How To Optimize Your Health For A Healthier Life & Lifestyle

Hey there, this is an in-depth post about how to optimize your personal health for a healthier life and/or lifestyle!

The things to focus on are in somewhat of an order based on importance, but not entirely, meaning they are all really important for improving your overall health and wellness (including for mood, performance, longevity, weight loss and for staying disease-free) and can together lead to a much improved health and fitness level.

Which ones to focus on the most can be individual, depending on if you’ve already got some of them covered or not.

Don’t underestimate any single one of them though, in their own right but also, again, definitely don’t underestimate what they can do together, when used as a way of tackling the whole picture of health simultaneously and from as many angles as possible.

As opposed to just one.

Because they can be highly synergistic.

Health optimization for a healthy life and lifestyle

“All the health optimization areas listed in this article can be highly synergistic with each other, and very health-promoting in their own right, so don’t underestimate what they can help you accomplish both alone and when used together (which is what you wanna aim for in terms of optimal health!).”

So..

Don’t hesitate to use all of these to your full advantage when optimizing for health and a healthier lifestyle!

And now, why not start with a brief definition of what an optimized health actually is :).

Defining Optimal Health And What It Entails
Why You Want To Optimize For Better Health
How To Truly Optimize Your Health For A Healthier Life & Lifestyle
Recap
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Defining Optimal Health And What It Entails

Optimal health is to me, and I bet to many, a mix of feeling at your best, performing at your best and staying completely disease-free, especially from chronic diseases.

A cold or infection might happen although also more rarely if you take proper care of your health.

This includes thriving with low stress and having lots of energy to spare and for doing the things you enjoy the most.

Longevity with a longer healthspan also has a spot in this definition, and health in old age as opposed to being crippled by illness leads to a much happier life (I doubt anyone’s gonna disagree with me on this one!).

So, that’s what we’re aiming for here when talking optimal health.

And I do believe it’s very attainable even today, with everyone and their mother being sick in this and that even in younger years.

Since it’s a lack of a health-promoting lifestyle that has gotten us there, and thus, can take us out of there again.

So, good news for you and your loved ones since you’re here reading this right now.

And with that, let’s move on to the next header:

**Why You Want To Optimize For Better Health**

Well, we already touched on the whys of optimizing for good health right here above, so this’ll be quick :).

You’ll want to optimize your health to feel better, look better, perform better and live longer, while having a more positive and healthy outlook and attitude which in turn can also make you more attractive overall as a person.

More energy, more positive inner self-talk and a better mood in general will be certain to contribute to this, so..

Ladies and gents, those are, at least some of, the whys of improving your health in a meaningful way.

Okay, here we go then:

How To Truly Optimize Your Health For A Healthier Life & Lifestyle

With that out of the way, why not start, again, with the most important part to improving your health of them all, the main pillar and bread and butter of good health, which is your diet and nutrition:

1. Make Sure You Eat A Healthy And Nutritious Diet

You want to make sure you eat a healthy diet because again, it’s the bread and butter and thus the most important piece of the puzzle for your overall health.

I wrote a whole article on the topic because it truly deserves it and would advice that you read that in order to navigate yourself properly when it comes to splendid nutrition.

In short however, it comes down to reading the labels of the foods you buy in the supermarket, eating as much whole and often label-free foods as possible and in addition to that avoid seed and vegetable oils like the plague.

Also take some carefully chosen supplements to complement this healthy diet of yours.

But more on those last two right here below!

“Health is a puzzle, and it helps knowing what pieces fit where :).”

You may also wanna stay well hydrated, which I think falls under a healthy diet.

And yes, you want to cut down on processed added sugars, but they’re, imo, but a small piece of the pie when you’ve got those pesky little vegetable oils still in the picture, so, start there, rather, if many birds at once get too hard to handle, and rest assured that you’re at least tackling the problem from the most important point when it comes to avoiding chronic disease!

Again there’s more to this diet thing, so read the whole article on that, but know that many different types of diets can work if you adhere to above principles, since we’re all different and at different places healthwise in our lives

But I do also believe that one size can fit all as well if done right, because we’re not that different after all.

Check out Amazon Fresh for healthy groceries delivered straight to your doorstep!

Best & Healthiest Superfoods

Best Beef Jerky – Top 3 Delicious Products And Brands

Best Canned Clams You “Can” Buy Online (And Healthiest)

Our Modern Processed Diet Still Causes Birth Defects!

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Healthiest Snacks

Next up, and I repeat:

2. Avoid Omega-6-Rich Seed (And Vegetable) Oils Like They’re The Plague

A part of a truly healthy diet, this is still important enough to get its own spot.

Omega-6-rich seed and vegetable oils include fats and oils such as corn oil, soybean oil, safflower and sunflower oil, peanut oil, rapeseed/canola oil, grapeseed oil, linseed oil (rich in omega-3 as well but still not something you want in oil form [the actual seeds are fine though and very healthy, in moderation], for reasons I get into more here) and castor oil, among others (here’s a more complete list of the inflammatory oils you want to avoid).

They’re easy enough to avoid once you get the hang of it or have started eating a more whole foods based diet, but before that, they can be real devils in disguise, since they’re put in most of the processed foods that we eat today, and are also even, still, recommended as healthy by many health authorities (something that’s probably bound to change in a, hopefully, not too distant future, but who knows?) and thus as a good choice for cooking (terrible idea) and as added fat in our foods.

They’re really the main thing that seems to have gone wrong with our modern diet today and very likely the main underlying cause for a lot of our modern chronic diseases.

So, this is something that you really want to put some extra focus and attention on, if it’s very good health you’re after and don’t want to get the chronic illnesses that we’re all basically getting now, sooner or later.

If you know someone ridden with any of our now many and common chronic diseases, this page, and in particular this number 2 on the list where you are now, is where you’ll want to send them, although sadly, it can take up to 3-5 years to detox all the built-up omega-6 in our bodies.

You can and probably will see improved results along the way though, starting as soon as only a few weeks after cutting these bad fats out, so don’t fret it too much, just remember, that you’ll want to start this omega-6 detox journey sooner rather than later either way).

You’ll want to start reading the labels on processed foods to be able to avoid these oils (here are the most common offender foods with seed oils in them), and should choose healthier fats to use at home instead such as coconut oil, real butter, ghee, olive oil, avocado oil, palm oil as well as animal fats such as lard, suet and tallow, duck fat and so on (as long as it’s preferably natural and not high in omega-6 it’s generally fine and good, click the mentioned links for good product options).

You’ll find much more on why these seed and vegetables are harmful and how to avoid them, as well as a detailed list of specific unhealthy oils to avoid and more of the health-approved substitutes in this article:

How And WHY To Avoid Seed And Vegetable Oils: Bad And TOXIC

Very important :).

“Omega-6 oils are the bane to a healthy diet.”

Anyways, number three:

3. Make Sure You Take The Right Supplements

To me, whether or not you’re on a very healthy whole foods diet (and especially if you aren’t), taking a bunch of the right and health-promoting supplemental nutrients that we’re often deficient in is a given.

It’s a very quick and convenient way to improve your health.

These can also be seen as a part of your actual healthy diet, but for similar reasons as the vegetable oils above, deserve their own spot, if nothing else for emphasis.

They replace the stuff that we again, often, no longer get enough of through our diets even when we’re eating healthy, making them a great investment in and for your overall health and wellness, longevity, performance, mood, weight and so on.

A well-nourished body can crave less food when it no longer seeks to find those nutrients from a nutrient-poor and calorie-dense diet.

There are a number of supplements that I’d recommend pretty much everyone to take (click the links for specific recommended products), and they include:

A good multivitamin.
Vitamin D if you aren’t getting enough sunshine.
Magnesium (most people need more of this).
Vitamin K, especially K2 (comes in different forms and the product linked is best imo and has several).
Preformed vitamin A unless you eat liver regularly (can be had through a good grass fed beef liver supplement or cod liver oil as well [actual powdered liver or liver fats] to still basically get it from whole foods).
Boron (deserves its own article).
A good calcium source if you don’t consume a lot of dairy products, but perhaps even then, calcium hydroxyapatite or bone meal are the best imo, and basically real whole foods in supplement forms (which is exactly what you want for a healthy as can be diet).
Omega-3 if you aren’t eating enough of fatty fish and seafood.
Iodine (ideally through kelp, a real whole food that you can buy in supplement form).
Lithium and trace minerals and/or fulvic minerals (I use both of these, our soils are increasingly depleted of these today, and a supplement is a great way to amend or compensate for this [the linked supplements are great and the first one includes both which is why I’ve grouped them together]).
Collagen (another thing we often get too little of these days since we’re no longer eating the whole animals, including skin and bone broths). You’ll want different types of collagen, mainly type I, II and III (although even more different forms certainly don’t hurt), which are from skin and bones respectively, and the best way to get them I’ve found is through either a mixed supplement or as two separate ones of skin collagen and bone broth collagen (another great way to get more skin collagen is through pork rinds, one of the greenlighted and super-healthy snacks from our healthy snacks list and also featured in our article on the best pork rinds).

You’ll also want to make sure you get enough of B12, a nutrient that I myself had a deficiency in a long time ago, and another fairly common deficiency among the public, albeit possibly less so than the above ones.

For most people your good multivitamin will be enough to cover this (B12), but if you’ve had any symptoms of a B12 deficiency or tested positive for it, you’ll probably want to take it in larger-than-from-your-multi doses, hydroxycobalamin is best imo and the form most commonly found in food (ideal), meanwhile there are also methylated and more active forms of B12 that work better for some. Cyanocobalamin, the synthetic and cheapest form (common in multivitamins), is fine too in my experience, but alas, not ideal.

Last but not least, you may wanna look into a good probiotic, at least if you aren’t getting your healthy bacteria from popular fermented foods such as natural yogurt, kefir or sauerkraut (kefir is my personal favorite here).

Apparently, these don’t actually supply that much good bacteria to your gut after all, but do provide your natural ones with a lot of specific super nutrients that help them multiply, so still highly beneficial, but it’s an area I’ll need to re-educate myself on a bit further, shortly.

Although not necessarily a deficiency, many people that don’t eat said foods (and even some that do) are helped by a good probiotic and have found it a life-saver for their gut and digestive health.

Then, there are some honorable mentions, though not included among my main recommended supplements, including mixed vitamin E (I still take this one and it’s great), zinc (from oysters is optimal), selenium (from brazil nuts is best), vitamin C (from a whole food source ideally, and here are the best ones), an electrolyte powder for fasting and exercise performance and possibly some of the B-complex vitamins, but all or nearly all of these, ideally, you should already be getting from a combination of your good diet and multivitamin, hence why they’re just honorable mentions (the other highly recommended nutrients above you sadly, generally, can’t get enough of from your multivitamin [or diet], which is why you should opt to take them as separate supplements instead!).

A good and affordable greens powder (such as this one) I do recommend however, not for any specific vitamins and minerals but just as a great way to conveniently improve your diet and get more veggies and superfoods in.

In my experience you can intuitively test, fairly accurately, whether if and about how much you need or want of each of said nutrients (especially whole food ones and those in their naturally occurring forms which are what you want, see synthetic vs natural nutrients) on a daily basis through intuitive testing.

For a more in-depth post on the recommended supplements and why and how you should be taking each one of them, see this.

“The right supplements serve a very good purpose and can be a very quick and convenient way to further improve your health.”

4. Fast

Fast, not slow, but you don’t need to do it that fast :).

All jokes aside, I’m talking mainly about intermittent and periodic fasting here on this list, although extended fasting and dry fasting also definitely have a place for some when it comes to healing the body deeply from within.

You’ll want to incorporate some kind of intermittent fasting into your diet/daily schedule (yes, even this, too, can be seen as but a part of eating a healthy diet, but this is the last one, promise!) because the benefits are so many, and it’s fairly simple and easy to do once you’ve gotten into and used to it, meaning low effort, high reward.

Perfect!

It can promote fat loss without reducing calories, while saving muscle mass, and improve most health markers while giving the body and its digestive system a regular longer window to do its daily repairs, meaning a much better health in the long run.

For some pointers on this one, basically you want to adhere to an at least 12 hours long fasting window per 24 hours, meaning you’ll want to eat your supper a bit earlier and postpone your breakfast a little whenever necessary/possible to achieve this (the average modern eating window is an entire 15 hours, which is pretty unheard of evolutionarily speaking and not good for us, we need a longer regular fasting window for proper repairs for good health, is my and many others’ view today!).

More can be better, such as 14, 16 or even 18 hours, as long as too short of a window doesn’t make you overeat, so try what works best for you and feel free to mix it up a bit from day to day depending on your schedule and obligations.

There is some truth to sticking to a set schedule when it comes to eating as well, for an improved circadian rhythm, but for me personally mixing it up and going with my gut feeling on this one seems to work the best, although I’m sure this may vary and differ for some.

“Fast is good, simple as that :).”

Okay, so you’ll want to fast, next up (and leaving the diet-related subjects):

‌5. Improve Your Fitness Level And Posture Through Functional Movement/Exercise

I think most people have heard of the importance of good posture today, yet I still feel it’s something that’s focused too little on and being underestimated in terms of what potential positive effects it can have on you, with us being more lazy today and glued in front of our screens with our necks in far from ideal positions for extended periods of time while also often using a less than health-promoting fashion as well.

Fitness on the other hand, we generally do know the importance of, even if we still do way too little of it per capita!

Having worked a lot on my own posture during the years and tried most things relating to that, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best and most natural way, imo, to improve and maintain it is through the right type of regular physical exercise/exercises as well as just sitting less still over all (I’ve tried a lot of different cues and focusing constantly on posture, but it just takes so much mental energy and attention which ideally should be free to roam and focus on other stuff).

But as hinted on, fashion can play a considerable role as well here, as can the proper ergonomic setups for where you work and spend a lot of time, the “hardness” of your bed and so on, so there’s a lot to consider, but therefore also, a lot you can do to improve yours!

The key to both good fitness, and to improving posture and fitness at the same time, is in my experience so-called functional exercise.

As the name may or may not allude to, this basically means sticking to the types of movements that are natural for our bodies and for which we were designed, again from an evolutionary standpoint.

These are the ones that will give you the most bang for your buck (often compound exercises and other natural ways of moving such as walking and/or running barefoot, carrying stuff and so on), while giving you a more natural and balanced physique, improving your posture and helping to avoid common muscle imbalances.

You can get lean and mean doing mostly bodyweight training, so that’s great news if this is one of your goals aside from just a great health, and a good fitness goal to have, imo, can be just to stay in decent or fairly decent/even very good physical shape, and to just maintain that, basically.

I.e. when it comes to health and not mainly aesthetic and bodybuilding purposes, you don’t always have to aim further and at getting better and stronger constantly, and being “as fit as can be“.

This can risk burnout since there’s always more you can do if the goal is optimal, so, simply achieving and then maintaining a decent or good/high level of overall fitness, can be plenty and definitely good enough for most, if not all!

To me that means being able to go for a run (minimum 20 min at a comfortable speed, do an okay-ish number of reps for most popular and functional bodyweight exercises and to be able to be physically active and partake in sports and somewhat taxing activities such as longer hikes or cycling trips, even as I get older.

But you decide what decent or acceptable shape means for you, and adapt to that, and know that if you’ve got some weight to lose, the road to that actually comes very quick and naturally if you focus on the above diet-related wellness strategies in particular.

Being closer to your ideal weight will mean an easier time with all the bodyweight related fitness-exercises, including bodyweight lifts, walking, running and so on and also make them more fun, so..

Don’t fret.

Obesity barely even existed a hundred years ago, and it’s a lifestyle thing, so optimize your lifestyle like you’re doing or will do now and you’re very likely to see the kilos drop off rapidly and sustainably.

Keep reading :).

“Both posture and your overall fitness can be very important and impactful for optimal health, but decide for yourself what a good/acceptable fitness level means and remember that losing weight comes as a very natural part of optimizing for health in general, but especially from optimizing your diet and going back to the things we used to eat and that do not cause obesity.”

Functional exercises and movement patterns include the big ones among the “primal seven“, including squatting, bending/hinging, lunging, pushing, pulling, twisting/rotating and gait.

There are more natural movements and good ways to exercise of course, which I’ve gone into more when writing on exercise specifically (some of my favs include intuitive yoga, running, walking and or just some martial arts training/reps with or without a bag, but functional bodyweight exercises are on the list as well).

So, do include a lot of weekly fitness training, a mix between strength (also great for boosting testosterone), cardio and just slow-paced movement is the best, but also do try to make it functional and to include your whole body in the workouts, not just the abs and biceps or thumbs from using your phone.

“Use your phone less :)”.

I’ll not go into all the benefits of exercise here since they’re so well-known at this point and go beyond the scope of this article, but as for posture, specifically, the mind-body connection is strong and a better and more open posture can improve both your mood and your confidence, as well as the way you look and thus are judged by others, so.. important stuff!

You’ll want to include some specific exercises to address your particular postural problems if you have those, which could be daily chin tucks if you mess that up on a daily basis through your work and or phone use, or some work on your lower back, and so on, but the functional fitness stuff and just getting stronger and fitter in general will do a lot to address this on its own as well.

From a fashion- and ergonomic standpoint, optimizing these areas can do a lot to improve your overall posture while also saving you a lot of time when it comes to having to spend time on specific exercises to counteract your bad-posture-inducing habits, since you’ll simply need a lot less of that, and like the right supplements comes at very little effort once those habits and or new ergonomic equipment is in place.

These can be as simple as using a good support pillow when working from a chair, alternating between a sitting and standing and/or even walking desk, not using pants that hang too low/below the lowest spinal vertebra (you’re supposed to have a natural bend right there and not be tucked forward, and a lot of pants won’t really allow for that anymore, messing up your natural posture a bit in the process :( ), not wearing too high heels for too long, no matter how sexy it makes you feel, and to simply get up and move frequently for short intervals of time when doing a lot of desk work or being sedentary for longer periods of time.

It all adds up and together it can help a lot, leading to a healthier and better-looking you.

So, that probably sums it up but for good measure:

“Try to stick to functional exercise and movement patterns as much as you can and mix the different types of exercise up a bit, but also try to find the things that you like and will actually do for the most benefit. Some targeted exercises could be very useful for the posture of some, as well as improving ergonomics and using healthier clothes posture-wise.. it all adds up!”

Alright.. Next!

‌6. Optimize For Better Sleep

Sleep is super-important, and another thing that most of us have heard and know is really important to our health, yet something many of us still don’t prioritize, wanting more time awake and often in front of our screens.

Also, trouble sleeping and sub-optimal sleep has become far more common in recent years as well, accompanying the huge rising in all types of chronic disease, so, improving and/or optimizing your sleep is something that, without having to be that difficult, I think literally everyone should be doing, for an improved and better health and life in general.

Sleep has been one of my personal banes since my early twenties, due to a breathing problem resulting from a tonsillectomy (which I didn’t know at the time, ouch!), so I do know a lot about it and I do know that there are a lot of simple yet effective things one can do that will often improve sleep and thus again, your entire life and average daily experience.

So.. do optimize your sleep!

Some quick yet impactful things for this include:

Getting plenty of natural daylight and sunlight (see number 8 below!).
A healthy diet.
A focus on fitness.
The right supplements (magnesium and vitamin D can be huge for this, but there are more).
Sleeping in complete darkness (I use a good sleep mask for this, and probably, so should you!).
Avoiding blue light at night (there are ways to get around this).
Getting to bed earlier (earlier sleep often is and feels more restful and can also help in letting you wake up naturally as opposed to to an alarm, meaning you might get all the sleep you need and not too little, which again is all too common today.
Grounding yourself day- and/or nighttime, reducing your stress in general.
Lowering temperature at night and so on (again for another post).

As you can see there are a lot of simple things you can try, and that do add up, meaning a significantly better sleep for you and a better you in life.

So, get some shut-eye!

Also, optimizing for good sleep can thus, as with good ergonomics, save you time, since you may actually need to sleep less to still feel rested if you have a higher sleep quality!

You can only win here, that’s for sure.

To properly optimize your sleep, read this.

“Sleep is hugely important for your health and wellness so, shut your eyes, and earlier if you can! And don’t skimp out on doing what you can to actually optimize your sleep where you can, since it’s such an important cornerstone to everything health and might even save you some precious time!”

Numero eight:

‌7. Minimize Your Stress Levels

This one is highly relevant today, and getting more so by the day, so you do want to put put some effort into stress relief.

Even the more spiritually oriented stuff should you feel so inclined to, but you don’t have to.

And there’s a lot more to it than that, from a strictly and more scientifically-proven perspective as well!

Done right it can have a great effect on how you feel from day to day and on your general both physical and mental health so again, do de-stress.

What works good for whom to reduce stress might vary a bit from person to person and can include a lot of things, you know yourself best, but let me list a few of the big ones that are likely to work universally and for everyone, just to inform you if you aren’t already.

They include, luckily, a lot of the other things on this page that improve your health, and thus often your ability to handle and how you experience the daily stressors of life as well.

So, diet is a big one, the body having the nutrients and repair that it needs should definitely work in your favor when it come to stress.

Exercise and getting good sleep as well, both good de-stressors and things you can focus on to reduce yours.

Getting earthed as well as connecting with others socially, two things I’ll touch more on below (along with touching grass!), work great here as well and can add to reduced stress overall.

Many activities and hobbies that you enjoy doing work well too, since having fun and enjoying yourself regularly can certainly help in reducing those stress levels!

It can be healthier hobbies and habits such as playing a musical instrument, gardening, reading a book (very destressing), and even some screen time such as TV or playing a video game isn’s excluded from the list, if it works for you, it works..

Then you have more stress reduction targeted methods such as breathing techniques, different types of meditation and mindfulness, yoga, napping, prayer, journaling and so on so forth.

(If you need a good yoga mat, try this one out!).

In my experience these can be very effective when done on a regular basis, and really make you feel better on a daily basis, meaning they’re highly worth it if you ask me.

And the good news is that, as with getting and staying in shape, you may need less of it after a while to “maintain” the added benefits from it to your life, but on the flip-side, that means that you can do it for longer to start with if you have the patience for it, to quickly get into a better “mental shape” and to a life of lower stress levels.

But try some things out to see what’s your thing personally and start slowly if need be to not burn out and risk stopping with it entirely before you’ve even gotten into it.

That’d be a bummer.

And as a sidenote and from personal experience, there may be things in this category that make you feel so good that you’ll end up really wanting to do them often and/or longer than you’ve set your time for and that’s great, effortless just as it should be.

Eating healthy and exercising and/or moving more should ideally fall under this category eventually, but so could intuitive yoga and just resting, which is somewhat similar to a mindfulness practice but not quite, and has been very beneficial to my overall health, personally.

It (just resting) is basically just what it sounds like, so to try it, just lie down on your bed or wherever comfortable and turn off or get away from distractions, and set your timer or don’t, aim for at least 5 minutes but anywhere up to an hour is perfectly fine if you need it.

If you have a tendency to fall asleep, then set a timer for 20-30 min and call it a nap instead, that can be good as well but you don’t want to sleep for too long since it might negatively affect your nighttime sleep, so..

Try napping, try resting, try journaling, try whatever, and you might just find a real gem to make you feel better and reduce your stress that you’ll be sticking to indefinitely, and wouldn’t that be something, ey :)?

To new discoveries, cheers!

“There are a lot of things that you can do to reduce your stress, and many of them are things you should already be doing for your health anyways, but some more specific ones can be greatly beneficial as well and really improve how you feel and live your life, so, you’ll want to try some different things out and see what works and hopefully sticks for you, highly recommended.”

And, next again and as promised:

‌8. Get Plenty Of Light And Sunlight In The Daytime And Avoid Blue Light At Night

“Good morning, sunshine.”

Truth is that the morning is one of the very best times to get just that, sunshine, due to the effects it can have on our circadian rhythm, our sleep that same night and much more.

The other such time is a few hours around midday, when it’s at its strongest, simply because we’re getting so little of it nowadays being indoors all the time.

That midday sun could help us get more for our buck/time spent in the sun, since it’s stronger, including but not limited to more vitamin D.

Sunlight (and not only the vitamin D we get from it), is very important for us and for optimal health.

And it always has been, but it’s been vilified only somewhat justly as of recent decades, meaning many of us are missing out on a lot of the benefits we should be getting from the sun, sadly, all the while thinking we’re doing the “healthier” thing avoiding it, because hey, you don’t wanna get skin cancer down the line, do you?

The thing is, however, that the sun, and a lot more of daily exposure to it than we get today, mind you, has been an integral part of our lives for hundreds of thousands, millions, of years, without us getting a lot of skin cancer from it..

So, this is where it gets interesting to me and where I have a different opinion from the relatively “new” and not at all evolutionarily aligned dogma that is “avoid the sun”.

From my perspective, most of the skin cancer dangers that come from the sun are due to our modern diet, namely the amount of omega-6 rich vegetable oils we consume, that then proportionately to intake builds up in our bodies and cell membranes, making them orders of magnitude more susceptible to oxidation and oxidative stress, which sunlight can be a natural form of.

All this oxidative stress and resulting, often chronic, inflammation, is the reason that we now get skin cancer from the sun and need to protect ourselves from it and avoid it to prevent that.

BUT, as per that logic, it does not have to be like that then..

Get rid of the excessive omega-6 completely through eating a seed oil-free healthy, whole foods based diet for a couple of years (and then forever for a long and healthy life), and you’ll no longer have to fret the sun so much (in fact again, the opposite is true, since it is and should be, under the right circumstances for us, just very healthy).

Seek the sun!

The perhaps even more interesting thing about it though is that yes, today when on the SAD (standard American diet) a lot of sun exposure can increase your risk of skin cancer, per studies, BUT, studies also show, of which there is less awareness, that increasing sun exposure simultaneously reduces the risk of many other types of chronic disease and cancers, making it still a net benefit to not avoid the sun, even on an omega-6 rich diet, when looking at it through a more holistic and whole picture lens as opposed to just the sun-skin cancer one (here’s a good source showing that and that thus the disease burden from lack of UVR exposure (sunlight) is a lot bigger than that from getting too much of it), and here’s another one).

You still don’t wanna get burnt red, but aside from that, the sun should be viewed as healthy overall and especially so if you’ve cleaned up your diet and stuck to that.

Period :), and that’s my fairly educated view on the topic.

As an added benefit (at least here in the West, in Asia the opposite rings true), a tan is considered attractive and possibly even a sign of good health, paradoxically enough, meaning you now get more of a green light (or yellow!) to work at your good looks and tan without feeling unduly self-conscious about doing it due to the skin cancer thing.

So, go ahead!

Then you have daylight and natural light in general, whether the sun be shining or not, and that’s another thing that’s very good and again natural for us as a species.

Very good for general health, mood, as an antidepressant and what not.

Not to be underestimated and the same thing here, the earlier the better but any time of the day is still good.

You’ll want to open up the shades in the daytime to let in as much light as possible, that’ll do you light.

And then avoid, to the best of your ability, blue and artificial lights at night and before bedtime, because that can really mess with your biological clock and circadian rhythm, reducing sleep quality and making it harder to fall asleep as well as reducing the overall quality of your sleep, so, don’t do that!

There are some good apps today for PCs or for your phone where you can put it on a timer so that it blocks the blue light nighttime, and I do highly recommend you use those, they help!

So:

“The sun and light in general might be more important than you may think, and thus something you may need to re-think, for the sake of your health and that of all of the pale people that you care about.”

Read: Get More Sun And Natural Daylight, Here’s How And Why (Benefits)

And if that relates to things of the sky, let’s get down to earth now, instead..!

‌9. Get Earthed

It’s crazy to me that this is such an unknown and underutilized piece of peoples’ health struggles when it’s just so, so promising and so, so accessible.

Earthing is, to those of you new to the term, what it’s called when you reconnect with all the free electrons on the surface of the earth and basically just, touch some grass.

The benefits to this are numerous, but to keep it very brief (see this for more), earthing is a source of a constant stream of free electrons, or antioxidants, which you may have heard of since those are all the rage today, and is something that we’ve always had on a near constant basis through our entire evolution as a species (just not for the last one hundred or less years), and all other more “wild” animals have it still.

(Good for them!).

In other words, we’re supposed to have this for our bodies and their immune systems among other things to function properly and optimally, and now we lack this.

It’s sort of an actual deficiency in the antioxidative electrons and something that our diets can’t quite and aren’t even supposed to be able to make up for, since that was never necessary throughout evolution.

So, you do want to touch that grass more, and some other big things that earthing accomplishes rather quickly are that it reduces overall inflammation in the body and quickly activates the parasympathetic nervous system, making regular exposure to this (again as we were supposed to and built to get) a great idea when it comes to improving your overall health, preventing chronic pain and disease as well as reducing stress and even DOMS that you get from exercise).

“We’re meant to be earthed.”

The good news is that this can be achieved indoors as well, through showering (the water is often connected to the pipes, that are grounded, i.e. in touch with the earth somewhere and conductive) and various earthing products.

The bad news however is that earthing can be negatively affected both by various EMFs you’re surrounded by such as Wi-Fi and cellphones as well as the material used, meaning it could produce negative effects/symptoms for you if you do it wrongly, something that I had to learn the hard way after years and years of trying it time and again with a lot of self-experimentation and not understanding why it affected me so negatively when it was so promising on paper and completely evolutionarily natural for us (and there’s not that much info online on these negative effects and why, so I’ve had to discover and figure them out for myself and can thus now share them with you).

It can also start a detox and/or Herxheimer reaction if you’re unhealthy and/or got some stuff built up and are in need of detox, which I have experienced myself and which can be both good and bad, since sure it can be an annoying and unwelcome set of symptoms, while a good thing to start getting rid of the stuff once and for all, and definitely on the right path as far as reaching a better health is concerned.

So, in regards to material you’ll want to avoid most metals and synthetic materials, that to my dismay include most earthing products today…

I own some but I don’t use them anymore since figuring this stuff out…

“Be mindful of which material you’re grounding yourself with.”

Feel free to try some out for yourself, since they do offer a lot of convenience for earthing indoors, but keep in mind what I’ve said above and try to intuitively feel whether or not it actually benefits your body (that’s how I eventually figured this stuff out in the end, and it’s very reproducible so I think anyone could do it with the know-how).

When it comes to Wi-Fi and EMFs you never want to have your phone on you while you’re earthing unless it’s in airplane mode, minimum 1,5 metres (about 5 feet) seems to work fine when it’s on, and you’ll want to turn off your Wi-Fi router and/or definitely not be near it earthed when it’s on (that’s a generally good health practice either way, which you’ll see below, but still, especially so when earthed/grounded).

Regarding neighbouring and/or house-Wi-Fi networks that you can’t really avoid if you live in say, an apartment (as do I right now), I’ve noticed that there’s an interesting balance and/or tolerance for earthing which can vary a lot due to how many and how near these Wi-Fi are, making it something you’ll probably have to try and decide for yourself, perhaps intuitively and/or by observing possible side effects, since it will vary greatly depending on where you are.

I had a period where I earthed myself nightly with a wet piece of clothing (one of the best indoor ways of earthing I’ve come to realize, using water (very natural for us) as the medium attached to something grounded and then wrapped around my leg), which worked fine despite a bunch of surrounding Wi-Fi (10 plus of them!), but it did not work for me if I had my own router 2 rooms away still on, so, go figure..

Then when my apartment switched to fiber network and everyone got possibly stronger Wi-Fi routers, I stopped because it was no longer conducive to health for me (from above methods of deciding and actually being able to feel and detect this). An interesting anecdote, imo, nonetheless!

That said and because of these commonly surrounding sources of EMFs and radiation, even if they’re still at an intuitively acceptable level, the less of them, the better and more natural earthing session for us so, if you can get out to the beach or a field of grass or in the woods, away from all that stuff and again with your mobile phone turned off or left at home, you can get the best of this practice and, ideally, combine it with some other health-sustaining things such as being outdoors, getting some exercise, sunshine, and so on, making it an even better use of your time, healthwise.

“Limit WiFi and EMF exposure while earthing.”

You’ll want some of this earthing stuff daily as a part of a healthy lifestyle, and luckily you get some of it from just showering, but the more and the more often, with this, the better, since it’s like a recharge of healthy electrons for our bodies that we’re meant to get often and/or continuously, meaning for optimal health you do want more of this than what you get from showering, so try to find a way to incorporate more of this into your daily life and you’ll be sure to reap some big health benefits, even just 20-30 minutes 1-2 times a day makes a big difference with this, according to studies, so that’s a great start and might not even have to go much further than that for good maintenance, if you’re doing all of the other stuff as well for your health!

So:

“Get earthed, your cells will thank you for it and it’s well worth it for your health in the long run, just make sure you do it right.”

‌10. Detox (If Needed) And Avoid Modern Toxins

Although much of the mainstream still considers whole body detoxification, or “detox”, alternative medicine and often somewhat of a scam (and there is truth to that because there’s a lot of marketing and pseudoscience surrounding it), I believe there still is a lot of truth to it as well, especially today with all the pesticides, food additives, microplastics, heavy metals etcetera that can be stored or build up in our bodies and tissues, often with an adverse effect on our health as a result.

Heck, I sometimes refer to getting rid of all your built-up omega-6 as a type of detox, because it kinda is, although not exactly the kind of detox I’m referring to here..

Helping the body clean itself out and expel unwanted toxins of the natures mentioned above does make some sense, although I’ll definitely admit that the most effective type of detox comes from just good health and healthy habits in general, including the right foods and nutrition, exercising, fasting, earthing and consuming a lot of liquids and/or water.

Not that much hocus pocus, expensive detox products or additional detox efforts needed when your health overall is taken care of, since the body does know best.

But if you’ve been unhealthy and/or want to speed up the natural detoxification pathways, perhaps suspecting some certain type of toxicity or having tested positive for it in your body, targeted products can sometimes be helpful although not necessarily required.

So, they still do have their place in the grand scheme of things.

Toxin avoidance on the other hand, as a form of proactive detox, I definitely recommend most if not all people look into, since that’s another easy bang-for-your-buck health hack that you can use to improve your health without much effort.

Simply buy more natural products when it comes to personal hygiene, and you’ve come a long way compared to most people, such as this natural bar soap, this shampoo and conditioner, this natural crystal deodorant which contains only mineral salts (I’ve been using this one for years and it’s pretty effective and antibacterial), and this natural and fluoride-free toothpaste (I’ve tried and/or used all of these and they’re good).

“Just avoiding common unnecessary toxins and additives is a great and easy way to stay clean and proactively detox.”

I won’t be recommending a lot of specific detox products at the moment, since again a focus on optimizing your health in general is plenty to start with, but there are products as mentioned such as detox teas, green powders/juices (this greens powder is good and affordable) and various supplements that can be helpful along the way, as well as products and foods for liver detox specifically that can be useful as well, should a need for such products arise.

One thing that I can recommend however and that I’ve been doing for periods from time to time and do do at the moment is oil pulling in the morning with extra virgin organic coconut oil, which is an age-old practice that has traditionally been used to detox the body and blood from fat-soluble toxins as well as kill off unwanted bacteria in the mouth/oral cavity.

Allegedly, it helps remove toxins this way, although the jury is still out on that since it, as many all natural practices, is lacking in science to back those claims up, but science does support it being able to reduce plaque as well as total oral bacterial count, improving breath while being considerably less harsh to your mouth than regular mouthwash, so there’s that at least :).

It can also have a slight teeth whitening effect, which I know a lot of you would appreciate.

But intuitively speaking, which has grown to become one of the more important deciding factors for me when it comes to which healthy habits stick and which don’t, it does agree well with me which is why I do and even feel that I often want to do it in the morning, and thus it sticks, and from an anecdotal standpoint from many years back, I did feel like the practice helped me breathe better at night as well as to clear out unwanted mucus from the nose and/or throat area, and that’s certainly not nothing either!

Basically, rinse some oil around in your mouth for 10-20 minutes, a teaspoon to a tablespoon is a fitting amount, and then spit it out (but not in the sink if you can avoid it, since it’s solid at room temperature and can contribute to clogging), rinse your mouth thoroughly with water, and you’re done!

So, happy detoxing and future avoidance of unnecessary toxins, friend.

“Detox can be more than hocus pocus and deserves some attention although it’s mostly solved by good health practices in general, but toxin avoidance on the other hand makes even more sense today and is something you should definitely look into through the simple methods/products mentioned above, and while you’re at it, why not try some oil pulling :).”

Okay, here comes another topic that is sometimes getting referred to as needing a detox from, an electromagnetic detox at that:

11. Minimize Your ‌Exposure To EMFs And Radiation

This is something that you do want to do, imo, although not something that you need to go completely overboard with (unless you’re earthing, then it’s really important in my experience).

Basically you want to avoid unnecessary exposure to these EMFs (cellphones, Wi-Fi and even electrical cords) whenever possible and appropriate, because the side-effects are actually numerous even if the science isn’t entirely clear on that yet (it’s a new thing and sort of a health experiment, with Wi-Fi and cellphones only being popular for like barely 2 decades by now, and certainly not something that has ever before been part of our natural habitat as humans..).

I’m fully aware that, avoiding these electromagnetic fields today for most people isn’t an easy feat, but still, just minimizing your exposure through a few simple steps can make a significant difference and impact your health positively, and they include:

Turning your Wi-Fi router off when it’s not in use and keeping it as far away as you can from where you spend the most time.
Putting away your cellphone when at home (i.e. not keeping it on you and in your pocket when there’s no need to) and using handsfree or its loudspeaker when speaking for extended periods on it.
Using old fashioned headphones with a wire instead of Bluetooth, because from an EMF-perspective, those new ones suck, and also, always turning Bluetooth off when it’s not in use.
Making sure your bedside where you keep your head isn’t next to a wall with electrical cables in it (not good, especially when you’re resting and since you’re spending so much time [every night] there). This can be worth to check out and can even be felt, from my personal experience, so make changes accordingly!
Don’t stand eavesdropping on your microwave once it’s running, keep some distance, since it’s often emitting a lot of radiation right then and there :).

Simple enough, right?

I’ve heard/read a lot of personal anecdotes and even have some of my own on this topic (a wireless internet usb stick/dongle making me really tense and sick after extended use which I didn’t realize at the time. Those are just so close to you, and the strength of these fields are proportional to your distance from them, so that can get bad pretty fast).

I’ve heard/read about people getting tired and brain-foggy from extended cellphone use, people who’ve gotten sick from living too close to power lines or after having a new smart meter installed in their homes, and then there was the case of the former Prime Minister of Norway and Director-General of the WHO of all things and her hypersensitivity to electromagnetic fields, so I can’t but to take this topic seriously and thus recommend avoidance of these whenever possible.

“Often not given enough attention healthwise, EMFs and radiation is something you want to take seriously and use some caution with, because their side effects are many and can be very mischievous, so follow above tips to get started on avoiding these more.”

But, enough said about that, and on to something to many more “relatable”, namely:

12. Connect Socially

Although certainly not my strongest suite, having had to cut out/lost many of my social connections due to mysterious chronic health issues in my early twenties, we are social animals, meant to be involved socially with others for optimal mental and physical health and well-being.

That means, if you don’t already have this sorted and have a decent social network of family and/or friends, a partner and/or work colleagues that you see regularly, you’ll want to get this sorted/work on this.

There are many ways to reach out to and/or meet new people today, and although this isn’t the blog post for delving super deeply into this topic, some good and simple ways today are:

Social online apps and dating apps and/or forums and online communities – Even just chatting to people live or through dating apps/online forums can have many benefits and help quell some of our social needs, but they do not replace actual in-person contact. That said these are also good places to find and set up in-person meetings, meaning they do and can help solve our innate need for real social contact.

‌Local communities – Can often also be found online and can be a great way to meet like-minded and/or different people from yourself to spend time and socialize with.

‌Church – Going to church, as was more common and of a tradition before, can be a great way to meet new (and/or the same) people regularly and provide a sense of community, whether you’re religious or not, and serves/served an important social purpose for society as a whole (and obviously still can, if you give it a proper shot).

There are plenty more options but again, that’s a topic for another time :).

(Here it is: Connect Socially, 7 Ways To Improve Your Social Life)

“There are plenty of ways to improve your social life if you need to, so do make use of them :).”

Continuing on with the list:

13. Hone Your “Healthy Intuition” And Instincts

Having mentioned a healthy intuition and intuition-related stuff several times already in this article, here’s its own section for that since I just feel that it’s that important, and has been for me, anyways.

You won’t hear this in too many other places when it comes to the main strategies of achieving great health, but I do think this could help a lot of people the same way it has me.

And since I’ve tried tackling my health problems for years both with and without the use of a healthy intuition, I now know that I wouldn’t want to be without it.

As with other things on this list though I’ll try to be brief, since this is not the time and place (i.e. the main article on the topic, which is here) to go too in depth.

Anyways, here goes:

So, the important thing about a good health-intuition is that it can help a lot in making more educated and better decisions when it comes to your overall health, be it what habits or activities work best for you at the time and/or are there to stay, what foods and/or supplements you might need and should eat more of or which ones you’ll want to avoid, what type of exercise that would benefit you the most on that particular day, what your body craves and you wanna do, whether you should earth/ground yourself or not in a particular place, how much EMF is around you, etcetera etcetera.

It has helped me personally a lot with figuring out the don’ts of earthing, figuring out good types of functional exercise as well as stress-reducing habits that work for me and when to do them, and also which foods and even supplements that I want to keep at home and be taking on a daily or regular basis to improve my health and feel at my best.

So, again, many good uses to this indeed!

But, how do you hone these instincts? The good news is that, as with a lot of things on this list, they get better naturally along with an improved health overall.

As in, when your brain, gut, body and nervous system get healthier and work better, so do your instincts and your ability to make the right choices that further improve your health and intuition.

But there are specific things as well that I’ve found to be very beneficial for improving your natural intuition, and there’s also the fact that sometimes you really have to actually tune in to it and purposefully feel and listen to it to get things right, as has been the case for me with earthing circumstances and choosing good supplements and how much to take of them in particular.

The things that have been especially helpful with this stuff, i.e. improving your healthy intuition, in my experience, aside from just improving your diet and thus overall health, has been things such as yoga (intuitive yoga for me), resting, intermittent fasting, getting fitter and dancing freely to music; yoga and dancing have a special place on this list and seem to really do something good to this natural intuition, so try those out and get some physical exercise and reduced stress at the same time.

“Yoga, dancing, resting or mindfulness can improve your healthy intuition.”

To tune in to your natural intuition and use it to make healthy decisions, you need to focus on whether your body wants the thing you’re testing or introducing it to (a good example is the one above about earthing in EMFs). With food you’ll have to try to ignore the taste and just go with the effect it seems to have on the body, whether a positive or negative one, and then again, whether it is something your body will want more of or not, in what dose and so on.

It’s not too dissimilar to just knowing what foods you’re craving or in the mood for by just thinking about it and/or from looking at different foods or from opening your fridge (fast food addictions and added sugars aside), and can (hopefully) be used in the same way once you’ve tried it out and gotten used to it.

It can lead to some decision fatigue, however, from my experience, if you do it too much, so be warned, and know that it’s most effective when used in figuring out stuff once and for all, and then when you know what supplements you wanna take and approximately how much on a daily basis, as an example, you don’t need to test it again every single day and can stick to doing it just somewhat regularly (since, your body and nutritional needs, as with everything else, can change over time and depending on what other foods and habits/activities that are in your life at the time).

Good health in general but a better intuition in particular can also help you socially to function and behave as well as read people better and in knowing which relationships you want to focus on and invest more time into, so that’s a plus (synergies, synergies..).

“A healthy intuition can help you improve your health further and make better health decisions, which in turn can improve your intuition further, creating a very productive upward spiral, which you want because you obviously want to feel at your best!”

Well, I feel that that’s enough about your healthy intuition for now, so, next up:

‌14. Addiction Control

You’ll want to take control over your addictions for optimal health, if you have any.

If you don’t great!

You might have some that you don’t even know are addictions though, so do take heed.

The most common ones include video games and gambling addictions, sex and/or porn addiction, alcoholism, tobacco/nicotine, weed and drugs (medical as well as illegal substances), painkillers, unhealthy food, work and as is more relevant than ever today, addictions to social media as well as apps such as YouTube and TikTok.

So, they can be many, and again, if you have a problem with any of them, you’ll want to get that handled, asap, because addictions really can have a big effect on one’s life and all the other areas, not least the social one and on one’s connections and healthy relationships.

I’ve had my fair share of addiction myself, growing up playing way too much video games and not knowing at the time that it was really an addiction, affecting my social life and drive to meet people greatly..

If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t even touch that stuff, cause, even today as an adult, if I start playing a video game that I’d like to try or enjoy, one hour is often all it takes and then I’m sort of addicted already, feeling that I don’t want to do anything else than keep playing, other stuff quickly lose their allure as my ability to enjoy them drops and my reward system gets desensitized..

So, it quickly goes out over other areas of my life and thus needs to be cut out, sadly.

You should do the same if you have similar problems with something addiction-related, it will benefit you greatly and lead to a more fulfilling life.

“You don’t want to be addicted, since that can make you feel really afflicted.”
:)

Ok, so, second to last and perhaps least, for some, we have:

15. NoFap And A Reduction In Porn Consumption

I thought long and “hard” about including this as one of the “main” pillars of improving or optimizing your health, but decided ultimately that I’ve read too much about this and people’s personal stories to know that it can be really helpful, even life-changing, for some, to decide for it and to include it nonetheless.

Sexual health is a big part to overall health that many hold dear as a pre-requisite to one of life’s great pleasures, so you’ll want to optimize for that, too.

Luckily though, aside from this nofap– and noporn-thingie, which doesn’t need to be as “hard” as you may think, a better sexual health comes completely naturally alongside a greater focus on your overall health.

And, with that said, I’m not necessarily promoting complete sexual abstinence here, but I am arguing for a reduction in this type of self-pleasure (especially if you’re a guy since it’s more taxing on us than our female counterparts).

If you’re doing it too often, and also especially if you’re watching too much porn or might even, unbeknownst to you, have an addiction to it, you need to stop.

Too much porn, and especially an addiction to it, can greatly affect our reward system, just like too much TikTok and video games can, and lead to a somewhat distorted view of reality, less pleasure from social experiences and to you functioning less well mentally and socially, meaning for some, especially when young and during their developing years, this can spell disaster indeed and lead to a less productive and fun/eventful childhood.

Apparently, 1 in 10 children today have watched pornography by the time they are nine, disturbing, and something parents may want to try to get on top of.

These effects are likely why quitting porn has helped some people so much, although masturbating less frequently overall also has some specific benefits of it’s own if you can find the healthy balance that works best for you.

As a general rule of thumb, from what I’ve learned and researched, max 1-2 times per week is probably best for most people, 3 if you really need it but not more than that, definitely not every day as I know many have grown up with, since you don’t want to be basically somewhat sexually exhausted, all the time and lose some of your natural drive to be social and seek out a real (or your) sexual partner depending on whether you’re single or not.

Besides, the biological clock at least for men work on a sort of weekly timer, where your serum testosterone rises significantly on the sixth and seventh day since not “doing it”, meaning your testosterone levels would be higher on average overall if you tried that (after the seventh day it quickly goes back to baseline again though, so we really are “on the clock”, biologically.

It can also increase your androgen receptors, another part relevant to increasing your testosterone and its effects.

“We men are on a weekly biological clock when it comes to sexuality.”

More important than anything though is to, if you can, cut out porn completely or as much as you can, and then simply try different frequencies of fapping to find out what works best for you (do try going several weeks at some point and see what happens for you when you do, some people report so-called subjective “superpowers” from this), and then stick with that.

Your optimal frequency will also likely vary between age and different times in your life depending on what other activities and habits you do at the time, so do keep that in mind.

Remember also that graphic pornography is not something that we have evolved with and been exposed to much naturally aside from for the last few decades or so, which can often say a lot about something and its effects on health and further strengthen the notion that it’s not something that’s thus particularly natural and/or healthy for us.

When it comes to sex though, I’m of the opinion that the more can be the merrier and that it’s something very healthy for you, so do it as much as you like, imo, although there might be such a thing as too much of a good thing here too if you do it daily, so, find your own balance!

“Porn is bad, NoFap can be cool and helpful to an extent and good for your health, but you’ll need to find what works best for you personally here.”

And now on to the last of the main health-promoting pillars, which is:

16. Get Tested Medically/Nutritionally/Genetically

Getting tested medically, nutritionally and genetically

If you’ve read the about page, you’ll know that nutritional/medical/genetic testing is not something that I usually deem absolutely necessary (which is good and makes things easier for folks), but that it still has its places and can be great if you’ve already tried a lot of things and have mysterious symptoms that just won’t go away.

Or if you want to speed your recovery up and to help you know what particular areas it may be wise for you to put a little extra focus on as well as if there are some specific foods/supplements and/or even medications that can at least help with the symptoms of your particular condition, so, the moral of the story is don’t rule testing out.

If you have some money to spend on/invest in your health and that’s a non-issue, then by all means go ahead and get tested, I might update and recommend some good ones on this page down the line, but if you don’t, imo, you’re wiser to rather spend your hard-earned money directly on things such as healthier whole foods, the right supplements and perhaps a gym card or some good at home training equipment.

Since I again mention on the about page, these things will/can often help take care of your symptoms and chronic health conditions automatically, as a by-product, without even knowing what your particular deficiencies and or symptoms even were or came from (so again, great news for everyone!).

So, get tested, but do keep in mind that just a general focus on your health might have that bested :).

“Getting tested can be good and shouldn’t be ruled out, but if financially troubled, a general focus on improving your health to start with can definitely best a test.”

And now, some additional tools and/or strategies, since we’re done with the main ones!

**Some Additional But Not Main Pillars/Interventions For Good Health (Meaning They Can Still Be Useful As Tools For Your Health Optimization):**

The list of things you can do to improve your health is endless, which is why again you’ll want to prioritize and consider whether stuff tick some important boxes before you invest your time into them, although trying something out rarely hurts so that you can know if it works for you.

Some of the boxes I like when they’re ticked are that it makes sense when judging it by your common sense, that it is backed up by sound science (can’t always have that though), that it’s something we have evolved doing and together with (and thus we are actually in a sense built for and adapted to it) as well as that it feels right intuitively, which again is something that I’ve had to learn the hard way to put much more weight on in recent years, because our bodies are so intelligent and often can/do know what’s actually good or best for them (unless stuck in addictions), and this is something I believe everyone should take advantage of.

A good mix of these 4 points and you might have yourself a winner/keeper.

Some of the things that could be worth trying or looking into imo, but not before all the other stuff listed above, include:

Sauna – Of the traditional kind when you sit and sweat and beat your buddies up with some type of twig, great for circulation, relaxation and body detoxification through your skin.
Hot/cold showers – These beauties, of which I make a lot of use myself, are similar to the sauna in effects and health benefits when using hot water and more accessible to most, while the cold version which you can get right after is good for circulation as well as well as great for really waking up and feeling energized and refreshed (can provide a healthy and sudden boost in dopamine and adrenaline and thus perhaps reduce the need for more addictive dopamine hits). Can also be good for sleep (both hot and cold) and help increase health brown fat tissue and its activation in the body.
Various superfoods and supplements that may not be among the ones that most people should be taking – This again goes back to testing and specific symptoms that could be helped by specific and/or targeted supplements/medications.
Infrared light – Whether through an infrared sauna or a smaller infrared light device, this is something that can be beneficial and is often used therapeutically for the cardiovascular system, reducing pain, muscle tension, improving metabolism, cognitive function and more.
PEMF and magnetism – It was a while since I dabbled in this, but not dissimilar to infrared light it can be used to help treat a bunch of different things and to reduce inflammation, and thus something to to look into further for certain types of issues, but, I’m not the expert in this.
Fixing your gut – Although this and gut issues are all the rage nowadays, it is not among the top pillars to improve your health because I believe it (gut health), same as with weight loss, will largely come naturally when you improve on the other important aspects of your health, especially including your diet, supplements and intermittent fasting, but not over-sanitizing at home and being outdoors and more in nature can help with a healthy bacterial diversity as well. But it is very important for your health, there’s really no denying that!
Increasing joy, humor and gratitude – All of these are great things to get more of in your life, both for health and to feel good, so finding ways to increase these a bit can be a useful tool. It can be the simple things such as trying to stay more present and stopping and appreciating the now more, or spending more time with your friends and family, to increase joy, watching some comedy or whatever you find funny on YouTube as well as keeping a gratitude journal where you write down a few things you feel grateful for on a regular basis, and as with all things these habits can add up.
This list will probably keep expanding as I think of new, or “old”, things I’ve tried or read about and try new things myself, so, consider it a work in progress at least when it comes to these additional healthy aids.

Do add to it in the comment section below :).

“There’s so much you can do to improve your health, just don’t let it get too intimidating and do dare to try new stuff out to see what works best for you.”

And with all that said, time for a tldr/recap:

Recap

Since you can just scroll to the table of content at near the top of the article (or to the infographic below) to have them all neatly listed, I won’t make it a list form here as well, but I’ll still list them, so ;):

You’ll want to:

Eat healthy, with a particular focus on avoiding omega-6 oils and eating whole, take the correct supplements, do some fasting, stay fit, sleep better, minimize your stress, get plenty of light and sunlight, get earthed, perhaps do some detox but at least avoid unnecessary toxins, get less exposure to EMFs, be social, get your healthy intuition tuned, cut out addictions, take an extra peek at your sexual life/NoFap, possibly get tested for some stuff, and then utilize and try out other new and potential health-promoting tools to see what works for you and sticks.

And you’ll want to do it because you want an improved and/or optimal health along with everything that comes with that (longer and healthier life and healthspan, attractiveness and a more ideal weight, feeling better, thriving and performing better with a better mood and with more energy overall.

So, get healthy, and enjoy!

/Emil

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Inforgraphic: