This post is part 2 of The Art of Life-Styling series. If you missed part 1, head here to read it before you dive into this article.

So without further ado, let’s dive in…

At the end of the day, without your health you have nothing. It’s the foundation for everything and absolutely crucial if you want to live your life anywhere near your full potential. But despite being so freaking important, it’s often the first thing that gets pushed to the bottom of our priority list. We are so quick to let it come second (or twenty-second!) to emails, social media, household chores, our family, our work — and the list goes on! But the simple truth is that if you aren’t thriving and well, you can’t show up to those things at your fullest. I learned this the hard way, landing myself in hospital with no candle left to burn, all because I continually failed to honor my body’s needs.

For me, this was a pattern that started right out of the gates. All my life, I witnessed the women around me put everyone else before themselves. It seemed so normal to put your own needs last — it was just the way things were done — so it was no wonder I became brilliant at it too. I had no idea what taking care of myself actually looked liked and no idea what self-care or self-love truly were. They were all things I had to discover and learn as an adult (if only they taught this stuff in schools).

Taking responsibility for my health radically changed my life — no more pointing the finger and blaming others, no more abusing my body with toxic crap. I realized that if I wanted to seriously get my glow on, I had to do the work. So over the past six years, I have been a human guinea pig and experimented with many different modalities in order to thrive. I’ve explored things like yoga, chanting, journaling, eating organic fresh local whole foods, dry body brushing, tongue scraping, kundalini, painting, Epsom salt baths, morning pages, and practicing gratitude — and that’s just for starters!  Each of these practices has been incredibly powerful in its own way, and many of them I still do every single day. However, if you’re looking to really supercharge your wellness, there are three health hacks I’ve found that give you the most leverage and the best bang for your buck…

Meditation

I have experimented with loads of different types of meditation and have found the type I practice daily to be the most powerful. It’s called transcendental meditation and I practice for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon. It has been scientifically proven to be the equivalent of 8 hours sleep (sign me up for that any time, baby!). I am obsessed with sleep, I love it, so when I found out that I could get an extra 8 hours a day I was all in.

But let me guess, you don’t have time to meditate? Well let me ask you this: Do you have time to feel like crap? I am presuming your answer is a big fat NO. So make time. Find the time and stick it in your calendar. My teacher Tom Cronin likes to say that we have 72 lots of 20 minutes in our day. If you take a mere two of those for meditation, you still have 70 left — and those 70 will be way more productive. That’s because meditation gets you out of your head and into that awesome ‘flow’ state. This is where creativity unfolds and you step into your zone of genius.

Only YOU can take charge of your health. Only YOU can choose to put yourself first.

On top of all that, of course, there are loads of other benefits you experience from meditation such as a reduction in stress, a boost in your immune system and improvement in your focus. (If that’s not enough to get you going I don’t know what is.) I also love guided meditations, but I listen to them on top of my two 20 minute meditation sessions, just for an extra boost.

Drinking Clean Water

Our bodies are made up of 75% water, so it makes sense that what you are drinking is super important. Dehydration can be linked to many common illnesses and diseases, and can even cause those annoying ‘everyday’ symptoms that people live with for years on end such as constipation and headaches. But you don’t have to live like that, and when you start hydrating correctly and giving your body good quality, clean water you will start to really thrive.

Like everything, I have experimented with all different types of water — including filtered, tap, natural, reverse osmosis, rain, deionised, distilled, spring, bottled, and alkaline. Of all these, I have found that natural spring water is not only the purest, but it’s the best for you. I love the amazing Energised Spring Plus water if you live in Sydney, otherwise the best filter hands down is the Waters & Co BPM 500 available at Nourished Life which removes 99.99% of fluoride plus all the other nasties, and also leaves the water alive and energized! (I am not financially compensated for mentioning any of these products).

Some people don’t pay much attention to where their water comes from, but you really need to be mindful about it. If you are drinking out of a bottle, is it BPA free? And what’s the quality of the stuff coming out of your tap? Lots of people think that filters are the answer, and though they do remove most of the bad stuff,  they also often strip out all the good stuff so the water is virtually devoid of all nutrients. You can get around this by adding minerals back in, such as by adding a pinch of good quality sea salt to your water. But it’s not the same as pure spring water.

Because clean hydration is one of the most important factors to thriving, it’s not an area you want to skimp on. I now drink natural spring water and you can really taste the difference. Ideally, my home would be tapped into a natural spring, but right now that isn’t a possibility. Instead, I did the next best thing and got the peeps from The Water Shop to come out and install a filter on our shower, bath and sinks so that we can all enjoy better quality water. (Lots of people skip the filter in the shower, but your skin is your largest organ and the water you bathe in gets absorbed straight into your bloodstream, so it’s uber important to consider too!)

Get In Nature

In order to seriously thrive and be the healthiest and happiest version of yourself, you need to connect with Mother Nature every single day. That can look like any number of different things — walking barefoot in the park, diving into the ocean, lying in the sun, hugging a tree, doing a bush walk… whatever feels good in your bones. We are primal beings and that primal instinct in us wants to connect to and be in nature. After all, we are nature… but we are more disconnected than ever. We wake up, get in the car to go to work, sit in an office all day, get back in the car, drive home, sit at home eating dinner in front of the TV, check our phones for the zillionth time, and then finally go to bed. We are moving from one box to the another, often with little to no contact with Mother Earth. No wonder some people go cray-cray! The primal animal in us wants so desperately to be in nature and to feel that sacred connection, yet we consistently deny ourselves that gift.

For me personally, I know that when I ignore that primal calling for too long, I tend to go a little stir-crazy. I start to get restless and irritable, which is my signal to get outside. And the thing is, it doesn’t have to be anything hard or major — all it takes is eating your meals in the sun, taking your shoes off as you walk through the park to work, or doing your exercise outdoors instead of inside a dark and smelly gym… It’s often the simple shifts that make the biggest difference.

So there you have it, beautiful. If you want to experience vibrant health, these three hacks will help you get serious leverage and style the life that you desire.

Now I would love to hear from you — Which one of these three things are you going to start today? Share with us in the comments below. And remember, there is no time like the present and your choices today affect your tomorrow, so take action now.

As always, thank you so much for being here and for wanting to be the best version of yourself… I honor you for showing up.