Health does not have to be expensive. In fact, it’s free. Learn 10 no-cost wellness tools I swear by that will change your health inside this post.
When did health get so expensive? And is it possible to get healthy without it costing a thing? I’ve thought long and hard about this question after shelling out thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to get well myself.
While in most cases it was necessary, I found shelling out this kind of money caused its own kind of stress. Stress that seemed to amplify my health problems prolonging my healing process and making me question if any of this was worth it.
What I had to learn through unlearning my dependency on fancy protocols and programs is my body wants to be healthy. And it has every capacity to be healthy with the right environment to do so.
Of course, there is always a time and a place for external treatment and resources. I’m no stranger to sitting in the sauna, getting acupuncture, and I rarely miss my monthly chiropractor appointment. But I refuse to let those healing tools prevent me from realizing the one simple truth. My body was designed in health for health. It knows how to do this. So rather than using those things to change my body, I use them to support it.
Stop complexifying health, it’s simple.
It’s why I created Health Made Simple – to show you that health is not outside of you. It’s in you. And the best way to live that out is to support your body, providing the energy it needs to channel you into a state of health. If you want to change the way you do health forever, join Health Made Simple. A place where you’ll learn to live energized, so you never have to diet again.
Let me remind you, health doesn’t have to cost a thing, including your life.
But I will warn you, these aren’t fancy and may sound too vague to work. But trust the process, knowing it’s often the simple things that have the most significant impact. Easy, free, simple, don’t discount them but lean into them. Here’s that list.
10 No-Cost Wellness Tools I Swear By:
01. Drink More Water
Given that your body is mostly water and water is critical for flow – it’s important to hydrate well. The good news is proper hydration is one of the cheapest health tools we have. Fill up a glass or bottle and keep water with you throughout the day. You don’t need to guzzle it, but you do need it. If you’re like me, you’ll only drink it if it’s right in front of you.
Pro Tip
Try adding a squirt of lemon juice or a pinch of sea salt to make it more hydrating. And find your preferred way to drink water to increase pleasure. Maybe it’s a glass jar with a straw, no straw, or your favorite water bottle. Know yourself and do what works for you.
02: Write it Out
You could argue a journal costs money, but it doesn’t have to. The back of a sheet of junk mail will do the trick. The power is not in the paper but in the release of what you write on the paper. Take space to write, whether that is lists, brain dumps, prayers, or thoughts. Getting things out of your brain and onto a safe place can open up so much energy. Just think how much energy it takes to hold onto everything you have circulating in your brain. You don’t and shouldn’t do that anymore.
Pro Tip:
Open up a page of paper with a pen and start writing anything that comes to mind. Write your to-do list, what is bothering you, notes you have stored inside your brain. Just start by writing. The more you write, the more will come to you. The act of writing is a powerful tool that connects both sides of our brain, don’t discount it.
03: Go To Bed 30 Minutes Earlier
Sleep is one of the most powerful wellness tools we have. A healthy body is a rested body. But I know sleep doesn’t come easily for many people. Honestly, the lack of deep sleep often results in an imbalance in mental and physical energy.
You may feel emotionally exhausted, but your physical energy is high, making it difficult for your body to reach deep sleep. The opposite could also be true, where you’re physically exhausted but not emotionally allowing your mind space to run. Working on creating balance in the mind and body, burning off excess energy to create balance is the key to sleeping well.
Pro Tip:
Stop being frustrated by your lack of sleep and start to understand it. Does your brain and body feel out of balance? What area feels like it has more energy, and what is one way to channel that energy, so it no longer is built up preventing you from sleeping deeply? Most likely, you need to take action on one of the other tips on this list.
04: Non-negotiable Daily Movement
It sounds basic, and it is. You’ve heard it a million times over, move your body to get healthy, which is absolutely true. A body without movement is stuck, lacking flow leading to a build-up of body fat and toxins that keep you stuck. Here’s the truth, we were designed for work and movement. Your body was made to do hard things. What type of movement is open for discussion. The non-negotiable is that you do it daily.
Pro Tip:
Stop looking at your workout as the only form of movement. Movement is motion undefined by a type of workout or length of class. Those can certainly be beneficial but pay more attention to being active. The most important part is that you do more of what you enjoy.
05: Do More Stretching
An unhealthy body is formed from stagnancy and a lack of flow. The number one cause of this is stress. Even good stress like movement can cause problems if we don’t keep things moving. One good way to open up flow is to stretch the body. Its ligaments, tendons, muscles, and fascia all need movement to stay well.
Pro Tip:
It’s easy to do the workout and skip the stretches. Stretching can feel unimportant. Too easy, it doesn’t seem possible it’s working. But it’s doing something. Whether you feel it or not. Elongating your fascia network opens up flow so your body can properly get rid of what it doesn’t need, helping you to feel better not just physically but mentally and emotionally. Adding a dry brush or foam roller can help you create better flow if you’re struggling with stretching.
06: Get Outside
The sun is one of the most powerful forms of energy, and it’s often the one we get the least of. Of course, you know about vitamin D, but the sun has many other powerful forms of supplying energy to the body that increases your mood and keeps you grounded.
Pro Tip:
Don’t just think about being outside more, but do it. Make it a priority to move your body outside. Eat your lunch outside or relax by reading a book or playing at a park with your kids. The more you can get yourself outside, the more benefits you’ll reap.
07. Practice Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting or timed eating has numerous health benefits, including increasing your energy. It is also one of the easiest ways to reduce how much you eat, your cravings and help you sleep better without changing what you eat. Plus, it doesn’t cost you a thing. I may argue it actually saves you money. But the key is the word intermittent, which is the opposite of consistent.
Pro Tip:
Mix up how long your fasting window is, don’t make it consistent. Changing what you do changes the body. Aim to fast a minimum of 12-hours a day but mix that up with a 14 and 16 hour fast occasionally.
08. Become a Nose Breather
There is a difference between breathing through your mouth, called mouth-breathing, and breathing through your nose. Mouth breathing is actually more dangerous and unhealthy to the body, preventing you from taking deeper breaths into your lower lungs. The key is to breathe through your nose most of the time, allowing your body to become better oxygenated.
Pro Tip:
Retrain your body to breathe through your nose by practicing daily deep breathing techniques. Relax your body, close your mouth, and inhale deeply for a count of five or six through your nose, expanding your belly. Hold for two or three seconds and exhale for a count of four. You can open your mouth to exhale but close again before you inhale. Repeat five or six times numerous times per day.
09: Set Boundaries + Maintain Priorities
Do you ever look at your life and question how much energy and time you give up on things you hate? Or things that never help you move out of the space you hate? There are many activities we include in our days that rarely fill us up or help us move forward. That’s where boundaries come it. It may seem impractical that this is a wellness tool. But if you don’t have the space to live well and fill your life with things that drain you, you can start to see how boundaries may be one of your greatest tools.
Pro Tip:
Take an inventory of your life. What areas do you invest time and energy to that don’t give back to you? Set boundaries, learn to delegate, and create a list of non-negotiables that you do before you allow anything else to fill your life. A good starting point is social media.
10. Batch Cooking
One of the leading reasons people don’t eat healthily is because health isn’t convenient. So let’s fix that with this solid cost-free wellness hack. If you want to eat healthy, make sure you have healthy food on hand and food that you can pull out and eat within a few minutes. It seems impossible until you realize there is a simple system to help you make real food accessible to your hunger pains. That is the power of batch cooking. Taking the whole foods you buy and making space in your week, even for just an hour, to prep what you can. So you can grab and go or grab and heat whenever you feel hungry.
Pro Tip:
Learn how to batch cook, which means prepping single ingredients rather than batching full meals. I like to pick a grain, a protein, a vegetable, a salad, and a dressing if I don’t already buy those at the store to make ahead. Even having shredded chicken, rice, and roasted potatoes or sweet potatoes on hand can move me from heating up chicken nuggets to eating a chopped salad loaded with hearty toppings. Weekly batch cooking can make all of the difference.
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