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Healthy Habits to Kickstart a Great November

What’s a habit?

noun
1.
a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.
“this can develop into a bad habit”

What’s a “healthy” habit?

A behavior that is beneficial to one’s physical or mental health, often linked to a high level of discipline and self-control. This might include regular exercise, or a balanced diet.

So what are “Detourist” healthy habits?
I have four of them, and I can’t wait to share them with you…

I try to do something creative every day. Creativity and gratitude not only saved my life, they gave me a new perspective on living a HEALTHY life.

Bored and surfing the internet? Find some inspirational quotes to surround yourself with.  Quotes are great “road signs” to help keep your detour on track!

Inspirational quotes are great reminders too.  They remind us what’s important in life. They remind us to be aware.  They remind us to be mindful.

Not STUCK in our minds…

…but MIND-FULL.
I try to find moments of mindfulness every day. – that’s a VERY powerful healthy habit!
These are key ideas to my “four hard core skills” that are great attitudes for success.

Healthy recipes make up a huge component of physical health. But what about mental health?

I’ve got a great recipe for you – a Recipe for the most healthy habit at all:  Being Resilient.
We can navigate any detour in life through creating our own Recipe for Resilience.

Here are the four secret ingredients.  Ready?
·     The Power of Stories: Sharing our story is healthy, as is learning our stories for ourselves, and allowing ourselves to be affected by the stories of others.
·     Gratitude: We can cultivate hope through gratitude. Through simple exercises and habits, including the discipline or a daily gratitude list, we become grounded in who we are, once we know what our values are and what we stand for.  Once anchored in ourselves, we can begin to access our inner-trust and compass to navigate our detours.
·     Creativity: Once we become grounded in who we are through gratitude, we can use creativity to center ourselves and propel us forward. Through creativity, we are able to be with our experiences and emotions that may be too painful, frightening or overwhelming for words, as well as experiences that have yet to be acknowledged.  So start with a doodle!
·     Hope: Hope can start out as a “lie” we tell ourselves – or as one occupational therapist told me, “therapeutic lying.” Cultivating hope can be hard work, intentional fabrication, or willing suspension of disbelief – but it is our active duty. Give yourself a reason to be hopeful – even if you have to make it up for now.

What are your healthy habits? What’s in YOUR recipe for resilience?

A habit is something you do every day.  So find one small thing you can do -share a story, make a gratitude list, doodle on a napkin, or find one thing to hope for.  And keep it up!

Amy Oestreicher is a PTSD peer-to-peer specialist, artist, author, writer for Huffington Post, speaker for TEDx and RAINN, health advocate, survivor, award-winning actress, and playwright. As the creator of  “Gutless & Grateful,” her BroadwayWorld-nominated one-woman autobiographical musical, she’s toured theatres nationwide, along with a program combining mental health advocacy, sexual assault awareness  and Broadway Theatre for college campuses and international conferences.    To celebrate her own “beautiful detour”, Amy created the #LoveMyDetour campaign, to help others cope in the face of unexpected events.  “Detourism” is also the subject of her TEDx and upcoming book, My Beautiful Detour, available December 2017.  She’s contributed to over 70 notable online and print publications, and her story has appeared on NBC’s TODAY, CBS, Cosmopolitan, among others.    Learn about her art, music, theatre, advocacy, book, and inspiring story at amyoes.com, or “tweet me at @amyoes!”