April 18, 2016

Mindful Mondays: Spring cleaning for your health

Three simple steps to a better you

By Christie Mandia
PhillyVoice Contributor

Each week, on Mindful Mondays, Christie shares three tips toward a healthier lifestyle. She proposes something healthy to think about, something healthy to eat, and something healthy to do. Give these tips a try to improve your health, wellness and quality of life!

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Think

MINDFUL THOUGHT: How Can Your Environment Better Support Your Health?

On Mindful Mondays, you will often hear me refer to, “The Wheel of Health,” developed at Duke Integrative Medicine.

The Wheel of Health is a transformative tool designed to allow users ability to explore what they have identified as the seven main focus areas of life, afford them the opportunity to evaluate each, and more importantly, how they correlate.

One of those seven domains is Physical Environment. The designation is meant to encourage users to examine how their actual surroundings can either support or jeopardize their personal health goals.

From basic needs like clean air and water, to high level needs such as workspace and home organization, the state of our physical environment is a crucial factor in determining our overall well-being.

This week, take time reflect on the role that your environment plays in your everyday life. How does the condition of spaces in your home, your office, your car or your refrigerator set the stage to best facilitate a healthier, happier life? What, if anything can be improved upon?

Taste

MINDFUL EATING: Skinny Sushi

Sushi is one of those meals that can seem like a healthy option but, in reality, it can be packed with hidden calories. The good news is, you can have your sushi and eat it too, if you learn what to order.

Courtesy/Wegmans

The cauliflower sushi from Wegmans.

If you are trying to keep your blood sugar at a healthy level and want to feel fuller over a longer period of time, refined carbs, like white rice, are something that you should try to minimize in your diet. If you must have rice, stick to brown rice sushi rolls as many of the vitamins and nutrients are stripped out of white rice during the refining process, including fiber, which aids in digestion and helps to keep you feeling full. Sashimi, with no rice, is also a great option and is delicious over seaweed salad. If you are very lucky, perhaps you can find cauliflower rice sushi rolls (pictured from Wegmans). The cauliflower will not only cut calories, but will sneak in an additional serving of vegetables to your daily intake.

Try

MINDFUL ACTIVITY: “A Place for Everything & Everything In Its Place”

It was Benjamin Franklin who said it best to have “a place for everything and everything in its place.” I am a firm believer that a cluttered space leads to a cluttered mind.

This week, your active challenge is to take control over one small space. Be it your laundry room, your car, your refrigerator, or that top drawer that has everything stuffed inside it. Take the space and empty it out completely. Sort the contents into three piles, Trash, Keep, Donate. Once the space is wiped clean, organize the Keep pile back into the space and with things you use most in the forefront. Once you tackle one small space, you will feel such a sense of accomplishment, you may even be inspired to take on another project.

Christie Mandia
PhillyVoice Contributor