6 ways to Conscious living
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You don't have to fit into a label.
​Just do your best.
Live with intention
Living with intentions is something I have personally found to be the foundation of making conscious choices. Asides from our usual life admin, this includes all of the little things in our day i.e. what time we decide to start winding down for bed, what we decide to eat and how we decide to spend our time.
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Implementing mindfulness into everyday life can really help you to become more self-aware and of everything around you too. The more you notice and learn about the ins and outs of your behaviours, the more likely you will be to notice whether those behaviours suit you or not. Recognizing poor habits isn't a sign of weakness - recognition means you have taken the first step to either maintaining or making better choices for yourself.
Click here to read more on mindfulness and practice some activities.
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shop local
Shopping local can not only support small independent businesses, but it can also help you to reduce your carbon footprint by minimizing emissions (direct emissions e.g. using transport to get there and indirect emissions e.g. the transport and resources used throughout the journey of food source - shop - plate).
If your shops/restaurants source their produce from locally grown areas, not only do your purchases support the small journey of locally grown food, but it also encourages a more sustainable approach. Buying local or even organic produce may also have better nutritional value in comparison to produce that has been shipped and stored in unnatural environments for preservation.
zero waste shopping + buy what you need
Following on from the 'shop local' motive, zero waste shopping is essentially a way that you can buy what you need in bulk, whilst encouraging use of empty containers/jars (preferably reusing plastic containers, cereal containers or glass) you may have at home.
Emphasis on 'buy what you need'.
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Food is produced based on demand and as a culture, we often overbuy what we need - not only letting produce go to waste, but the resources and time that went into the journey of ending up in your fridge/cupboards. By being more mindful of how much, you as a consumer actually use, can actually help suppliers to understand how much they realistically need to be making to meet their demand and not overuse resources that could be saved.
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As the world population has now grown to 7.6 billion people, we need to understand that resources are to be treated with kindness. It might also help you save you from overspending!
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eat more plant based
Eating a plant based diet has many proven benefits in helping us to nourish our bodies with Earth's very own plants, vegetables, herbs and fruits. Natural produce can be grown in your very own garden or even from local farmers around, which again, feeds into supporting the journey of more organic/fresh ingredients.
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Plant based foods are all rich in various nutrients - each colour often providing a different benefit. For instance, red peppers are rich in vitamin C, whereas mushrooms are rich in vitamin B - all supporting our health on a cellular level. Immunity is really important in the preparing the body's ability to fight off infections, bacteria or even virus'.
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Especially during these unprecedented times, it is important even moreso to try and incorporate as many different plant based foods as possible to support your gut microbiome (natural gut bacteria).
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Click here to read more about gut health and ways you can support it.
minimise toxins
Whatever we put in our bodies or expose ourselves to all have their natural byproducts and make their way into our systems in one way or another. For instance, when we breathe in oxygen, we expel carbon dioxide out as a result .
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Toxins can therefore be developed through the byproducts of both conscious and unconscious choices such as what we eat, what we put on our skin and environmental factors such as pollution and UV rays. It is important to aid our bodies as much as possible in this modern world, particularly as even stress can take it's toll on the body and it's ability to be able to respond to foreign bodies.
Whole foods which contain natural vitamins and minerals are recommended to sustain a healthy lifestyle, particularly as they have the ability to combat free radicals in the body caused by oxidation (too many of these can cause damage to cell DNA and lead to long term illnesses such as cancer).
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Click here to read more about gut health and ways you can support it.