Back to Basics
Why Better Health Doesn't Always Require Doing More
We recently had the pleasure of traveling for a family event, and it was a great opportunity to spend time with people we haven't seen in years, meet some new people, slow down a little, and reconnect.
When you get a bigger group of friends and family together, you hear a lot of conversations about a lot of things. And one thing in particular really stood out to us this time.
People are talking about their health. A lot.
Fitness. Nutrition. Conversations with doctors. Cholesterol. Losing weight. Junk food. Sugar. Medications. Trying to eat healthier. Things they've heard they should or shouldn't be doing.
Health is clearly on a lot of people's minds. And man, it's ALL over the damn place.
Then we spent some time in a hotel with traditional TV playing in the background, something we don't watch at home, and the commercials made the whole thing even more apparent.
One commercial was promoting a pharmaceutical drug with promises of improved health and happiness while quickly running through a laundry list of potential side effects. The next was selling fast food, candy, soda, or some other ultra-processed food. The contrast was almost comical, but it also felt like a pretty good snapshot of how confusing our health landscape has become.
There is so much information out there.
Doctors. Podcasts. Influencers. Social media. Supplements. Labs. Diets. Trends. Protocols. Wearables. New research. New products. New ways to optimize just about everything. We've started confusing doing more things for our health with doing more for our health. Those aren't always the same thing (in fact, they're usually not).
We know because we get sucked into it, too.
We're health coaches. We live this stuff. We're constantly learning, researching, experimenting, and looking for ways to better understand our own health and help other people improve theirs. We're also trying to live a little while working to find the balance of it all. Then something shiny pops up that says "optimize this”, or “here's a shortcut", and then we occasionally catch ourselves overcomplicating things and drifting away from the foundation.
If we can get overwhelmed by all the noise when we live and breathe this stuff every day, no wonder so many people feel completely lost. So lately, we've felt ourselves wanting to strip some of it back and eliminate some of the noise, because more isn't always better.
Sometimes taking better care of yourself doesn't mean adding another supplement, another protocol, another test, another metric, or another thing you need to remember to do every day.
Sometimes it means coming back to the foundation of it all. And we believe the foundation is very, very simple:
Mind. Body. Spirit.
Mind
What are you consuming every day (reading, watching, listening)?
How are you managing your stress?
How do you talk to yourself?
Do you ever give your brain a chance to be quiet?
Do you spend any time without a screen, a podcast, music, notifications, or something else competing for your attention?
Body
Are you eating nourishing food?
Are you getting enough protein?
Are you drinking enough water?
Are you moving your body regularly?
Are you sleeping?
Are you recovering?
Are you getting outside and spending some time in the sun?
Spirit
Are you growing in your faith, whatever that looks like for you?
Are you spending time in prayer or reflection?
Are you practicing gratitude and looking for the good that's already present in your life?
Are you connecting with other people and your community?
Are you investing in good relationships?
Are you living with a sense of purpose beyond yourself?
None of those questions are particularly sexy. There's no groundbreaking new protocol there. That's exactly the point.
The basics aren't everything. They won't answer every health question, and sometimes we absolutely need more. There's a place for modern medicine, of course. There's a time to see your doctor and get intervention. There's a time to run labs, investigate symptoms, use targeted supplementation, or dig deeper into what's happening in your body.
But none of that replaces the foundation.
They're tools we can use when we need them. And before you add another tool, another intervention, or another thing to your life, it's worth checking on the foundation underneath it.
So our challenge to you is simple: Check in with yourself, honestly.
How am I taking care of my mind?
How am I taking care of my body?
How am I taking care of my spirit?
Don't answer based on what you intend to do. Look at how you're really living right now.
Where are you doing well?
Where have you drifted a little?
Where might you need to come back to something you already know?
Use those answers as good data before deciding you need to add yet another thing to your life. Don't be afraid to step back. Strip some things away. Simplify.
Sometimes taking better care of yourself doesn't require doing more. Sometimes it requires coming back to the basics.