30-Day Wellness Challenge
For those of you that weren’t selected to take part in my first 30-Day Wellness Challenge, I thought it would only be fair to still share some of the advice and techniques that I will be using to ensure my participants reach their goals! The underlying goal here is consistency, sticking to something for 30 days straight is a significant commitment but one that comes with some phenomenal benefits for life. See below some tips and advice, for each focus section within the challenge!
Sleep
Click HERE to access my sleep tracker and the template I used over the month to assess my sleep pattern.
Click HERE to access the sleep calculator I use to help work out the amount of sleep I needed each night.
To live life to its max, rest is something that cannot be avoided. So today, if you are someone who has consistently been getting a bad night's sleep or simply feeling drained then I challenge you to take the first step and fix your sleep pattern! What worked for me was actively tracking my sleep to see how good the quality and length of my sleep was.
I gave myself the ability to have two nights off a week where I did not track my sleep. Life can get in the way be it having a late night or a day where I wasn’t feeling up to it, so a rest day was a lifesaver over the month. The table above shows red for the days that I took off, yellow for nights I didn’t sleep well and green for nights I slept well.
I began to see a pattern whereby nearly every time I went out (marked in red) was followed by a bad night’s sleep. The mix of alcohol the night before and a disrupted sleep pattern really impacted my progress. I challenge you to start tracking your sleep today! The benefits I saw just 7 days in and I hope you will see have truly made a difference to my everyday life.
Fitness
Fitness is a massive umbrella which contains your hardcore gym goers to your once-a-day stroller. The main thing here is consistency and progression. Whether you're at a high level in the gym or just beginning to go on walks, the important thing is that for the month, you strive to stay consistent and slowly progress. Linking the Flinch in here, if you are someone who has wanted to start going to the gym, take the first step! Using the SMART target system can be vital in ensuring you achieve your targets over the next month.
SPECIFIC- Highlight a specific goal that you want to achieve e.g. going to the gym three times a week or going on a walk every other evening.
MEASURABLE- Quantify the time you will spend doing fitness each week.
ACHIEVABLE- Your fitness goal should be realistic and something that you can achieve by the end of the month. Ask yourself, is this goal something that I can reach?
RELEVANT- This is where you start to think long-term. What can you do this month to ensure you keep the momentum going forwards?
TIME-BASED- Having a time frame to achieve your goal is essential to ensure you keep moving forward. 30 days should give you plenty of time to adjust to your new routine but is also short enough to ensure you keep moving forward.
Mental Wellbeing
Mental Wellbeing encompasses a significant range of tasks and practices to ensure you keep a level head. There is no “one-size fits all” answer to tackling your mental health, but there are vital practices that can be a step in the right direction for everyone.
The benefits of a morning and evening routine can significantly benefit you as a person when properly implemented. I challenge you to pick either a morning or evening routine as part of your day which will either ensure you have a great start to your day or prepare you for the day ahead (Both as advantageous as the other). Take a look at an example morning routine of what I try and do in the morning.
1. Wake up and DO NOT check social media. Instead, put some music on! Having an upbeat song or whatever works for you to kickstart your day can really put a positive tone on the day from when you wake up.
2. Make your bed and get dressed.
3. HYDRATE- Drink a glass of water, you’ve just been asleep for hopefully 8 hours and your body is likely crying out for some water.
4. If you have time, try and fit in a balanced breakfast to ensure you have the energy to kickstart your day.
5. Take a minute to realise you’ve been given the opportunity to live another day on this earth. It may sound cheesy but tomorrow is not guaranteed so try and live today to the best of your ability.
Building this routine should equip you to feel refreshed in the morning and ready to start the day. This is just an example, feel free to add or change parts of this as we all have preferences of what we do in the morning. As long as they are positive and consistent, you can’t go wrong!
That just about sums it all up for today, if you do decide to take on the challenge, congratulations on taking the first step to better yourself and I wish you the best of luck!