How a Healthier self is Essential for a Healthier Planet

Many aspects of a well rounded sustainable life can feel like they aren’t environment related at all.They may even feel like a waste of time if the goal is to have a healthier planet. Oftentimes, our personal health and well being can feel like exactly that.

A healthier self is essential to a healthier planet. Both in the sense that it's difficult to focus on a better world if we are too distracted by health issues, and in the sense that usually a healthier lifestyle can also mean a more sustainable one.

It's harder to make changes when our essentials aren't first taken care of

We don’t have much without our health. If we are too worried about it or trying to catch up with it, we usually have a difficult time focusing on sustainable changes, or life changes in general

And this is okay. It’s okay to focus on health first. Because ultimately, this is what will be the backbone that allows for growth in life.

Especially when talking about giving back to our community. This kind of work requires us to “pour from our cup” so to speak and when we aren’t eating well, sleeping well, or worried about something else, we’ll feel drained. You can’t pour from an empty cup, as they say.

Not that being in a tough situation should always be a reason to not give back, but it’s usually tougher to do so. 

Build a foundation of health and well-being so that we can better focus on aligning with our values, whatever those may be. 

Healthier choices are oftentimes more sustainable, and vise versa

If we find ourselves in a place needing to improve our health, usually we can do so in a way that also helps the planet. Let’s look at some examples.

Focusing on eating less processed and more nutritionally dense foods (which usually means more plants) is great for our health but also much better for the planet.

Choosing to commute via walking and biking instead of by motorized means is great exercise and also cuts down on a bunch of emissions/energy demands. 

Reducing clutter in our lives not only makes us feel more organized and less stressed, but it also reduces our demand for excess which is great for the planet. Not to mention, maybe the stress relief of being more financially secure.

Some of us make these changes for our health and others for the planet, but as we now realize with a lot of situations, both will actually improve. 

So you see, it is possible to improve both parts of our lives simply because they are so interwoven as one in the same. Whether we make a change for the planet or for our own health, we will find that the other will benefit as a beautiful consequence.

There are many aspects to a sustainable life and world that may feel like a step back or too far from progress. But we will find, with many things, that taking care of the basics now is essential to prevent them from hindering us later on.

Everything we build must start with a great foundation.