30+ Non-Gym Ways to Improve Your Health for Women Over 40

Hey there, welcome to the Grace Tealth podcast, your source for aging strong in your physical, mental and spiritual health. My name is Amy Connell. I'm a weight neutral, certified personal trainer and nutrition coach who loves walks with friends, chocolate and Jesus. Whether you're looking to grow stronger as you age, nourish your body, mind and spirit, or fit all of the pieces together to holistically thrive, this is the place for Christian women over 40. I am here to guide you in the areas I can, and bring on experts in the areas I'm still learning, and, of course, we cover it all with a whole lot of grace. I'm glad you're here. I am a personal trainer. I have been a fitness professional for over 18 years. I have been a fitness enthusiast my entire adult life and I am deprioritizing exercise on my wellness list. That's like what, why, why? Well, thanks to conversations I've been having here on the Grace Tealth podcast, and just with ongoing learning, I am finally understanding how so many elements of what we do and small things contribute to our overall well-being. I have been creating this storehouse of ways to take care of ourselves. This is from our conversations here on the show. It's from other areas that I love to learn, if you've been with me a while. You know that I just love learning about all things health, and I wanted to bring 10 of those to you today. This is kind of an addendum, or in addition to the episode that I released in season 16, episode 19, called 10 non-gym waves of taking care of yourself. So only one of these is going to actually be the same, and I've also created a free download that has 30 non-gym waves to improve your health for women over 40. And these will also have all of the links of the science behind it and give you a roadmap of episodes to listen to where I have learned and I have gleaned this information from my amazing guests, and I think I might have just the best guests here on this show. I'm just so grateful for the wisdom that they bring. So if you want that, be sure to grab it. The link is in the show notes. Now, before I get into these, I want to have just a few disclaimers. One of these is this is a menu, not a prescription. What I mean by that is I'm going to give you 10 things. I want you to pick what works for you and then don't bother with the other things. What makes sense, what is realistic to implement, what is interesting, what's a pain point. These are things I want you to discern which is a big value of the show here and figure out what you want to try. Please, please, please, understand that I am not coming saying these are the things that you must do to take care of yourself. These are some things you can do to improve your overall well-being. I have a lot of conversations with my husband about this and he gets so annoyed when people like me come in and say, well, all you need to do is X, y, z and A, b and C. And he's like I have a full-time job and I'm commuting and I'm trying to do other things. I don't want this to be overwhelming. What I want it to be is an option, that for something that you might be able to do, and what I recommend is just picking something, and maybe what you say is okay, I'm going to take 10 minutes every day Maybe it's in the morning, maybe it's at lunchtime, maybe it's as you wind your day down and implement some of these, and I'm going to mix and match, and that's why I have this download for you. I want you to get it. I want you to download it and play around with it, see what works, see what doesn't work, and be able to be your own investigator into your uniquely created body. So, with that said, I'm going to get into 10 non-gym ways to improve your health for women over 40. Now, the first one is right aligned with the Christ-centered aspect of this show, and that is offer a prayer of Thanksgiving. If I'm not careful, my prayer time can easily turn into a checklist of requests. Help me, guide me, show me. Surely I'm not the only one. While this is definitely one of the ways that we can talk to God, it should not be the only way and it's just really self-focused. So instead, intentionally writing a prayer will help organize my thoughts, point out areas that I might forget to be grateful for, and I know that I am, but I just kind of forget it. It can also help with anxiety as we are writing things out. That really helps our brain, just kind of put a pin in it, like saying, okay, this is something that I am concerned about and I am being thankful for in other ways. You know, in Philippians 4, 6-8, it says be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with Thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds. Through Christ Jesus, I have been taught that we cannot be anxious and thankful at the same time. So we can be anxious or we can be thankful. So writing out a prayer of Thanksgiving is a wonderful step in doing that. I have actually been writing out my prayers and if you've been listening for a while, you've heard me say that a couple times. It's probably been about six months that I've started doing this and I've really noticed a difference in it's been amazing the way that God Really communicates through me as I'm writing. It doesn't happen every day, but it does happen and it's just such a sweet way of connecting with God. That way and writing out those prayers of Thanksgiving does make a difference and it will turn that anxiety to gratefulness, which means that that anxiety is not continuing to grow. Second on the list and this is kind of in my new list of anything that I recommend to people is get outside for five to ten minutes first thing in the morning for light therapy. Look, I know this can be difficult and as this is airing, it is in February, the days are short. They are cold. This is difficult to do. So, before I go further if telling you why this is so important, I will say there are alternative ways that you can get this, especially getting something like a very lux happy light. I'll put that in the show notes, but these are just artificial UV free lights that mimic the sunlight. So if getting light therapy first thing in the morning does not work with your schedule or with where you live or the weather, this is a great alternative. I have not found it to be quite as effective, but it's definitely better than nothing. Now, having said that, getting natural sunlight in your eyes first thing in the morning can help your sleep at night, which sounds kind of strange. This is something I first learned from Morgan Adams, who is a sleep coach, in season 15, episode one, and I have continued to learn it, as I have been learning some from Andrew Huperman and the Huperman lab podcast. This helps set your circadian rhythm and it tells your brain Okay, this is the beginning of the day and it's daylight. And then, in turn, your brain will recognize when the night time is approaching and it will naturally kick in Melatonin, which is your kind of sleepy hormone. Now the key is do this without sunglasses so your eyes can absorb as much of that natural light as possible. So, again, this is the only one that I'm repeating from that last episode in season 16. But it's worth repeating again try as much as you can to get sunlight and, just as a little bonus, non gym way of improving your health, get some sunlight any other time during the day. If you can get outside at lunch, just take a quick breather out there or early afternoon. That can definitely still help your circadian rhythm. Number three shift your vision to the 2020 20 rule. I often will have lessons learned from mistakes that I have made or it's something that someone close to me is walking through and I learn about and I'm like this is something I wish I knew. I'm gonna pass this on. This is one of those circumstances. So during covid, one of my sons said he was like mom, my vision is really bothering me and he has had some vision issues in the past that Related and they're expecting for it to come back as an adult. So I wanted to make, I wanted to be on top of that. So I took him to the optometrist and the optometrist asked some questions and he said oh, you have covid vision. We're like, what is covid vision? And he said basically, because we have transitioned to screens for the majority of our day, our eyes are only looking 12 to 18 inches ahead of us and they're not having that flexibility during the day. So actually, I learned so much from him that I invited him on and you can listen to dr Kevin G in season nine, episode 13. Does your reduced vision, have covid syndrome? The antidote to this is to shift our vision away from these things that are really close up. So what Dr G recommends is the 2020-20 rule Every 20 minutes, look at something at least 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Does this mean I do this all the time? No, in fact. Just last week I had an intense computer work day. I normally like up and down and I've got training and I'm doing this and I don't know, but for some reason that day I was staring at my computer for many, many, many hours straight, not doing any of the things that I recommend, like I wasn't getting up and moving around. I was just doing all the things wrong. And I tell you what I felt it. I felt it that night. My eyes felt like they were just going to peel off and they hurt and they were so fatigued and that's when I remembered, oh, I need to be doing this. And so when you are having days that you know you're going to be at the computer, maybe set a timer for every 20 minutes or some other way to just ping you to remind you to look away. Number four assume the 90s position. What is the 90s position? This is something I learned from Jen Lormand and Christina Walsh. I call them the tight-knit tinkler girls. They have come on twice and educated us, especially me, about pelvic floor health and just really our core, our center of gravity. They are amazing educators. They are so smart, they are so positive. We laugh so hard every time we get together and they're just delightful. And those conversations that I had with them does revolve around the pelvic floor, but Jen and Christina really taught us how everything is connected in our pelvic floor and when our hips are off balance, that impacts all of the smaller muscles in the glute and the pelvic floor region. So when we lay in this 90s position or on your back, it basically it is laying on your back with your knees on the chair. However, they give some very specific things to pay attention to, and I will put the link in the show notes on how to get a free download of how to do that 90s decompression. If you're interested in doing this, I highly recommend getting that from them because they can teach it better than I can and they know their stuff and I really want to give credit where credit is due. I have a tendency to have some just tightness in the lower left side of my back and it's really learning from Jen and Christina that I'm realizing what some of that tenderness is, some of that tightness is, and they have given me these tools, including this 90s decompression that I will do. I notice a huge difference when I do that in my lower back. So if you have lower back issues, if you just feel like a lot of your stress is in your core region or in your hips, this is something you need and go grab that free download. Number five roll your feet with the softball for foot pain and connective tissue health. We spend a lot of time in our shoes. Most of our day, especially if we work outside of the home, is spent in shoes more than likely, unless maybe, like you're a yoga instructor and you get to walk around barefoot, which is so good for your feet. I feel pretty lucky because I get to wear athletic shoes a lot and I also train barefoot. I can spend some time barefoot, but I really have a mix of barefoot and wearing shoes. If you were wearing heels or other constrictive shoes for most of the day, rolling your feet with a softball helps rehydrate the connective tissue in your feet and helps release some of the pressure from our shoes. Now if you're like I don't know what this connective tissue is, then I really encourage you to go back and listen to Sue Hitzman. That is season 15. Episode three called the surprising connection between fascia, chronic pain and well-being. This is one of the most downloaded episodes of the Grace Health podcast, and with good reason. It was a fascinating conversation. Sue is the founder and creator of the Melt Method and she's passionate about connective tissue education. She also offers a lot of free tutorials in her YouTube channel, including the one with the softball for your feet. So at a minimum, you can get a golf ball sized ball. That is not a golf ball because you want it to be soft. You wanna be able to kind of put some pressure on it and you can just roll your feet around and that will help release your connective tissue. If you have plantar fasciitis, that even might help. That it will help start to hydrate the connective tissue. But if you want to take it next level, I recommend watching some of those free videos on YouTube that Sue offers, because she has the wisdom and the knowledge and education to guide us through specific ways of taking care of your feet so you can start to hydrate all of your connective tissue. Because, as we've learned here, everything is connected and even if you're just doing your feet, that can actually impact the rest of your body. Number six make a batch of baked oats for either easy breakfast or snackings and to help your heart health. I had a great conversation with Dr Maria Colón Gonzales, who is a functional medicine physician, and we talked a lot about cholesterol In that episode. We talked about the importance of eating a variety of plants. I am a huge fan of baked oats because they're super easy to pull together. I can make a batch. It's simple to pull out the next day again for breakfast or a snack, or if you wanna have it for dinner, have it for dinner. If you have my book, your Worthy Body, try the Cinderella bars. Those have six plants in the ingredient list and you can even throw additional things like flax seeds or chia seeds in for a little more. Also, oats are fantastic for our heart health. They are associated with a reduced risk of heart disease, lower cholesterol levels, improved blood pressure. They also have soluble fiber that supports your healthy gut bacteria. It promotes regular bowel movements. It's just that is such a good thing. It's kinda like it just comes through your system and just pushes everything out. Oats also have a lot of micronutrients and my new book for teen girls I call these Mighty Micronutrients and that book is called your Core Strength. But it has B vitamins, manganese, iron, magnesium and zinc. So just taking a few minutes to prep something like that up and then baking it and then you can have it all week long is really helpful for a lot of different reasons. And if you don't have my book, your Worthy Body, why not? First of all, you should go grab that. But you can also just do a baked. I'm just Google baked oats recipe. You don't have to use that one, but try and get as many different plants in there as you can. Number seven text or call a friend to check in. I talked about this in season 18, episode 13, how I cannot pull up my newsfeed without seeing some sort of article supporting the importance of connection. We are in this lonely epidemic. In fact, the US surgeon general, dr Vivek Murthy, just released a book that I have ordered and I haven't yet received, called Together Loneliness, health and what Happens when we Find Connection. So connection is so important and it does impact the rest of our health. Now you can learn a bit more about this in the episode I did in season 18, episode 13, called why Now is the Perfect Time to Integrate the Blue Zone Lifestyle. But connection I tell you what it is, where it's at, and I'm just gonna say that having a wonderful conversation with a girlfriend, either in person or on the phone, does way more for me than eating a perfectly balanced meal. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't want to not eat a well-balanced meal, but connection just really does fill my soul so much, and I'm guessing that it probably does for you, which is why number eight is going to be kind of along the same line, which is schedule a walk and talk with a friend. So I have a handful of friends that will just text and say, hey, we need to catch up, let's do a walk and talk. And these are friends who do not live in my city and so I don't get to see them very often. So what we do and I've talked about this before but we'll say, okay, we're gonna do a walk and talk on Wednesday at 4.30 PM and we both are going walking and we're talking at the same time. I don't even need to explain that like that's super simple. But those are the times that I connect with those friends. We have it scheduled out, we are protecting it, we are by ourselves, and it's just a wonderful way to connect with each other and not only catch up because these friends, I'm close enough with them that we're like, all right, bam, let's go, and we don't really do the whole catch up thing, we're just like, okay, this is what's on my heart and this is what's bothering me, and those are so helpful. I also have walk and talk friends here in the neighborhood that I do that with, but those are wonderful ways to connect with your friends. Number nine perform three box breaths. So if you are not familiar with box breaths, it is one again. One of the things that I recommend in my book for teen girls coming in April 2024, called your Core Strength. It is the most simple way of mindful breathing that I know to recommend and basically that is exhale slowly for four, counts, hold for four, inhale for four, hold for four. So do that three times Exhale, hold, inhale, hold. I wasn't expecting to do that with you, but apparently I needed it, so box breathing it's also called square breathing. It offers a lot of benefits. Number one is it can help and this is all science-backed it can help reduce your stress by calming your nervous system, lowering that stress hormone, cortisol. It can help clear your mind, give you improved focus which who doesn't need improved focus? It can enhance your relaxation and sleep quality. So if you are needing to prepare your mind and body for sleep, this is something great to do. It actually has been shown to help with pain management, so that's another tool to utilize if you are dealing with chronic pain. And then, of course, it's so easy to do right Like this is something that we can do at any time. And, by the way, I know I've mentioned your core strength a handful of times. If you are interested in being notified about that, you can go to grace healthcom. Slash your dash core, dash strength dash launch. Or you can just find the link in the show notes, because that'll be a lot easier, or just go up to grace healthcom and look under books. But when you sign up there you'll get the intro, the first chapter, and I will let you know when all of this is coming out, because I'm gonna you're gonna be hearing more about this as we go along and as we get closer to April. And then, finally, number 10, when we're stressed, swap out an intense workout for a mind body one, and I know that I'm talking a decent amount about stress here. But again, as I have been learning from the amazing guests that we have had here on the Grace Health podcast, I realize how stress impacts so much of what we do. It's not just where we are and in our head. It impacts our sleep, it impacts our pain. So much pain comes from chronic stress, and so, yeah, I'm focusing on that a lot because it's a non-gym way to improve your health and it seems too simple to be true, but actually so many of these really do help. So when we're stressed, our body releases cortisol. You've probably heard of cortisol. That can lead to an increase of your heart rate as oxygen demand. You know it increases your oxygen demand. Also, it causes muscle tension. Not news to you. You might feel it in your shoulders, your chest, maybe your stomach, maybe, if you're like me, it's in your chest. But chronic stress can really have serious effects on your body. So it can cause that long-term wear and tear on your body systems and that is like all systems like your, your musculoskeletal, your immune system, your cardiovascular system which it can in turn lead to other health problems high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and so, because of this, we don't want to stress our body out by doing a more stressful workout when we are already stressed. How many times can I say stress in one sentence? A lot, apparently. Instead, swap it out for something lower intensity. Maybe that's a walk, maybe that's yoga, pilates, if it's not too stressful I know there's a lot of variations of Pilates, but something that is focused on your breath work. Of course, I have to pitch my online class called Be Complete. It's just $20. You can do it as many times as you want. It's online, on demand, and it is designed to pull you out of a stressful state and help support other areas of your body, and it's especially designed for women over 40. So if you don't have it, go grab that. That's another wonderful option for a swap out instead of an intense workout. Now, if you're like me and you grew up exercising, it may be you may be thinking like it doesn't count if I'm not sweaty and breathing really hard and there's not this pull of sweat on the floor. It counts, I promise it counts, and it might even count more than what we realize. I think it definitely counts more than anything I have ever given credit to in the past, until again, like I have been learning. Now one thing I can't let you go without saying a bonus one, and that bonus one is go to bed so you get between seven and nine hours of sleep, however much your body naturally needs. We had a wonderful conversation with Morgan Adams. I already mentioned that once in season 15, episode one, where she gives wonderful tips on how to sleep. Back In this new book for Teen Girls I've Written, I have a stair step approach to optimizing our health of like. Let's focus on these things. Sleep is the number one thing that I recommend, and you know what? Number seven is the very last one exercise and yes, I'm a personal trainer. I do believe in the value of exercise and if you've been with me, you know I want you doing pulls. You know I want you doing mini muscle workouts to protect your knees. I absolutely want you moving, but that I don't want that to be the only thing that you focus on. There's so many more areas that we can focus on and that we can do that are simple, to improve our health. So these are just 10 of the 30 plus ways. I have more than 30 ways non-gym to improve your health, and I specifically designed it for women over 40. You can grab that by going to gracehealthcom slash health and you'll get the free download, and when you do, I'm also giving you a roadmap of the many conversations we have had that support these things that I have mentioned today and that are also in the download. You'll also get access to an exclusive blog post that you can't find anywhere. You can't search for it, and it will line item out all of these ways and give you specific episodes that you can listen to if you want to learn more and if you have the time. If you get my Tuesday emails where I tell you about the podcast and give you other information about it, you have this in your inbox, so go grab that if you want. You already get the exclusive access. You get the free download. I will be giving this to my newsletter list, which is twice a month all the things that I love to do. If you don't get either one of those, I highly recommend you go get one of them or just get the download and then you'll automatically receive the twice a month newsletters and people like those. I'm just gonna say these are good things. I give you good things in them so you won't regret it. But grab this 30 plus non-gym ways to improve your health for women over 40. And I look forward to hearing what sounds interesting to you. And, by the way, did you know you can leave a voicemail for me through my podcast website so you can go to gracedhealthcom slash podcast and it will take you to a third party site I use because it's wonderful and you can search and you can do all kinds of different things. You can also leave a voicemail, so I wanna hear from you. Go over there, leave me a voicemail. I listen to every single one that comes through and it makes me do a little happy dance when I get them. So that's a gift to me If you wanna leave me a voicemail and say what sounds interesting, or maybe you wanna say no way, and that's okay too. I wanna know that. Okay, that is all for today. Go out there and have a graced day. Thanks for listening today. If this episode was valuable to you, could you do one of two things that are enormously valuable to me but super simple for you? Number one just share this with a friend Super simple. Number two provide a rating and review. Particularly if you listen in Apple Podcast, this is super valuable for me. Also, if you haven't yet subscribed to my monthly journal, why not? I send it out twice a month and it is a private, fun space for me to share some of my favorite foods and recipes, movements, books, sermons and more. You never know what you're gonna get, but I promise it will add value to your day. You can sign up at gracedhealthcom slash monthly dash updates and, of course, the link is in the show notes. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next time, definitly.