6 basic principles for a healthy lifestyle - Sleep (3/6)

Saturday morning I woke up in the middle of a dream. I was on a peninsula surrounded by warm coral blue water. There I was snorkelling and the most beautiful fish I had ever seen were swimming around me. It was so peaceful, beautiful and warm. A real paradise.

But I was only there in my dream, slowly waking up to another reality.

This is part 4 of 6 in my blog series on the 6 basic principles for a healthy lifestyle - the following articles are also included in the series: Introduction (1/6), Diet and Hydration (2/6), Sleep (3/6), Movement and Breathing Techniques (5/6) and Discussion (6/6).

We all have our own set of values that we live by, even if we are not always good at describing them clearly. Values represent the needs we have that must be met in order to live a meaningful life - they define how we want to live our lives. It is only when our lifestyle is in line with our values that we can be truly happy. So take the time and opportunity to question whether you are living your life in a way that makes you happy.

If the days go by too fast and you feel like you can't keep up, hit the pause button for a while! You need to stop by every now and then to check in and see how you're doing and how you're feeling! It's just at that moment when you feel you don't have time to do this that you really need to do it. The pause button is the best button ever invented. Sit down for a while, turn off the outside world, call it meditation if you like, and breathe. Give your body and mind time to just be for a while. Feel how your body feels. Are you tense somewhere? Does it hurt all over? Or does it feel very good? Are you happy? Do you feel sad? All feelings are okay, accept what is.

I am often struck by how a situation or event can be perceived in such different ways depending on who you ask. Most of the time we only assume how we think in a situation when something happens to us, we rarely think about how the other party thinks and feels in the same situation.

Exactly 4 years ago I wrote about this very thing - that everyone should put themselves in the shoes of the other person and try to see what he/she/they see: Yoga Sutras - Thoughtful words about knowing yourself.

This is part 2 of 6 in my blog series on the 6 basic principles for a healthy lifestyle - the following articles are also included in the series: Introduction (1/6), Sleep (3/6), Positive thinking (4/6), Movement and Breathing Techniques (5/6) and Discussion (6/6).

Diet and hydration can dramatically affect your energy levels and biochemical composition, which in turn affects your emotional and mental reality. When our diet is deficient, there is simply not enough energy or focused thought activity to initiate or sustain the changes needed for us to take good care of ourselves. My recommendations based on my own experiences are to vary and rotate the diet, to use only "real" food and to make it as simple as possible so that it works in real life, to eat 5 times a day and to always eat as much as you need.

Now I've been out and about at two different events and picked up a lot of inspiration! However, I find it incredibly interesting that they choose to have such a clear division of content at HarmoniExpo and All for Health (Allt för Hälsan in Swedish). HarmoniExpo was held in Solnahallen at the end of October, while All for Health was run together with Sthlm Food.