Some people say I want to change the world, but they get burnt out or tired. Today we are going to talk about caring for your whole self. Labor Day just passed which is a day all about working hard. Let's face the facts people if we aren't at our best we aren’t much help to those around us. I'm the family caretaker so I know how stressful helping others can be and I found myself getting burnt out, skipping workouts, indulging in sweets and unhealthy foods, and the list goes on. I never expected so many aspects of my life to be affected but once it was broken down to where I could understand what it was my body needed, I flourished so I want to share my self-care tips with you today.

 First and foremost, we will be talking about three aspects of your health today. Your physical health is defined as the condition of your body, taking into consideration everything from the absence of disease to fitness level. Physical health is critical for overall well-being and can be affected by Lifestyle: diet, level of physical activity, and behavior. Your Mental Health is the condition of being sound mentally and emotionally that is characterized by the absence of mental illness and by adequate adjustment especially as reflected in feeling comfortable about oneself, positive feelings about others, and the ability to meet the demands of daily life. Your Emotional health is an important part of overall health. Emotionally healthy people are in control of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Your physical health is broken down into three basic aspects, good nutrition, a healthy amount of rest and sleep, and exercise. I like to think about our bodies as our temples or our vehicles. The important thing to remember is that you only get one, it's not like the car in your driveway that you can go trade-in. We need to care about ourselves so that we can give the best care for others. This world has turned into a scary place but if we better care for ourselves than we can better care for and about others. This is something you can do in your everyday life to make your community a better place. It doesn't make sense to only care about your arms and not your legs, or your physical health and not your mental or emotional health. It's dangerous, Let's talk about simple ways to care for your physical health. First, you need to know how active you are in order to have a baseline to make improvements on and to set goals. For this task, I have fallen in love with the Forerunner 245 . It's a great product that allows you to track all the vital information you need to know. You can use our compare chart to see what is best for you

Your mental health is an important part of your overall health. Mentally healthy people are in control of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It means you are aware of your emotions. You can deal with them, whether they are positive or negative. Mental health is integral to living a healthy, balanced life. According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI), one in five Americans experiences mental health issues which translate to more than 40 million adults a year. Our mental health includes our psychological, emotional and social well-being. This means that it impacts how we feel, think and behave each day. Our mental health also contributes to our decision-making process, how we cope with stress and how we relate to others in our lives. I use four main rules a day to recognize where I am mentally and to train myself to better react in a situation. Rule number one, focus your attention on the present moment, two, practice gratitude, three, exercise patience over hurrying to get things done, and last but not least you need to practice accepting what is already happening. With these four rules added to my daily life, I find myself much more aware of my mental health and how I'm feeling.

I know you're probably tired of reading by now but we are going to wrap it up with your emotional health. Your emotional health is your feelings and how you identify and accept those feelings. once you recognize where you are emotionally you will be able to care for yourself in a much healthier manner. Most of us identify our emotional health by the words we use to describe feelings such as happy, sad, scared, stressed, angry ext. The first step in better emotional health is recognizing the validity of your emotional state. We don't always like how we feel but it is of utmost importance that we recognize that it is real and it is there. The next task is figuring out why, why do I feel this way? You can go back to your mental health for that and think about how your thoughts have been and how you have been feeling and why that might be, only you have this answer and we are all different. Last but not least is to remember that feelings are simply words, they do not define us, its how we respond to those feelings that matter. I hope you enjoyed our blog on how to better yourself all around, I know it was a long read but I hope you learned a lot and that you are on you A game very soon.

Remember we are all part of something bigger whether it is a family, work crew, team, school, church, community, etc so if you want to make this world a better place DON'T forget about yourself!!