Michelle Flynn is a Certified Health Coach and a CBT Practitioner that is going to be sharing tips with us to help us live longer, healthier, happier lives.
First, let’s rewind a little.
Michelle started her career in technical recruitment in 1997 where she worked for a large agency recruiting in the PC Support area. She then moved across to become the Inhouse Recruitment Manager for a Microsoft Gold Partner, Conchango. It was at this point she started supporting the London .Net User Group using the Conchango office to host the meetups (some of you may even have been at them) and handing out the beer and pizza. In 2011 she started her own inhouse recruitment business supporting fast-growth tech start-ups (including Huddle, 7digital, Wiggle, Moonpig) to hire everyone involved in the tech product life cycle.
Following a suspected heart attack, which led to some simple but transformative life changes, Michelle retrained to become a Health Coach. She now provides 1-2-1 coaching and corporate wellbeing programmes to share what she learnt with others.
Results have little to do with the actual goals set but everything to do with the systems/habits you put in place to achieve the goals.
There is nothing that can impact your life more than implementing good habits.
But with so much advice out there we often do not know where to start so we buy the diet books, join the gym and then end up doing nothing at all.
I am going to make it easy for you, here are six core principles of healthy living that most effectively add years to lives, and life to years.
1. Sleep
Sleep is key to all health and wellbeing. Are you getting enough? You need to be getting 7–9 hours of sleep a night. Our bodies all require long periods of sleep in order to restore and rejuvenate, to grow muscle, repair tissue and synthesise hormones.
2. Food
Eat whole, real foods and avoid processed foods. If you do this not only will you never have to count calories again but more importantly you are significantly reducing your risk of all chronic disease.
3. Movement
Regular physical activity at moderate intensity will assist weight control as well as reduce cancer risks, simply this means walking 10,000 steps a day. If you are an athlete then of course train hard but over-exercising can actually do more harm than good.
4. Stimulants
Sorry, you are not going to like this one but we all know the more you reduce caffeine, alcohol, smoking the better.
5. Stress
Stress is an inevitable part of life, but you can improve the way you respond to stress and avoid/change some of the situations that create negative stress.
6. Love
Clinical trials demonstrate that those with loving relationships are far less vulnerable to chronic disease than those without.
So rather than saying “I will get healthy” it is time to say “I AM healthy”.
And if you are ever unsure what to do then ask yourself “What would a healthy person do?” If you act like a healthy person long enough you will become one.
Michelle Flynn • www.michelleflynncoaching.com