5 Daily Practices to Improve Your Wellness

5 Daily Practices to Enhance Your Wellness

Navigating the wellness world can be hard and overwhelming. We do our best to exercise and/or move daily, drink enough water, eat enough vegetables, and to decipher if fruit is bad or not (HINT: it’s not!). Keeping all the “daily requirements” straight is like trying to only by what you went to Target for – IT’S HARD WORK!

Because there are so many different opinions out there, I wanted to put together a list of simple daily wellness practices that you can easily do, that will enhance your well-being, and help you relax and enjoy life a little bit better! At the end of the day, that’s all we really want, right?

Daily Practices:

Oil Pulling

An Ayurvedic practice that involves swishing oil in your mouth for a prolong period of time.

I always aim for 20 minutes, but you can start out with 5 minutes and work your way up! I prefer to use coconut oil, but sesame oil is the Ayurveda oil of choice!

Benefits include: natural teeth whitening, clearer skin, healthier hair, decreased inflammation, killing of oral bacteria, natural breath freshener, and more!

I shoot for oil pulling 3-4 times a week, and I’ll add an extra day or two if I’ve consumed more red wine or coffee than usual! I like to oil pull in the morning, while I’m getting ready for the day, or while I’m in the shower.

*Note: after swishing in your mouth, spit the oil out in the trash, as the oil can clog your drains once it hardens back up*

Dry Brushing  

I started dry brushing this past spring and I love it! I try to dry brush once or twice a week, before hopping into the shower.

Dry brushing is beneficial because it helps activate the lymphatic system and therefore pulls toxins out of your body. I also dry brush if I feel like my diet has been ~blah~ lately, since this helps speed up your body’s natural detoxing system.

When dry brushing, you want to brush toward your heart (since that’s where your blood pumps to and oxygenates itself), with short strokes, and at your joints, you want to brush in a circular fashion.

Dry brushing may be a weird sensation, since the bristles are a bit more coarse than you might expect, so you can always add some coconut oil to help lubricate the skin!

Also, because of the harder bristles, dry brushing also exfoliates your skin, a nice bonus!

*Note: It’s not recommended to dry brush your face, since your face’s skin is a lot thinner and more sensitive*

Check out my favorite dry brush HERE!

Meditation

Meditation is something that I’ve been practicing for about a year now, and let me tell you, it’s wonderfully amazing as it is hard! I have such a hard time getting into “the zone”, but just as your exercise to strengthen your muscles, you exercise meditation to strengthen your mind.

Meditation is a great way to get yourself back to the present time, to get into the moment, and to shut off whatever you may be worrying about. It forces you to notice your thoughts, acknowledge that they are there, and then let. them. go.

I used to think that meditation meant sitting still in silence, but that’s not true at all!

Like I said, it’s about acknowledging your thoughts, clearing the junk in your mind that doesn’t serve you, and getting yourself to the present moment.

There are meditations for practically anything – walking, doing the dishes, fall asleep, etc.

I meditate daily, usually two to three times a day, for about 5 – 10 minutes. I likely to meditate as soon as I wake up, when I’m in the sauna or steam room, and right as I lay in bed. My favorite meditations are by Jason Stephenson (he has hundreds of meditations on YouTube!), and the app HeadSpace! The app has everything you need to create a successful meditation habit! Check out HeadSpace HERE

Some time, I’ll do my own meditations, usually when I just focus on my breath, feeling the air go in my nose, down my throat, and back out through my nose. Yes! Something as simple as that is a meditation!

Baths

Let me just say it, I FREAKING LOVE BATHS! I find them incredibly relaxing, soothing, and clearing. I find that I get some of my most creative ideas from taking my baths. To me, it’s my ideal way to spend a relaxing evening!  

My baths have evolved in the past year.

I used to get a LARGE glass of wine, throw in a bath bomb, and watch Netflix or YouTube videos, but after I read Woman Code (a book ALL women NEED to read btw), and learning about the different chemicals in bath bombs, in nixed those, started pouring a little less wine, and left my phone in the other room.

NOW, I like to fill my baths with extremely warm water (just like a hot tub), epsome salt (to relax and sooth the muscles and detoxify the body), baking soda (it leaves your skin incredibly smooth), and peppermint oil (I can’t even describe why I love using this oil, it just feels so dang good!).

I’ll also use a sugar scrub to exfoliate my skin and if I’m really feeling it, I’ll throw on a face mask too!

Wow… I really want to take a bath now =D

Weighted Blankets  

I sleep with a weighted blanket every. single. night.

I claim it as one of the greatest purchases I’ve ever made.

I bought my weighted blanket in July, because, at that point, I hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep in over three months. I felt like I was slowly dying, it was miserable. I had heard a lot about weighted blankets from different people I follow on Instagram, so I started to do my research.

And guess what, they’re freaking magical!

They can help with anxiety, separation issues, depression, insomnia, and more!

AND! somehow, they don’t make you super hot (like I said, I bought this in July!), it actually kind of keeps you cool (well, in my opinion at least). They are pretty pricey for a blanket, but totally worth the investment!

It’s recommended that you buy one that is approximately 10% of your body weight. My weight put me between 2 options, so I opted for the heavier one, and got the 15 lb blanket. That night, and for the next 3 months, I’ve slept through the night almost every night. I swear by these things!

Which of the practices above sound the best to you? Do we share any common practices? Make sure to share in the comments below! 

Chat with you soon!

Veronica

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