10 Paleo habits to improve and extend your life!

1. What you can reach you’ll eat – Get rid of all your neolithic foods that aren’t on the Paleo list. If they’re in your house you’re going to eat them sooner or later. Make it easy for yourself by only having good food options around. If you manage to remove foods not included in the plan from your environment for long enough to give it a 21-day trial then you’ll be a much better chance of sticking to the plan and experiencing the benefits. Going Paleo will remove the toxic load from your diet and let your body start its rebuilding process with only the best ingredients!

The supermarket test

2. Be prepared – Buy and cook in advance foods that you want to eat from the Paleo Foods list. Have a time each week when you prepare extra food for the week or at least for the next day. If you like to use recipes then have your Paleo recipes nearest and your cake recipe books in the garage.

3. Sleep – Primitive man didn’t watch the late night news or cops and robbers and he was all the better for it. Get to bed by 10pm and aim for 8-10 hours of sleep in complete darkness every night, closer to 10 than 8 during winter. Because artificial light is travelling a much shorter distance than light from the moon or the sun it has a much stronger effect on our light receptors and therefore melatonin levels and sleep cycles. This means no TV with the red light or alarm clocks with the light blazing next to your head. If you’re struggling with sleep check out my Sleep article for more tips on improving the quality of your sleep through relaxation, routine and nutritional methods. You can also read Lights Out! by T.S. Wiley if you want to become a sleep geek.

4. Move – do some resistance training 1-3 times a week for 10-30 minutes and sprint, skip or jump now and then. Walk or do some sort of physical activity like tai chi or yoga on other days to energise your body naturally. The body is designed to work and regular activity helps energy flow and fluids to pump through the body. Overtraining is probably worse than under-training so take it easy on the aerobic exercise and keep your weights sessions short but intense. If you get this done you’ll go a long way to energising your and even improving your breathing.

Prowler - short intense training

5. Have fun / lower stress – Stress is everything from radiation to relationships, from chlorine to candida,. Just being on an iPhone for too long or having a food allergy would be enough to send primitive man back to his cave stressed out and unhappy. Beware of information overload! The internet has put all western knowledge at our finger-tips. That’s a lot of reading! Know when to take a break to meditate or just watch the clouds or a chicken. Reprogram negative beliefs that take your power away and the thoughts that are sapping your energy and keeping you from your dreams.

Sleep now or die younger

6. Drink clean water – clean filtered water that hasn’t been in a plastic bottle with a little grey or red sea salt and lemon or lime juice will provide minerals and have a gentle alkalysing effect to the body. Mineral rich salt has been valued for health by many cultures and farmers around the world for centuries because it’s vital to our health. Refined salt is minerally depleted and therefore has the opposite effect of robbing our cells of minerals.

Don't underestimate the power of water!

7. Be part of a community – We got to where we are as a race by working together. (Darwin acknowledged that he overlooked environmental factors in his mostly plagiarised works. Bruce Lipton’s – Spontaneous evolution has a good summary of how it all happened.) Being part of a positive living working community will do wonders for your health and productivity. Social isolation is a tool for creating conflict between individuals and nations. We are all part of the same world community and we all have our role to play in its success.

8. Live in rhythm with the sun / planets – the sun is bigger than we are, it’s been here longer than we have. We need to see it and feel its touch regularly in order to have optimal vitamin D levels, cortisol rhythm and other hormone levels. Always try to avoid getting burnt by the sun. No study has demonstrated a way of avoiding all the negative consequences of shift work on health and performance other than by finding a way to change your work hours or your job. Living on four hours of sleep will take those hours gained off the back-end of your life and quality of life up until then.

If the sun and the moon influence life us why wouldn't other planets and solar systems?

9. Live your dreams – if you’re not progressing towards that which you value most in life your health will no doubt suffer! Set goals, make plans and along the way make sure you’re healthy and vital enough to achieve them. Setting yourself challenges will also help you keep using your brain and might limit brain numbing time in front of the box. Remember impulses and addictions aren’t dreams and they’re often distractions. What do you want to be remembered for?

Lu Xiaojun enjoying success

10. Stick to the plan – Eat only the foods on your list for at least 3 weeks and you will experience the benefits of Paleo eating. Pay attention to any processed foods that could have hidden gluten or other nasty things that will sabotage your experiment. Also pay attention to your energy levels, skin, sleep quality and other things that might change. Understand that health is about more than just food and 6-pack abs and take on the challenge of being a healthy contributor to the world.

This isn’t a religion, nobody will get it all right all the time but working towards positive habits becomes easier over time. Your body will reinforce the message that you’re doing a good thing as it rejoices improves on the primal lifestyle.

Art on the run