5 National Wellness Month Essentials for Your Health

5 National Wellness Month Essentials for Your Health

While we encourage you to prioritize your health and self-care every day of the year, August is recognized as National Wellness Month — so let’s celebrate! Wellness can mean so many things depending on the person, including their goals, experiences, and seasons of life. Wherever you find yourself today, here are some Wellness Month essentials to help support your everyday health goals. 

1. Practice Mindfulness

We live in an extra-distracted time in history, especially with social media at the center of our lives. It’s easy for our daily tasks to run together and overlap with wellness routines like exercising or sitting down to enjoy a meal. National Wellness Month is a great time to try and break that habit. 

Mindfulness is the practice of being more aware of yourself and your surroundings in the moment. A great application is mindful eating, which aims to bring reduce distractions and focus on the food on your plate and how it’s serving your body.1

To increase your mindfulness at mealtime, try these things: 

  • Center meals around a table where you can sit down versus walking around, driving, or eating while working at a desk
  • Remove screens while you’re eating, like the computer, phone, and TV
  • Set your fork down between bites
  • Notice how your food smells, tastes, and feels as you eat it

2. Get Daily Movement

Physical activity is a foundation of wellness. Moving your body is something that serves your body right now and years down the road — and it doesn’t have to cost anything extra. 

If the word “exercise” makes you cringe or feel overwhelmed, focus on achieving daily movement instead. Anything you can do to intentionally get your body moving is great for your physical, mental, and emotional wellness. 

Experts recommend a goal of at least 150-300 minutes (2.5-5 hours) of exercise per week and at least two days of strength training for your muscles for general health and chronic disease prevention.2 

Daily movement could look like a variety of things: 

  • Hiking with friends
  • Swimming laps at the local rec center
  • Joining a group fitness class
  • Yoga or Pilates
  • Playing soccer or basketball
  • Walking or jogging your dog around the park
  • Lifting weights, using resistance bands, or doing bodyweight exercises like push-ups and lunges

3. Eat Nourishing Foods

Nutrition is a super impactful piece of your health regardless of where you’re starting in your wellness journey. For the most benefit, it’s important to prioritize minimally processed and nutrient-dense foods, such as: 

  • Fruits
  • Vegetables
  • Whole grains
  • Legumes
  • Nuts and seeds
  • Other lean proteins

Try to keep ultra-processed foods to a minimum, such as packaged snacks, pastries, fried foods, fast and frozen convenience foods, and sugary beverages like soda, energy drinks, and fruit juices. 

4. Add Health-Promoting Supplements

While whole foods are the best places to get your nutrition, it may be helpful to add certain supplements to close existing nutritional gaps in your diet.3 

For example, a daily multivitamin is an easy and convenient addition to your daily wellness routine. We’ve crafted several varieties depending on your personal needs, such as: 

To see our full whole foods multivitamin line click here. 

5. Get Enough Sleep

Sleep is your body’s designated time for rest and repair. Experts recommend adults get 7-8 hours of sleep per night for general health and wellness.4 

If you’re not regularly getting enough sleep and often feel unrested, here are some tips to improve your sleep hygiene:5

  • Go to bed and wake up around the same times every day
  • Create a sleep-promoting environment in your bedroom
  • Wear breathable layers to sleep in
  • Avoid potential sleep disruptors close to bedtime, such as large high-fat meals, alcohol, caffeine, and technology

National Wellness Month is an opportunity for all of us to examine our everyday habits and take a pulse on our well-being. Take this chance to identify areas for improvement and make a plan to optimize your wellness, considering the tips above. 


Sources

  1. Nelson JB. Mindful Eating: The Art of Presence While You Eat. Diabetes Spectr. 2017;30(3):171-174. doi:10.2337/ds17-0015
  2. Yang YJ. An Overview of Current Physical Activity Recommendations in Primary Care. Korean J Fam Med. 2019;40(3):135-142. doi:10.4082/kjfm.19.0038
  3. Blumberg JB, Cena H, Barr SI, et al. The Use of Multivitamin/Multimineral Supplements: A Modified Delphi Consensus Panel Report. Clin Ther. 2018;40(4):640-657. doi:10.1016/j.clinthera.2018.02.014
  4. Chaput JP, Dutil C, Featherstone R, et al. Sleep duration and health in adults: an overview of systematic reviews. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2020;45(10 (Suppl. 2)):S218-S231. doi:10.1139/apnm-2020-0034
  5. Irish LA, Kline CE, Gunn HE, Buysse DJ, Hall MH. The role of sleep hygiene in promoting public health: A review of empirical evidence. Sleep Med Rev. 2015;22:23-36. doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2014.10.001

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