One of the most powerful tools we have to build resilience and overcome chronic stress and trauma is connection. It’s the first thing that is sacrificed in the face of stress injury and yet it is the number one thing we need if we’re going to heal.

In health and wellness, connection has become an overused meaningless word. Just like the words wellness and health. Our work IN today is a deep dive into some of the less obvious meanings of connection and how we can use it beyond the obvious to get and stay healthier physically, mentally and emotionally.

Sleep is a hard thing. Good sleep is even harder.The complexity of our network of systems makes it even harder to isolate the keys to getting a great night’s sleep when literally anything and everything can disturb our sleep. While occasional sleep disturbances can be normal for sure, long term sleep disruption is not. Our work IN this week is changing the way we look at the complex puzzle of sleep from a nice to have to a non negotiable priority in our health.

Eating “right” is a hard thing but not because it’s actually hard to do. Experts keep changing their minds, making unsupported nutrition recommendations that are riddled with conflicts of interest and have resulted in the exact opposite of health in the real world. That’s confusing and annoying and challenging but that’s not really what makes it hard either. Eating right is hard because we have outsourced our common sense when it comes to basic biology of nourishment for the bodies we live in. That’s our work IN today. We’re looking at 5 simple ways to reclaim the uncommon sense around nutrition in order to nourish the body, mind and nervous system.

Goldilocks got it wrong. At least when it comes to exercise. Hard is sexy. Hard is effective. Hard makes everything easier. Hard exercise is required to maintain and build the kind of muscle that supports health span not just life span. That’s our Work IN today. 3 necessary components in any health plan to find ease in the kind of hard effort that’s required for longevity while still supporting our nervous system. 

They say yoga poses don’t begin until you want to quit. That is true for everything in health and wellness. If we want to be strong, healthy and well beyond the false sense of security that comes with mainstream medical health markers we need to do hard things. We need to ask our body for more and stop quitting on ourselves before we get there. Today on the Work IN we’re looking at how to leverage the body’s adaptation pathways through exercise and nutrition for lasting physical mental and emotional health that don’t come in a bottle.

I’m killing the dream of a full time fitness career today on The Work IN. Working full time as a fitness instructor or coach and making a living is not realistic.  At least not the way we traditionally think of full time in other careers. But there are ways to make your wellness work work for you no matter what kind of fit pro you are.