3 Healthy Living Mantras to Implement When Life Gets Stressful

Do you live by the idea of ‘no excuses’ when it comes to healthy living?

I consider myself to be pretty self-motivated and consistent when it comes to leading a healthy lifestyle, but lately I’ve been thinking about the reality of keeping up with healthy habits when life gets tough. I try to live by a ‘no excuses’ type of mentality, but the reality of it is that sometimes “excuses” are, well, very valid reasons why your eating, fitness, sleep, and mindset may not be 100% on point.

While I usually have an optimistic mindset, I also believe in being real, and the reality is that my life has been chaotic, stressful and anything but smooth for the last couple of months.

Selling my house in California has been a huge headache, and a buyer just backed out out of purchasing the property. My 2,600 mile move to the NY/CT area didn’t go as great as I would have hoped, including when all of our stuff didn’t fit in the Pod, so we wound up having to donate things, leave stuff behind, and throw things out that I wanted to take. While I was planning on my job situation changing after my move, it changed beforehand, which is another obvious stressor.

My dog torn her ACL in the middle of all of this, and then two weeks later, got bit by another dog and had to be on medications, and being the smart dingo she is, figured out how to scratch the wound and make it worse. The Airbnb apartment I had booked ahead of time cancelled on me while we were in the midst of traveling cross country, and with limited options, we are now in a basement apartment in a mansion outside of New York City with no cell service and no real kitchen. The list goes on, but I won’t bore you with all of the details…

I’m not sharing all of this to complain, but to illustrate that my life, just like everyone else’s, can be far from perfect. There have been many times in my life when I feel like I plan, I work, and everyone just falls into place, and this period of my life has been the complete opposite. It’s felt like more of a Murphy’s Law type of situation.

If your life has been particularly stressful, I hear you and I’m right there with you right now. And while there are times when I want to just throw in the towel and not exercise, eat healthy, or do yoga to relieve some of my stress, I ultimately keep picking myself up and taking it one day at a time. I keep reminding myself that everything in life is impermanent, and that this too shall pass. In the meantime, I have a couple of mantras that I’ve been using to keep pushing myself to be as healthy as I can:

1.) Just do the best you can. Doing what you can, when you can is something important to always have in the forefront of our minds, but it’s a particularly useful mantra when life has been more challenging than usual.

For the few weeks that I was traveling from the west to east coast, I fit in workouts whenever I could. Sometimes that meant morning cardio in a crappy hotel gym, sometimes it meant doing 20 minutes of yoga in my hotel room at night, and other times it meant long walks with my dog, wherever we were. Eating-wise, I knew there was no chance I could eat as healthy as at home on the road, but I made healthy food choices every single day. I brought healthy snacks along so that I could eat a protein bar as breakfast or a snack, I ate lots of whole foods, and I scoped out healthy restaurants everywhere we went.

Do what you can, when you can. 

2) Stick to the basics. Normally I enjoy experimenting in the kitchen and trying out new meals and ingredients a lot. As soon as our house went on the market and I had to keep everything clean and tidy for showings, this significantly lessened – that was to be expected, and that’s okay. But I knew that I could stick to my healthy meal basics for the most part, which took less time, thought, and dishes for that matter.

The same goes for my current Airbnb situation. I only have a small fridge to use, so I’m relying on my go-to healthy staples for easy meals.

Workout-wise, you don’t have to do fancy boutique studio workouts to stay in shape. Doing squats, sit-ups, and push-ups in your living room while watching TV is way better than no movement at all. Going for walks is a great form of light exercise.

When life gets crazy, stick to your healthy living basics. 

3.) Make it fun whenever you can. What healthy foods or forms of exercise do you actually enjoy? Elect for those things whenever you get a chance to. While it’s good to stick to the basics in the midst of chaotic times, it’s also beneficial to find more joy in your healthy habits whenever possible.

For instance, I find hiking to be calming while also getting my heart pumping and getting my dog exercise, so during those annoying packing days, while driving cross country, and now while in a new area, I’ve been getting outside for a hike whenever doable. It’s been neat to go hiking in New York with my dog for the first time ever. We arrived here last week, and I’ve already found fun new parks to explore more and trails that I enjoyed.

Diet-wise, I enjoy making smoothies and that’s a habit that I missed for the weeks I was on the road. So, I made sure to pack my blender and protein powders with me in the car so that I could whip up daily smoothies from the Airbnb. I just bought frozen berries and bananas to freeze, cocoa powder, almond milk, and nut butter, and I’ve been using all of those ingredients quite often. It’s giving me a bit of a sense of normalcy, and I like being able to rely on smoothies as a go-to healthy breakfast, lunch or snack.

Tell me… What’s a healthy living mantra of yours? Any tips to remain calm during a particularly stressful time? (I welcome any ideas to help me keep my sanity!)