Mastering Wellness at Home
As the saying goes, living well is the best revenge. While for some “well” may evoke money, fame, or power, we prefer to take a positive and healthy view of wellness. With warmth in the air and summer on the way, show the world how good a “you” you can be by becoming a master of wellness at home. From dietary tweaks to embracing the joy of movement, you can make your home a spa and your life a beacon of living well.
Make Your Home a Spa
Okay, we admit it — this step sounds a little overwhelming. Your home probably doesn’t have that spa-ish aroma, and dirty clothes on the floor doesn’t exactly fit the spa ethos (unless all your clothes are cozy, white robes). So, let’s take it one step at a time. Start your home-to-spa transformation by throwing away (or donating) any products in your home with ingredients you can’t pronounce. Maltodextrin? Toss it! Dimethyl phthalate? No thanks. Before you know it, your home will be toxin-free and rejuvenating. All it needs next is a good decluttering.
Eat With Wellness at Home in Mind
Return to the good old days where we treated food as fuel. As amazing as it feels to pop open a coca-cola or dive into a bag of potato chips, remember that food is about giving us energy and nourishment in addition to being tasty. Trust us, the two are not mutually exclusive. Start every morning with a warm glass of lemon water for rehydration, and then gobble up a hearty breakfast of local eggs, a smoothie, and organic coffee. Believe it or not, you’ll feel full and energized until your next delicious meal (which will probably be a salad with wild fish!). Finish your day with rainbow colored food (because rainbow is the new beige) that will keep you full until morning. Now that doesn’t sound so hard, does it?
Just Move
As Olivia Newton John once so eloquently spoke: let’s get physical. Incorporate movement into your daily routine in whatever way you can. We’re not saying you have to jog ten miles a day — in fact, our wellness guru, Rebecca Briggs of Sea Spa Salon, described exercising three or four times a week for 30 minutes as the magic formula. By movement, we mean avoiding the eight-plus hour drain of sitting in your office chair. Take the stairs instead of the elevator; work at a standing desk; dance in the car to your favorite jam. As long as you’re moving, you can’t go wrong.
Take Baby Steps
We’re giving you lots of advice, so it’s important that you remain calm! Achieving wellness at home isn’t about altering the fabric of your daily life. Take every change in baby steps that will one day have you leaps from where you began. Instead of starting your day with coffee, grab a warm lemon water; or take on the project of baking your own chips instead of buying them at the store. See the fun in wellness at home in every step, and don’t put pressure on yourself to change all at once. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is wellness at home.
Think Holistically
Whoa, you may be thinking. Contradictory much? While you shouldn’t put too much pressure on yourself to change all at once, holistic thinking is vital for achieving wellness at home. Here’s what we mean: every baby step decision you make should feed into your holistic well-being. In other words, what do you need to do to have the most happiness? This is what it all boils down to, really. Achieve wellness at home by feeling healthy, happy, and at peace with your environment.
Don’t Go It Alone
The idea of waking up one morning and suddenly changing your focus can be overwhelming, and, let’s face it, when you’re embarking on a journey like this, it’s easy to abandon ship when it gets hard. Luckily, you can kick start your wellness at home by attending a holistic wellness retreat at Vineyard Square. Here, you can take part in cooking demonstrations, daily yoga and meditation, and excursions across the island to help you gather the knowledge to excel in wellness at home.
Recipes From Our Wellness Guru
To aid you in your wellness at home, yoga instructor and health educator in residence, Rebecca Briggs, has shared some of her healthy breakfast favorite recipes. Kick start your morning in the spirit of wellness at home with these tasty treats.
Night-Before Chia Seed Pudding
This recipe includes 1/4 cup of diced mango (organic frozen mango good) and pepita/pumpkin seeds, but feel free to top the pudding with your favorite fruit and nuts. Local, no-spray strawberries, blackberries & raspberries are yummy in spring.
Ingredients (makes 2-3 cups of pudding)
1/4 cup chia seeds
1 can full-fat coconut milk
1/2 tablespoon honey or 1 tbsp real maple syrup
1/2 – 1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt (Himalayan pink salt best)
Fresh fruit, nuts &/or seeds to top with in the morning
Directions:
- Mix in a blender (or stir in bowl/jars) chia seeds, coconut milk, honey/syrup, salt and vanilla.
- Pour into two or three small mason jars, cover and let set in refrigerator overnight. I like to sprinkle 1/2 tsp of chia seeds in bottom of jars before pour mix in.
- Remove it from the fridge, and make sure your pudding looks thick and the chia seeds have gelled.
- Top with fresh fruit and nuts, and enjoy immediately.
Make Healthy Coffee Instead of Harmful Coffee
- First be sure to have it with or within 20 minutes of having a healthy fat and clean protein breakfast (avocado with lime or local egg with greens) or skip the coffee and have a delicious, nutritious green drink, or protein smoothie with essential fatty acid coconut or nut and seed butters, a leafy green and low-glycemic fruit like berries) or have wild smoked salmon and microgreens.
- Organic, dark roast coffee beans (coffee is highly sprayed, and is prone to mold)
- Organic unrefined coconut oil
MAKE A FROTHY ANTIOXIDANT RICH LATTE
Directions:
1. Brew coffee (french press, drip…)
2. Pour freshly made coffee in blender
One 8-10 oz coffee to 1 tbsp coconut oil
3. Add 1 tsbp coconut oil to coffee, and blend up low-med.
Drink up!