All of us sometimes feel stressed, anxious, depressed, or find ourselves indulging in unhelpful habits. But when we want to change these feelings or habits, we are often looking for a quick fix—a bandage—to stick on the problem. It rarely works. Taking care of yourself is multi-faceted. You are a complete ecosystem and in order to fix any element in an ecosystem, we need to make the overall system as healthy as possible. So in order to alleviate anxiety, depression, stress, addictions or bad habits, we need to reinforce the four pillars of health.

There is no quick fix and everything in our lives can be improved by working on these four pillars. This is always the place to start. Yes, it takes work but the results start coming in pretty quickly. There are no downsides to taking care of the four pillars, only upsides.

In order to feel generally well, there are four fundamental things into which we need to put sincere effort to take care of ourselves.

• Nutrition
• Exercise
• Sleep
• Connection to Others

Of course there are other important components of health as well but I see these four as foundational—the pillars on which everything else rests and which provide a container or sanctuary for the other aspects of our lives.

Exercise is the best de-stressor and mood lifter available. This is where I always suggest you start in taking care of yourself, because you’ll see the fastest results when it comes to mood and energy. If you get very little exercise now, start with walking (or swimming if walking is not an option). Walking is one of the best forms of exercise and is readily available with no equipment or special clothing needed. Ideally start right from your home. Anytime you are developing a new habit, it is best to start small. Don’t decide to go from zero to sixty overnight. Set a modest goal. Initially just pick the minimum amount of time walking that you feel you can stick to, even if that is five minutes. You want to be able to be able to do this most days.

Ideally, whatever form of exercise you are engaging in, you will, over the subsequent weeks, keep increasing the amount until you are getting at least half an hour of exercise a day, all at one time. You will definitely get exercise in other ways, whether that is while grocery shopping, at work or doing chores but the idea is that you are eventually getting half an hour most days of intentional exercise.

For those who do sporadically engage in some form or forms of exercise, figure out how to make it regular. Create one exercise that is your base fitness, everyday exercise.

For me that is trail running. Just about every morning, I go for a half hour trail run. I will usually get other exercise throughout the day but if I don’t, that half hour is my base level. I know from experience how much this half hour of exercise positively affects my mood because I know how I start to feel when I begin to miss days. Sometimes I just won’t feel like it, so I’ll take a day off. Then perhaps I don’t feel like it again the next morning or I go to bed late and set my alarm for later. Anytime I miss several days either in a row or over a few weeks, I notice I begin feeling more tired, less motivated, more down on myself.

• Pick an exercise as your base, everyday exercise.
• If you are just starting, begin with a “just show up for it” amount of time like five minutes.
• Anchor this exercise to something else in your day, for instance, when you first wake up, on your lunch break, when you get home from work, etc. Pick a time when you won’t feel much resistance.
• Track your exercise on a weekly schedule so you can see your progress.

Grandma was right. You are what you eat. This one is so fundamental for taking care of self. It is clear what impacts eating nutritiously and eating poorly have on your health. If you aren’t getting the nutrients that you need, your body is unable to perform the necessary healing, growth and repair functions that it is designed for. Without the appropriate nutrients you can also feel slow, stressed or sluggish. Throwing junk into your body is a major stressor. Your digestive system attempts to process these non-food substances that are often full of chemicals and toxins and perhaps high levels of sodium, sugar, or fat.

I like to make the analogy to my clients of an animal in the wild. Pick your favorite wild animal. For me it is a deer because in the wild they are so alert and graceful. Can you imagine a junk food deer (or swap in your favorite wild animal)? A deer that consumes high sugar, high fat, highly processed foods or overeats. Imagine how that animal would differ from its truly wild cousin in how it moved, how it appeared, its reaction time. Even if that wild deer was simply overeating a bit of the healthy foods or having the occasional non-deer food, it would appear to be a different animal than its wild cousin.

As humans, we are not eating the foods that we are designed to eat. There are so many schools of thought on what is a healthy diet but you can’t go wrong with eating more plant based foods and a variety of proteins, as minimally processed as possible. Eliminating or greatly cutting down on processed foods, high sugar and high carbohydrate foods is vital.

Making changes around food can be such a sticking point for modern day humans. We can be so emotionally connected to very unhealthy foods. Or emotionally connected to eating very large quantities of food. But how emotionally connected are you to being healthy? To life being more enjoyable? More comfortable? This is the trade off.

Imagine turning away from these false friends and turning towards your own health to take care of self. The reality is that the enjoyment of a “comfort food” is short lived. How long is it in your mouth for? How often do you feel unwell or regretful after indulging in something rich or overeating? On the flip side, when your body is well nourished and at an optimal weight for you, the benefits are reaped throughout your entire day, with you feeling energized and more balanced in terms of mood.

Your body is the vessel with which you move through this life. Feed it healthily.

• Plan your meals for the week and create a grocery list. This helps avoid last minute, unhealthy food grabs.
• Compile a list of the foods you need to consume more of and put them on a reusable weekly grocery list.
• Identify foods you need to avoid, eliminate or greatly reduce and make a commitment to not have them in your home.
• Develop strategies for what you will do when you’re in locations where you can pick up the foods you wish to avoid.
• Prepare vegetables and fruits such that they are easy to grab as snacks. Make a few healthy dips or sauces for the vegetables.
• List activities that you can engage in to distract yourself whenever you feel a craving to eat something unhealthy or to snack when you are not hungry.

Sleep is therapy. Literally. While you dream your mind is processing all that happened during your day—categorizing, associating, interpreting, deciding whether to pitch or store in long term memory. Dreaming is important stuff! It varies greatly from individual to individual and from one sleep to the next but you’ll spend about an hour and a half total of dreaming time during a good sleep.

Some people may not believe they dream at night but it is most likely that you are simply not remembering your dreams. Repetitive nightmares are usually a sign that there is unprocessed, often traumatic, memories that your mind is getting stuck on. If anything is keeping you from having adequate sleep you may be losing out on your dreaming therapy. If you are sleeping drunk or under the influence of intoxicating substances, this dreaming can also be interfered with, or not happening optimally.

Aside from the mental therapy of dreaming there is the physical therapy of sleep. During sleep your body is working on cellular healing and growth. Facilitating these proper sleep stages is very important for your health.

Take care of yourself by improving your sleep! Start with creating a bedtime routine. Optimize cut-off times for caffeine, fluid or alcohol intake. Avoid anything that is overly mentally stimulating or upsetting just before bed.

Obviously if you are a parent or caregiver, sleep can be fragmented. Perhaps you have babies or toddlers waking during the night to be fed or cuddled or you are staring at your bedside clock at 2 a.m. wondering where in the hell your 17 year old is. Sleep can be messy during parenthood! Grab it where you can and ask for help from other family members if possible.

• Create a bedtime routine. Write it out. Every step should be signalling to your body that you are winding down and getting ready for sleep.
• Make your sleeping environment as dark as possible. Get blackout curtains if needed.
• If your sleep environment is noisy, consider ear plugs.
• Go to bed and wake up at more or less the same time.
• Establish cut-off times for fluid, caffeine and/or alcohol intake.
• Use music, reading or audio meditations to help ease you to sleep.
• If you do wake up for long enough that you feel certain you won’t be falling back to sleep, get up and do something quiet that doesn’t require bright lighting for as long as you wish—perhaps playing a musical instrument, journaling, doing some art work, gentle exercise or reading.

Ultimately this is what we all seek. Meaningful connections with others. You are hard wired from birth to communicate your needs to your care givers so that they will attach to you for your own survival. Attachment theory would fill another long article, but in a nutshell, the theory goes that you develop one of the following four types of attachment to your primary caregiver(s): secure, disorganized, anxious or avoidant. (You can also have a combination depending on the situation or the specific caregiver/parent.)

These attachment styles will usually spill over into your adult relationships. Learning how to develop secure attachments greatly affects your emotional health.

In the connection realm of your life, quality is so much more important than quantity. Having one or two safe caring relationships outshines several mediocre relationships.

This can be one of the more difficult and vulnerable of the four pillars to work on. Unlike how you exercise, eat or sleep, connection takes two to tango.

Unfortunately, someone may find that they have friends but they are not on anyone’s A-list. So they get the call when the larger group is gathered but are not the first one called when something momentous has happened in a friend’s life. This can lead to the lonely in a crowd or all alone at home feeling. But there are many others in the same situation, many others who want to be off that B-list and on your A-list. Finding those people who have common ground with you is the goal.

The first thing to consider are the activities you most enjoy doing with others. Once you have a list of the things you would like to do with others, spend some time determining where that could happen. Are there meet-up groups? Clubs? Courses?

Also consider your existing relationships that you value and work on deepening them. That could mean communicating more, spending more time together or allowing more vulnerability into the relationship.

• Decide which of your existing relationships are most valuable to you.
• Make an action list for deepening those relationships
• Make a list of where new people you would like to meet may gather. Consider clubs, activities and courses.

Taking care of yourself by reinforcing your four pillars of health yields substantial, lasting change. Start small, choosing a couple of action items from each pillar. Gradually build on your progress, unlocking improved physical and mental well-being. The journey opens up new possibilities, empowering you to lead a fulfilling life.

Remember, no external solution can match the rapid transformation achievable by nurturing these four pillars of health. Embrace change, prioritize your well-being, and embrace the journey toward a better you.