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Successful Entrepreneurs Are In It For The Long Haul

Guest post by: Michael Hume

Article Overview: There are three long-term practices you should incorporate to ensure your health is optimized and your energy is up to the level you'll need to drive your business. If you want to avoid the mess that traditional medical care is becoming, think about how you can incorporate these.

Successful Entrepreneurs Are In It For The Long Haul

They Take Personal Responsibility To Protect Their Own Health As a business owner, you know you have to have staying power. For every time the rough-and-tumble world of business knocks you down, you have to get back up, dust yourself off, and get back into the fight. Many entrepreneurs fail multiple times before they find the product, the service, the business model, the Big Idea that makes them successful. So you have to maintain your personal health and vitality in order to have the energy to stick it out.

It's even more important these days. In the U.S., recent "reforms" of health care will lead, experts say, to a shortage of quality medical services, and eventually it may be impossible to find excellent health care - at any price. So you have to do what you can to keep yourself healthy, and avoid relying for your vitality on "the system."

To accomplish this, I believe in five daily disciplines I refer to as The NEWSS: Nutrition, Exercise, Water, Sleep, and Supplements. You have to watch what you eat and drink, you have to exercise every day, you have to get enough water and sleep, and you have to take at least one good multi-vitamin, as I've mentioned in previous articles. These daily practices will help you go a long way toward long-term vitality, and you can start today by making at least one small change in each of these five health habits.

There are three long-term practices you should incorporate to ensure your health is optimized and your energy is up to the level you'll need to drive your business. If you want to avoid the mess that traditional medical care is becoming, think about how you can incorporate these.

Breathing. Seems silly... I mean, you can't avoid breathing, right? But believe it or not, you are not breathing well enough to recharge your body for optimal health. In seminars I often ask the participants how many breaths they think they take in an average minute during their workday. I usually get answers in the range of 15 to 25 breaths per minute - which means you're inhaling and exhaling at least every four seconds - and which, if true, would probaby lead to hyperventilation! However, it's true that you're probably taking short, choppy breaths throughout your workday, never fully cleansing and replacing your air supply. When stress is high, find a quiet place to spend just three minutes focusing on nothing but your breathing. Get comfy, close your eyes, and count four seconds to inhale deeply, and eight seconds to exhale smoothly. Don't look at a clock or watch - these seconds don't have to be precise - we're just shooting for five deep breaths per minute for three minutes. Try not to think about anything else. When you get to 15 slow, deep breaths, open your eyes and get back to work. You can make this a daily practice, and should if you can find the time... but for now, just think about taking a three-minute time-out during your most stressful days.

Checkups. Simply put, if you develop the habit of checking in with your body when you don't feel like you have to, you'll postpone further the time when you really will need to spend time at the doctor's office. I have not been great at this, especially with regard to my dental check-ups, but I do get to a non-traditional healer at least once every calendar month. My "doc" is a chiropractor, nutritionist, and naturopathic practitioner... I get a spine adjustment and general check of my energy field every time I go in. Sound "woo-woo" to you? Maybe. But I highly recommend finding some way to keep a check on your body at least once a month. Another great idea is to check your blood pressure several times a month... I'm a big believer in stopping at the free machines you see in drug stores and supermarkets.

Cleansing. If you will focus at least enough attention on your nutritional habits to stop eating garbage and keep ingesting a steady supply of fresh veggies, your body will naturally start cleansing itself. However, it's almost impossible to keep a "pure" diet these days, and it's very easy even with a decent nutritional program and good supplements to develop digestive problems such as an overgrowth of candida (one of the most common). You should undertake a periodic deep-cleansing of your body. Fasting is a great start; you should read a book specifically on fasting and do it under the supervision of a health advisor. For one thing, "fasting" doesn't mean forgoing everything but water; you should drink organic juices and take other supplements that help the cleansing process. I also highly recommend colon hydrotherapy, which, combined with fasting, is an awesome way to cleanse. I do a program of fasting and hydrotherapy twice a year, at the beginning of fall and the beginning of spring, and it seems to work well for me. I fast for four days, and do a colonic each day for the last three days of the fast. Also: if you need to lose weight fast, like for a reunion, this is the best way to do it. Most of us are carrying around 5-25 pounds of undigested material in our colons!

If you're just starting your health program, good for you. Start with the NEWSS habits, and just make a small change in each of the five every week or so. Journal your progress. Once you have those five habits well in hand, think about these three more long-term practices. After all, you want to be driving your business for a good long time to come.

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Article Tags: health habits, health home business, health wealth and happiness, successful entrepreneurs



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