Jean’s Word of the Week: WALK

Reset and Restore Yourself Everyday Simply by Walking

Jean Edelman: Great to be with you. It is the month of August and August is our self-care month. I hope that you've been practicing some small changes and we will continue our discussion. So today I want to just fine tune a little bit about our breath. We've talked about it a lot, I know. And you're like, I breathe every day, but are we doing nice, deep breaths a few times during the day? I know we're not going to be conscious of it all the time, but can we take some breaths during the day? This vessel, our body, it is truly a miracle. Did you know that our skin regenerates every 24 hours, that our intestinal tissue regenerates every 21 days? Our blood changes every 90 to 120 days. Our bones change every 1 to 4 years. Muscles change every 6 to 18 months, and our total body every seven years. 

So, what we are feeding ourselves, what we are exposing ourselves to - these small changes, if they are in a positive direction, they will make a difference. And so, our breath is so important to that because we are oxygenating our cells. Our metabolism, our brain function, very, very critical with good breath. So maybe just take a minute before one of your meetings. Just sit with your feet on the floor, grounded and just close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths. Maybe just go for a nice walk, just you, no electronics - and breathe in and out each step. The goal is to reset and restore ourselves. The action item is maybe go find a Qi Gong or yoga class. We've talked about that. Go online and find something that's of interest to you. Make a date every week to walk with a friend.

The Importance of Breath and Movement

Walk at your lunch break. Finding this opportunity for breath and movement is so important to our long-term health. In this month of August - this month of self-care, let's try some different opportunities to get that good deep breath in. And so my word of the week is WALK.

The W is for warm. When we move, we warm up our body, we give it fluid, we give it fluidity, we give it oxygen to ourselves.

The A is for affirm; to declare and take control of our health. We got this. We can make small changes that will add up to good health in our later years. So move. So walk. Change our health. We are in control. 

The L is for limber. When we give our body movement and we move our energy around, we release stagnation. That's just the aches and the pains and all of that. If you find an ache and pain, get out and move. We will amaze ourselves how great we feel after a good walk.

And the K is for kit, for our self-care tool kit. We need this kit every day. We need to add to it, and we need to pull from it. We need it for our mental health. We need it for our overall health. We are in charge of ourselves. We are in charge of our health, and it will add up over time. If you have good health now, we need to do whatever we can to keep it that way and we have the power to keep it that way.

So, get outside, get moving and get breathing and keep adding to your self-care kit and have a wonderful week.