Breathe clean air. The number one thing that we can do to protect our health is to make sure that we have clean air to breathe. Fight pollution. Become an activist for clean air. Do something to make sure that you can take a breath of clean air tomorrow. Do something to make sure that the next generation can take a breath of clean air tomorrow. It’s not only important to breathe clean air, but it’s important to do some simple breathing exercises every day. You need to keep your body fully oxygenated. Because of stress, many of us have constricted breathing. It’s become habitual, so we usually don’t even know that we’re breathing improperly. Deep breathing exercises once or twice a day will help us overcome this and will also keep us calm.
Drink a lot of clean water every day. It’s crucial that we do so, and we must ensure that it’s clean, whether we get it from a stream in a pristine environment, get high quality bottled water, or filter our own home water system. Be mindful when you are drinking it and don’t let your thoughts drift away.
Eliminate all processed foods from your diet. Whether you do so gradually at your own pace or go “cold turkey” and do it within a day or so is your decision. Getting the toxic food components and additives out of your system will yield health benefits very quickly.
Make sure you get plenty of exercise for your entire body. Movement is required every day. Depending on your overall health, your physical condition, your age, and your abilities, make sure that you practice exercises that keep you flexible and strong. It is important to do exercises that increase your balance, your focus, your body’s ability to learn.
Stop smoking cigarettes or inhaling marijuana smoke into your lungs. Both of those things are highly toxic.
Go to the bathroom frequently; eliminate your waste. If you struggle with constipation or similar issues, find out why. Being backed up causes not only physical problems but mental and emotional problems as well.
Reduce your intake of animal protein or eliminate it completely. You will become a mobile, logically efficient creature if you are eating the foods that you are biologically compatible with—specifically, plant-based foods. If you feel that it’s too difficult to surrender animal protein, use it sparingly and make sure that it is from a clean, reliable source. Pay attention to the nutritional strengths and weaknesses of the foods that you eat. Be aware that the flesh foods that you buy at the supermarket are often very tainted with toxic compounds and additives.
Get plenty of rest. Both the mind and body conduct healing and restorative functions during such times.
Eliminate cow's milk and dairy products. If you feel the desperate need to include cheese in your diet, use the raw cheeses from goats and sheep. But it’s best to avoid dairy products completely.
Eliminate alcohol, drugs, and all similar substances.
Practice meditation. Meditation is an intellectual practice during which you’re attempting to concentrate and focus. You’re trying to get control over thoughts that continually go through your mind and distract you. With the proper control of your mind you can create stillness. Stillness of the body and stillness of the mind while you are awake and present can be difficult. But it yields great benefits; it makes your mind strong and makes much deeper conscious connections within you possible. In advanced practices, meditation can even give you mastery over the chemistry of your body.
Face up to and deal with all of your emotions. This entails uncovering and discovering processes to release. It is a long-term practice. Many people get stuck because they don’t know where to begin. Other people can spend years in therapy talking and talking and not make very much progress: The reason is usually that they’re not doing a host of other necessary lifestyle changes in addition to the therapy. There are certain actions that we must take on a daily basis to get in touch with ourselves and to begin the process of feeling. People who can’t remember childhood feelings have repressed them very deeply. But the feelings are still in the body in the form of repressed energy: In order to clear the mind and clear the body, these old emotions that are trapped within us for a variety of reasons need to be released. Additionally, we need to learn how to take part in the processes of feeling again. When we release old feelings from childhood and survive them as adults, then we can learn how to feel things such as sadness, fear, anger, jealousy, and even hate and then process those feelings properly. We can learn how to turn those feelings that come up into things that we can deal with and turn over. If something brings up a feeling of hatred in me, I am not willing to hold onto it. I need to look at it really closely. If I’m frightened, I need to figure out which thing made me frightened and I need to analyze the feeling. I think about those negative feelings and I’ve learned to concentrate on my compassion. This is an elaborate form of denial, allowing myself to feel feelings and then guiding them the way that I would guide a child through any difficult activity. The feelings need coaching. They need to be massaged and pampered. Even the toughest human beings struggle with feeling delicate emotions and so we shut down completely because we think it’s useless. Both men and women shut down feelings that can bring them to feel ashamed. Sometimes it’s something that people told them when they felt certain things that made them ashamed. Sometimes it was a natural feeling of shame because the feelings were difficult, as is often the case when some type of abuse happened. Or sometimes shame occurred as a result of watching family members and others. Those who grew up watching people who weren’t emotional and feeling usually controlled or stifled their emotions in the same manner. Of course there are exceptions—some people who in spite of all that are still extremely emotional.
Practice honesty in everything you do. In addition to communicating the essence of your true self, you grow tremendously as a person when you are honest: You foster courage, display maturity, build interpersonal connections, and clear out ‘emotional baggage’ in such a way that it builds your self-image.
Apologize often. Almost every day of our lives we have an opportunity to express an apology to someone. It’s an act that shows strength of character and courage on our part and gives us a good reason to respect ourselves.
Don’t overeat.
Don’t eat late at night. Preferably, don’t eat after sunset.
Combine foods properly. In any single meal, make sure to eat foods that are compatible with each other.
Maintain your teeth. Good oral hygiene is important not just to have teeth to chew with, but to avoid a variety of diseases related both to the mouth and to digestion.
Keep your body clean.
Take high-quality, high potency, all plant-based supplements in the process of practicing a healthy diet. They will stimulate your body in a beautiful way. But don’t take a lot of them unless you have a specific vitamin deficiency.
Experience joy and laughter.
Preserve and maintain important relationships with other people, with animals, and with nature.
Believe in something.
Focus on things you have to be grateful for and say them out loud to yourself on a daily basis—preferably as you wake up and before you open your eyes in the morning.
Keep your living space clean.
Show respect to your teachers.
Avoid these particular foods: Anything fried, pork, and ocean and freshwater bottom-feeding creatures.
Show compassion.
Practice forgiveness.
Keep a journal. Communicating in writing clarifies things for you and helps bring intangible thought concepts into realities that you can take action on. You become a more efficient, productive, and emotionally healthy individual when you do so.
