When you think of the word “harmony” there’s a decent chance that you imagine something like a Zen Buddhist monk sitting on top of a mountain, lost in a meditative trance, while clouds pass by in a soft breeze.
But you don’t have to be a grand meditation expert in order to add a bit of harmony to your life, or to benefit from taking steps to make your life more harmonious overall. And for that matter, “harmony” is just another word for “balance”, and doesn’t have to mean anything particularly metaphysical or mysterious.
A long time ago, the philosopher Aristotle developed his idea of the “Golden Mean,” as a way of figuring out the right way to act in any given circumstance. His basic idea was that “virtue” (in other words, the “right” path) always lay between two extremes – an extreme of deficiency on one side, and an extreme of excess on the other side. So, with money, being a complete miser isn’t good, and neither is being a careless spender. The “virtuous” thing is balance.
The same general idea and pattern plays itself out in all kinds of different areas of life. If you want to be fit, you need to exercise, but you also need to rest enough so that you’re able to recover properly. Fail to do this, and your body will break down, rather than grow stronger.
A lot of us find ourselves in an interesting situation in life, namely that we are addicted to beating ourselves up and living as absolute workaholics, while simultaneously wanting to feel great, and look our best, too. But if you’ve got forehead lines and wrinkles that you’re not happy with, the solution may be to radically change up your lifestyle, rather than just to look for the best miracle product to help you out.
Here are some tips for harmonising your life so that you can improve your looks, and your overall well-being, simultaneously.
Identify what it is you’re trying to “medicate” with your bad habits, and explore more positive solutions instead
Just about everyone has some kind of bad habits that the’re regularly indulging in, and which they know they really shouldn’t.
Although there are far fewer smokers than there were 50 years ago, plenty of people do still smoke, and it’s not because they believe it does anything good for their health or looks. By the same token, a huge number of people binge drink on a regular basis as a way of unwinding at the weekends.
Then, on the more extreme side of things, some people will abuse highly potent illegal drugs in order to unwind and feel at the top of their game during their weekend party sessions.
It should go without saying that none of the stuff mentioned above will do any favours for your long-term sense of well-being, and definitely not for your looks, either. But, even something as apparently innocuous as having a strong caffeine addiction can do some harm in this regard, by dehydrating you, diminishing your sleep quality, and perhaps also imbalancing your hormones.
Kicking your bad habits is a fundamental step to finding a place of balance in your life, so that your health, your sense of well-being, and your looks, can all be at their peak.
The thing is, people generally engage in their bad habits out of a desire to “self-medicate.” That is, people sometimes drink, or abuse drugs, as a way of dealing with emotional pain, or conditions like depression or anxiety. Even if there is no obvious dramatic issue that you can identify, there’s clearly a “reason” for why you engage in that behaviour in the first place.
To successfully kick your bad habits, figure out what it is you’re trying to “medicate” with them, and explore more positive ways of achieving the same benefit, instead.
Plan out your days in advance, to minimise stress, and allow yourself to be more mindful and intentional
A lot of poor lifestyle habits that end up leading to bad health, and damage to your physical appearance, can pretty much be traced back to a lifestyle that is too chaotic, and lacks a proper degree of planning and preparation.
If you find that you are always rushing around, trying to make your deadlines and compensate for lost time, that’s a pretty good sign that you need to seriously revisit the question of how organised you are, and how organised you should be.
It’s when people lack structure in their lives that they are most likely to snack on junk food throughout the day, get too little sleep at night, experience too much stress on a regular basis, and just generally live lives that take a serious negative toll across the board.
Perhaps the best solution to this problem is to plan your days out in advance, instead. The aim here should be to arrange things so that you can see exactly how much time is available to you, and how much of that time you can dedicate particular tasks. From there, it’s a matter of sticking with your plan in order to minimise stress, and to be more mindful and intentional.
This can include various different elements, such as preparing your meals the night before, using a calendar or daily planner tool to organise your schedule, and committing to certain productive obligations in advance, to ensure that you are held accountable by external forces and not just your own will.
Wind down in the evenings, and allow yourself plenty of time in bed
There’s a good argument to be made that perhaps the number one health crisis of our times is actually the fact that just about no one is getting enough sleep, by a long shot.
Sleep isn’t just a luxury that you indulge in when you get the time. In fact, getting too little sleep can damage your organs, throw your hormones out of balance, ruin your immune system, increase cellular ageing, and just cause you a lot of trouble that you could really do without.
Of course, sleep also wreaks havoc on your looks, too. Just think about the sight that greeted you when you’ve peered into the mirror after an all-nighter. Did you look rosy-cheeked, radiant, bright-eyed, and hot? Probably not. It’s more likely you looked washed out, with dark rings around your sunken, bloodshot eyes.
A major part of actually managing to get enough sleep, is creating the right environment for it in the evening. That means winding down as dusk approaches, rather than keeping the pace the same as it was in the afternoon. Instead of watching action-packed films or TV series with all the lights on, head to the bedroom, read some good books, and set every illumination source in your home on “dim” (or else switch them off).
Be sure to also give yourself plenty of time in bed – a lot more than you think you need in order to get a good night’s sleep. Your “sleep opportunity window” should be something like 10 hours, if you think that you need eight hours to feel fully rested.
Get your beauty sleep. It will make you feel better in all kinds of different ways.
Avoid dramatic crash diets and highly restrictive eating plans – “cycle” your eating style instead
Diets are very popular these days, which isn’t too surprising considering the fact that obesity levels are high, while everyone simultaneously wants to look like the models they see on the covers of their favourite lifestyle magazines.
The thing is, dramatic crash diets, or highly restrictive eating plans in general, can wreak havoc on your body, your mood, and your looks over time.
In order to function optimally, your body needs all sorts of different nutrients that a restrictive diet is unlikely to provide. To function properly, your body also needs sufficient calories to actually keep everything ticking along properly, and enough of certain macronutrients (think protein) to rebuild and restore damaged tissue.
When people get on restrictive diet plans – whether that’s the Starch Solution, or the Keto diet – they often experience dramatic weight loss results in a short time, which may also be accompanied by significant improvements in overall health. As these eating plans get dragged out over the long term, however, things start to go wrong.
Nutrient deficiencies are a very real thing, and they often only reveal themselves in their most extreme forms after a significant amount of time. What’s more, research dating back to World War II (the Minnesota Starvation Experiment) shows that eating at a caloric deficit for long enough ruins mental and physical health, and increases stress levels through the roof.
If you want to look your best, it’s not going to happen if you are chronically stressed to the limit, and are simultaneously suffering from a nutrient imbalance.
If you’re going to get on a particular diet plan, be sure to “cycle” your eating style, instead of sticking with one routine forever. Fit a bit of balance into your diet routine, and you’ll likely find that you look and feel your best.