How to Incorporate Functional Medicine into your New Year
Welcome to 2022! It feels so strange to write that number. It feels super strange when I think that I was married in 2002, had my babies in 2004 and 2006. For the longest time, those years didn’t feel so long ago, but that passage of time is really starting to hit me now.
I think I better get to the topic at hand before I begin crying all over my keyboard!
Whether you’re a New Year’s Resolution person or not, I do think a shiny new year is a great time to assess how things are going for you and decide if you want to make any changes.
The purpose of this post is to help nudge you toward incorporating some functional medicine principles in the new year. Functional medicine means looking at the root cause of disease and starting there, rather than throwing medicine at symptoms alone. We find out why you are sick in the first place and use as natural methods as possible to bring you to complete health. A brief reminder of the pillars of functional medicine:
- stress management
- movement/exercise
- diet (this doesn’t mean going on a “diet,” it means simply what you eat)
- relationships
- sleep
Before I dive into a couple specifics for each of these categories, I just want to give you a little pep talk. Or maybe a little tough love. Remember back to your favorite sports coach when you were growing up. They were there to offer support and ideas when you needed them, encouragement when you were down and tough love when you needed a push. That’s what a health coach does too so these tips are going to be a combination of those things: ideas, encouragement and tough love. But the bottom line is, nothing is going to change if you don’t make a change. You can’t sit on your couch wishing and hoping your symptoms will go away. You can’t spend hours searching for recipes then order take out and expect your body to respond the way you want it to. You can’t talk and talk and talk about change and expect change. You actually have to make a move. And one other thing: you have to go in knowing that these changes you’re going to make are most likely forever. Functional medicine is not a quick fix method. It’s not a “follow this diet for 6 weeks and your life will change” plan. Sure, you may be able to tweak things over time, but if you decide you want to follow a functional medicine plan (as opposed to pharmaceuticals and surgery), then it takes commitment. There is no way around that. Decide if you’re ready.
Alrighty then, now that we have that out of the way, here are ten tips for incorporating functional medicine principles into your new year. Two tips for each of the five pillars of functional medicine.
Stress Management
Our endocrine system is wired to respond to stress by releasing Cortisol. This hormone, that gets such a bad rap, is actually essential for life. We need it, but we don’t need it to be high all the time. It should rise in the morning when we rise, peak around mid-day and then slowly fall until evening time. When we are chronically stressed, our cortisol remains high all day. This is an environment that invites dis-ease.
Deep breathing: This activity turns on the vagus nerve, which innervates all major organs and helps your body relax! How to do it: breathe in through your nose with your tongue pressed to the roof of your mouth, hold for a couple seconds and slowly exhale through your mouth. Your smartwatch will walk you through some deep breaths or try the app Kardia. It’s simple, fast, free, easy and you can do it absolutely anywhere.
Take a self-care day: Depending on your particular life circumstances, this may be easy or difficult. Maybe you need to take a sick day from work just to stay home and relax. Maybe this will require calling in the grandparents or setting up a kid swap with friends. Depending on how you feel and what you sense your body needs, this day could involve indulging in some sweet quiet time, trying a new form of exercise, or catching up with friends.
Movement/Exercise
Studies show that consistent exercise is linked to increased productivity and mental focus. This means that exercising regularly can help you become more focused and present with your partner, children, and with yourself.
Self-talk: Remind yourself how you will feel afterward. Tell yourself, “I can do anything for 15 minutes.” Sometimes it really is as simple as reminding yourself of the benefits of what you’re doing or about to do.
Schedule it: Treat your exercise plans like an appointment with your boss or a doctor. Put it in your calendar and hold yourself to that appointment. Don’t feel like you have to go to a one hour exercise class. You can do light stretching in the comfort of your own home, take a walk around the block, find a quick video on YouTube (I like Fitness Blender and Heather Robinson’s 12 week plan – just search those names). Ten minutes at a time is a-okay too. The goal is 30 minutes per day, most days of the week, but that doesn’t have to come in 30 minute blocks. Look at your schedule and figure out where you can fit in some exercise. And then schedule it!
Diet/Nutrition
To quote one of my favorite functional medicine gurus, Dr. Mark Hyman, “Food is the code that programs your biology. You can literally upgrade or downgrade your biological software with every single bite.”
Make a plan: Trust me, after years in this business, I have heard every excuse in the book. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a planner at heart or it stresses you to to plan. If you want to change your health for the better, you are going to need to take control of your food, which means cooking and eating at home. You just have to do it. Period. And if you think you can do that and wing it with meal time, I’m sorry to break it to you, but you can’t. I have all sorts of ideas for quick and easy meals, mix and match recipes, busy night meals, cooking ahead, etc. etc. but it all starts with a plan. I have a post coming on meal planning specifically so if this is something you don’t currently know how to do, check back soon. To get you started now, all you need to do is look at your calendar, figure out how much time you have for meal prep each day, pick a meal, buy the food and then actually cook it. There are more details (of course), but that should get you started.
Find the joy: Find joy in your cooking and food prep time. Cook with a family member or alone – whichever feeds your soul. Listen to your favorite music, a podcast, watch a TV show or YouTube videos, just something entertaining for you. I save YouTube videos or indulgent series on Prime for cooking time. I have that to look forward to each and every day.
Relationships
Establishing relationships that bring you life, that make you feel supported and do not add to your stress load is key to achieving and maintaining optimal health.
Set healthy boundaries: Most of us have a family member who leaves us feeling less than or brings out the worst in us. We generally don’t have free rein to abstain from these relationships 100%, but you can work to limit your exposure or get another family member on your side who can run interference for you. At the end of the day, you have to protect the relationships that matter most and if that nosy aunt or pushy father-in-law is threatening to wreak havoc on your relationship with another member of the family, it’s time to set up some boundaries.
Learn to communicate your feelings effectively: Telling the other person in the relationship how you feel can be scary, but also very liberating and almost always better than keeping it bottled up inside. Do you need time together? Time apart? Feel like you’re always the one who calls? If the person really loves you and values your relationship, they want it to work as well and have a vested interest in meeting you where you are.
Sleep
Sleep is the foundation to having a good day! When you are rested, you are more apt to feel good in your body and make wise decisions. Growth hormone, otherwise known as the “anti-aging” hormone, is secreted during sleep, which stimulates tissue regeneration, detoxification, muscle building, breakdown of fat stores and normalization of blood sugar. During sleep, free radicals are scavenged in the brain, minimizing its aging process. Sleep gives us renewed vitality, a more positive outlook on life and the energy we need to reach our full potential. Long-term health depends on the regeneration that occurs during deep sleep. It’s at the core of true preventive medicine.
More Planning: Are you sensing a theme here? Make a to-do list each day and aim to be finished by dinner time. Whether you work in an office, you’re a stay-at-home mom or are retired, you have things that must be done each day. Aim to complete all tasks that you can before dinner time. After dinner, you can take a walk, do some other relaxing exercise such as light stretching or yoga, enjoy entertainment such as playing cards, board games, or watching TV. As your cortisol is dropping for the day, it’s best for your level of activity and stimulation to drop as well.
Put devices to bed: Put devices to bed at least one hour before bedtime. Many of us enjoy relaxing by watching TV and movies and that is completely fine, but it is best to not watch TV in bed and it’s also best to be away from all electronics at least one hour before going to sleep.
So there you have it! Somewhat of a crash course on functional medicine plus ten practical tips you can begin to implement right now.
Do you have tips to share for one of these categories? Please leave them in the comments. Did these tips leave you motivated to get going, but needing a little more help? I’d love to work with you one-on-one if that’s what you need. Just click the services link above to read about coaching options. If you feel like you just need a little regular check-in and this blog format works for you – great! I’ll be posting here regularly all year. You’ll find new recipes, some lifestyle posts and lots of functional medicine tips like those found in this post.
I sincerely hope you have a wonderful year and getting started on the right foot is key. I hope this post helped push you in the right direction!