With Covid-19 taking its hold across the world, now is a great time to consider the lifestyle factors that might be affecting your immune system!
A great way to keep a check on these lifestyle factors is to track them using a wearable technology. If you’d like to know what I choose, reach out!
I recently led a 5 Day Self-Love Challenge in my private Facebook Group.
I felt that between my booming business, my energetic children and their social schedules, and my intensive Muay Thai training, my Self Care was lacking a bit!
Life gets like that sometimes, right?
Maintenance (or even achievement in the first place) of peace and balance is tricky and so the things that make us feel good and relaxed, that make us slow down, that make us exhale, that help us clear out our negative energy and revitalise get sacrificed. We eat on the run, healthy diet choices slip down the priority list and we find ourselves indulging in a glass of wine, rather than a meditation to relax!
This is where luxury Wellness Retreats are cashing in. They offer us the chance to take charge of our health with imposed self care, dedicated support and the promise of transformed health and connection to inner feelings and a new perspective.
I did some research on the leading Wellness Retreats across the world and the types of programmes you can enjoy by booking in. Read on to discover:
Have you ever been on a Retreat?
(Keep reading for 8 Alternatives to a Retreat for improved wellness….)
My sister-in-law just came back from a weekend one right here in New Zealand and she described feeling a million dollars at the end of the weekend. She connected with like-minded women, she released unprocessed emotion and ate healthily and existed in peace across a weekend of what sounds like pure bliss.
So why aren’t we replicating this “bliss” in our daily lives?
The reality is that modern day life is fast pace, high stress, highly toxic and monumentally processed.
In consequence, the progression and severity of “lifestyle” diseases is set to continue at an alarming rate. Figures for diabetes, cancers, cardiovascular diseases and more are SOARING and 80% of healthcare spending across the world is acute to take care of us once we have fallen ill. It is our ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, so to speak.
And yet, only 10% of our wellness across our lifetime can be attributed to the HEALTHCARE we get.
Think about that for a minute. Everywhere you look there are hospitals, doctors surgeries, people on waiting lists, people in treatment and for the majority the primary focus of their own healthcare is to seek out the advice of the medical profession when acute symptoms arise.
But across the span of our life only 10% of this acute care can be attributed to us being alive and well?
Basically, yes. It is our genetics (30%) and our behaviour and environment, including nutrition (60%) that plays a bigger part in the outcomes we get. Our genetics are a set piece, of course, but how we affect our genes with nutrition and our lifestyle can be attributed a whopping 60% to the wellness we experience across the span of our lives.
With that in mind, is a 5-7 day retreat enough to pick up the slack of this monumental responsibility our nutrition and lifestyle plays in keeping us well?
Do we learn enough, recover enough and change our habits enough in 5-7 days to make the investment in our health through a retreat worth it?
What value do you place on your health?
At the Ananda Retreat in the Himalayas you’ll pay an average US$4000 per person to rejuvenate the mind and body across 5 days; increasing clarity, relieving stress and anxiety, and potentially strengthening your immune system.
As you relax in the beautiful setting, your heart rate will slow down, your blood pressure will lower and the focus on breath will flood your system with oxygen. It is these vital signs that are the first things a doctor checks when we wind up in hospital unwell because they give such a great indication of our body’s state, and combined together can give a picture of the threat to our health.
Do we notice these silent whispers as we go about our busy daily lives?
Our bodies have their own natural balance that is individual to each of us (your blood pressure and heart rate won’t be the same as the person next to you and we all have varying levels of insulin receptivity.) It is these vital signs that change as we respond to stress, lack of sleep, bad diet, and lack of exercise.
When in optimal balance (maybe the imagined state of the “om” as we sit in focused meditation?) our bodies can fight off illness naturally. It’s getting out of balance that can lead to serious consequences, including disease and a shorter lifespan. And this is a process that happens over time, not overnight. Our lifestyle and attitude has a lot to do with this slip of balance.
To go deeper… our Mitochondria, the powerhouses of our bodies, are able to function optimally when we are in balance. Mitochondria are part of the energy production work of our cells — our muscle cells, our brain cells — everything needs energy to function optimally, so even a minor impairment of mitochondrial function can have dramatic systemic ramifications.
The energy originally comes from the food that we eat: carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Inside our stomach and intestines, enzymes break down our food into small molecules like glucose and pass them to the cells around our bodies. Inside our cells, these molecules pass into our Mitochondria where they extract energy from the molecules so that our cells can use it.
This is done by burning the molecules; reacting them with oxygen. About 95 percent of the oxygen that we breathe goes to our Mitochondria, and when we burn the molecules with oxygen, the energy that is released is trapped in a currency that cells can use (for example, to contract a muscle) and this energy currency is called ATP (adenosine triphosphate).
Mitochondria are essential for keeping cells alive. If we deprive the brain or heart of oxygen, like in a stroke or a heart attack, a major cause of damage is that oxygen is no longer going to the Mitochondria. When there’s a lack of oxygen in Mitochondria, they stop working, and the cells die. A growing body of research is implicating mitochondrial dysfunction as a root cause in a wide spectrum of metabolic, lifestyle and degenerative diseases including: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Autism, Cancer, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Fibromyalgia and potentially many more. These Mitochondria are essential to our human survival at the most basic level, but they are seriously suffering in our modern environment.
So, as our vital signs slip – our oxygen sats drop, for example – our risk factors for chronic diseases increase and accrue.
71% of the diseases that are killing us annually are within our scope of “control” to avoid. Cardiovascular disease is at the top of this list. The heart has high energy demands and 35% of the volume of cardiac muscles cells is taken up by mitochondria.
At the Lefay Resort & SPA, Lago di Garda, Italy, you can detox your heart out for US$3000…
It’s true, our ancient Mitochondria simply cannot cope with the amount of environmental toxins our bodies face off against on a daily basis – from the food we eat, the medicines we take, the air we breathe, and the chemicals we apply on our body. The lack of quality nutrients in the modern processed diet also challenges our Mitochondria, reducing their function and increasing Mitochondrial damage.
Unhealthy lifestyle habits, bad diet and ‘toxic load’ show up as raised blood pressure, imbalanced blood sugar and weight gain. We don’t seem to have the time to notice these clues as we are rushing through life, but is a 5 day Detoxification Retreat enough to cleanse your body of all that challenges it?
One of the best ways to improve Mitochondrial health is through sustained dietary changes. On a positive note you’ll get a nutritional consultation and prescription of special diet as part of your stay at LeFay.
The appropriate diet for you can assist in the prevention of many common 21st century chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer. We essentially pass what we eat to our Mitochondria, so they can make ATP. Having too many nutrients—too much fat, too many carbohydrates or protein coming in—causes extensive damage to the cell and the Mitochondria itself.
What’s for sure though is that the more we know about our body, the more empowered we are to ACT.
Sleep at Shanti Maurice (Mauritius)
Sleep is another really important factor for health, and in 2013 (the last year measured by Gallup), the average American slept 6.8 hours a night—with 40 percent banking less than six hours. New research reveals that children who fall short by just one hour per night have a higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes!
To understand how much is enough sleep to allow our bodies to rejuvenate, refresh and function at our best, watch this video. Sleep influences how we think, eat, concentrate and it affects our mood, hormones and immune system. Getting adequate sleep limits unhealthy food cravings, improves low mood and fatigue, and helps us to avoid chronic diseases!
So how do we discover what nutrition is right for us?
BodyScience at BodyHoliday, (St Lucia) offers DNA testing, comprehensive body analysis and a tailor-made wellness plan using your unique genetic information.
I am a MASSIVE fan of this type of Personalised Wellness. For me, the discovery of my ideal macronutrient composition and exercise ratio (between strength and endurance) has been life-changing. My physique has completely changed and I have reversed auto-immune disease. I am also no longer intolerant to certain foods and at the best weight and health of my life! I’m also confident I’m supplementing what I need to at the right doses and nothing over and above, or lacking. My energy has been significantly boosted, my body is able to work at its optimum and even my mind feels healthier.
BodyScience at BodyHoliday will set you back US$6000 for a 5 day trip. Find out how I maintain the same outcomes for just US$3/day here.
Finally, we have the Healthy Ageing Women Retreat at the SHA Wellness Clinic in Spain. This retreat will set you back US$10k and promises to take away your fear of ageing, as well as provide support to adjust with the changes in your body to preserve youthfulness and vitality.
But, what makes us age?
In a study of more than 2,000 women, those who had the lowest vitamin D levels showed the greatest signs of biological ageing.
The most reliable measures of a person’s age are telomeres; the lengths of the genetic material that cap the free ends of DNA in a cell. With age, the telomeres shorten and the DNA becomes more unstable until eventually the cell dies. The study found that those with the highest vitamin levels had significantly longer telomeres – equivalent to 5 years of normal ageing.
Vitamin D has also been shown to have a positive effect on age-related diseases, like heart disease and cancer.
So what else can extend your life? Exercise has been proven to lengthen telomeres (so I should be alright!) and some cells have the ability to reverse telomere shortening by expressing telomerase. Telomerase is an enzyme that extends the telomeres of chromosomes. Meditation has been shown to increase telomerase.
Here are a few facts to help you make your decision…
I reached glass ceiling of “coping” this morning with the juggle of motherhood and my business.
Since getting back from holiday my work-life balance has slipped because I decided while away that it was time to take massive action to go to the next level! But the result has been…
TOTAL CHAOS.
I am back on the hamster wheel that I effectively managed to get off just over a year ago, but this time I won’t make the mistake of staying on it to the sacrifice of my own health and the happiness of my family…
Because if we are doing all of this for anything; it is for them, right? For the freedom to be present and fulfilled and our “best self”, so we can be everything they need and give them everything they need, so they thrive!
So why do we sacrifice that, to get that?
Good question, right?
Is it one you have asked yourself already?
Here is a powerful exercise to get your life into balance FAST.
Time to consider again, and be honest… What could you already be doing now if you jut had more time? Time freed up by being laser-focused on your income producing activities?
When I did this exercise I was flabbergasted to see I actually only had one income-producing activity in my business and if I was laser-focused in doing it I could do it in 1 hour a day!!!
I started to get excited. I got that sick/anxious feeling that I have started to identify as the dizziness of freedom! I realised I could have most of what I wanted right now if I could just be laser-focused in my business!
So the big question arose… Why can’t I be laser-focused now?
And then it dawned on me. I’m holding back from going ALL IN because the next level of success in my business scares me just as much as the first level did.
Thankfully I now have the experience to know that ACTION walks through FEAR and builds self-belief and confidence faster than anything…
I guess I also had to question whether I feared the freedom to be fully present with my kids too at this point. Because filling all those hours with activities is daunting and draining. I also had to question whether my fears related to money were at play a little bit again, anchored in the past because when you are not working it feels like you are not earning, even if the money is flowing into your bank account; a bit like a guilty feeling that life can be that easy after such deep struggle.
FEAR. False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear I know I can conquer, again, by continuing to stay fiercely in control of my thoughts and trusting my heart’s desire to go forward and keep travelling towards the life that is waiting for me on the other side of myself.
I have been on such a deep journey of inner healing, which I will share with you in my next blog. You can also be that person. The person that gifts yourself the freedom from your biggest limiting belief – the lack of belief in yourself. Belief blocked by fear born out of your past experiences. The past experiences that are in fact your greatest power to create future that you want.
Look back at your columns now and your vision and consider any projects you can complete in the next few days to free up some space in your days.
Add up the time you actually need for your income producing activities, plus the other business activities you need to do on a weekly basis, like accounts and blogs and schedule into your diary when you will undertake these, in designated blocks with regular breaks.
Think about any changes you want to make to how things are now in your life that would make things easier for you and contribute further to balance. I realised that I need to be asking more of my children in terms of contributing and could do my food shopping on a weekend when I have more time. Little things, but big difference.
If you’d like a template of the steps I used above with examples, please complete the short contact form below and I will send it across to you!
I hope like for me, balance is easy to find now you have a simple tool to use.
Much love,
CW x
Clare Williamson 