a healthy meal in our home it will most likely require multiple tools to complete the meal. To complete a different meal tomorrow may require some of the same tools along with a few different ones. Why is this? It is because making different meals require different tools. Much like our wellness, we will use some tools everyday to support a wellness lifestyle and other days we will need to change things up.

Here you will find a place where we talk all things wellness. Some things you will notice are staples to my everyday wellness and others things you will see I am adding into our lifestyle to stay well as we go.

Start your journey to living a wellness lifestyle. Everyone is welcome!

• Stay Hydrated

• Take a quality B Vitamin supplement

• Move your body for 20 minutes

• eat plenty of greens

• Ditch the Candles

• Get enough zzz's

When someone told me that I should drink half my body's weight in ounces of water everyday I was like WHAT?! Besides having to pee an awful lot, there are quite a few benefits that you can enjoy from staying hydrated.

Staying hydrated is really crucial to our cardiovascular health. Did you know that our lungs use up 2-4 cups everyday just through breathing. Drinking water is incredibly useful to helping our body flush out the toxins that do not belong in our bodies. Other research suggests that drinking more water can help keep our memory sharp and our energy levels up.

Drinking that much water can be difficult for many so that is why I add my Vitality Citrus oils to my water. It is simply delicious and can make even the most reluctant water consumer enjoy agua.

Out of all the vitamin supplements that I have tried, taken and used, this is one the most crucial to my mom-health and wellness. When I say,"mom wellness", I mean my mental health and sanity. It keeps my mood balanced, attitude upbeat and not acting like a "Super B", if you now what I mean?!

The "B" vitamins are something that our bodies need daily replenishing, because they are never stored up, but instead, pee'd out. If I forget to take this supplement, I am a "Super B" and that is not something I am proud of. Motherhood can be plain old hard work and I do not need my attitude getting in the way because I am missing the second letter of the alphabet.

Moving your body for 20 minutes everyday has shown to provide huge benefits to our wellness lifestyle. All too often we find ourselves giving excuses for why this is not an achievable goal, myself included. Thanks to the encouragement from @msrachelholliswherever you are with whatever you have, do your 20 minutes everyday. In an upcoming post I will share with you free options that I use to complete this goal of movement for myself. Oh, did I tell you that after your 20 minutes you will have increased energy, more focus for what needs to be done and better rest at night? The benefits are worth the 20 minute interruption in your day.

Eating greens might be the most overlooked and easiest switch to supporting a wellness lifestyle. For most of us we can usually eat enough fruits, however getting enough greens can be a little tricky. This is why making a green smoothie for my morning routine and eating salads for lunch has been crucial to my wellness lifestyle. I not only feel less sluggish throughout the day, but have noticed an improvement in my overall digestion.

Sleep is one of the most underrated wellness essentials. There is always more to do than we will have time for. Teaching ourselves to be OK with taking the rest our bodies deserve is crucial to a lifestyle of wellness. I used to run myself ragged. This left me tired, unable to think, remember important stuff for my day and quick to be impatient with my kids and husband. Now I give myself permission to get sleep, and enough of it. This allows me to focus clearly on my to-do lists and live a less frazzled life!

Many of you know that we have a daughter that struggles with extreme anxiety. we invite you to come on this journey with us to find the best ways to support her emotions and healing journey.
Below I will share with you what we are doing and efforts that we have found to be incredibly helpful on our daily journey with anxiety.

When it comes to anxiety finding ways to help can be tricky and take time. Below are a few things that we have tried and have found lasting help with for our daughter's anxiety.

1. Getting enough sleep

2. Taking a quality Vitamin D

3. Taking a Probiotic

4. Daily dose of CBD

5. Animal Therapy

6. Gratitude Journal

Getting enough sleep at night is really important. We have found that her body needs extra sleep to keep her feeling less anxious. Getting her body on a good sleep schedule has also been imperative for calm nighttime routines. If we allow her body to get over-tired, we found that our nights can be filled with extra anxiety and be shown in the form of not wanting to fall asleep, stomach aches and worrying about tomorrow.

She loves to fill her diffuser with essential oils that help her feel happy and calm. We let her pick based on her favorite smells. Her favorites right now are Joy, Calm and Bergamot. She falls asleep faster and wakes up more calm.

Vitamin D has also been a huge addition to helping our daughter with her anxiety. I noticed that she struggles less with her anxiety during the summer but never put the two together until one day I was listening her Dr. Dan Purser on Facebook. If you don't follow him already, go and do it. His profile is public and I love how much he freely educates.

He talked about some of the reasons people struggle with anxiety is vitamin deficiencies and vitamin D was a big one. I did some research on vitamin D and found a company that I feel produces good quality supplements.

They are sold as a liquid, so anyone can take them and they taste good too.

I will post a link so that you can grab a bottle of your own to try.

http://innatechoice.com/dsufficiency.cfm

Probiotic

So many of our unhealthy emotions are found and stored in our Gut! This is why we found it essential to finding a good probiotic that our daughter could take and love everyday.

As of now she has not developed the skills needed to swallow a pill so this Mightypro from Young Living meets her requirements and she loves how easy it is to take and how yummy it is to eat!

Ever have a pixie stick? It acts just like that but without all the sugar and junk! I think it's pretty safe to say that this added into our daily routine has helped improve her digestion and overall health.

We recently starting using Nature's Ultra CBD for our daughter . The results have been amazing and have come in waves. I am sure at some point I will write in depth about our observations, but right not I am briefly going to share some of the positive things we are seeing and a way that we are keeping track of the changes.

Here are some notable, positive changes. 1. She sleeps better 2. She can calm down in a minute after taking her dose of CBD 3. She wakes up happier 4. She laughs more 5. She can recognize when she feels her anxiety rising 6. CBD will bring her out of a panic attack 7. She asks for it!

My friend Leslie Burris, recently offered a tracking sheet off her website for free and it is amazing. Often times we get started with our day, have a routine and use products to support optimal health and the results; either big and small do not get tracked, nor celebrated because life is just so crazy! Am I right? So if you want to use the same sheet that I am using, please go check out the link below and download your free tracker sheet from Leslie Burris!

All of my animal loving friends, hear me out. My husband and I have never been the animal type, but when we saw the way our daughter connected with animals we knew we might need to be open to bringing a furry friend into our home for a much needed, emotional support in her life.

If you ask her, she would tell you that she is still waiting for a puppy someday, but look at the little face. We brought two Holland Lops into our home at 9 weeks and are so overjoyed with the love that they are bringing our daughter and family. We often find her just sitting by their hutch, playing by them or making tunnels for them to run through. Some therapy can only be felt with a furry friend and when you see that love given and excepted, even a non animal person can be happy!

The last thing we implemented was a Gratitude Journal. We found this one on amazon and I will provide the link for you to get yours.

At the end of the day it is easy to feel overwhelmed and forget all of the good that happened. Inside the journal there is a spot to write down 5 things you are grateful for. As soon as we started this I noticed a different attitude, she began to look for good and loved sharing it with everyone at the end of the day.

A grateful heart does good for the soul!