The best health care provider - readily available, affordable and without the wait - is you. This means choosing a healthy lifestyle, creating a routine which aligns with your core values then simply following through. Your new health regimen becomes a nonnegotiable similar to the way you brush your teeth every day. The benefits are enormous: Prevention of many diseases, alleviating severe symptoms of pre-existing conditions, adding years to your life and life to your years.

The attributes of a quality health plan is just plain good SENSE:

• Stress Management: Chronic stress can trigger disease and inflame symptoms, even shorten your life span. Manage your personal triggers and break the stress cycle with basic awareness. Stress will always land on your doorstep, but you don’t have to constantly open the door. That endless to-do list is sapping your energy, compromising your immune response and making you irritable. Drop a chore or two daily and create personal time; otherwise illness will force you to take time off.
  
• Exercise: Put a spring in your step, stabilize insulin levels, become brain smart, heart smart, sweat out that toxic stress, boost your immune system, build bone and muscle mass, and you will be exercising your way to good health and happiness. A weekly program of cardio and strength training holds the key to longevity, the kind associated with quality years. You will be amazed how healthy, cheerful and young you have become.
  
• Nutrient Dense Food: If you can’t pronounce the multi-syllabic ingredients, you should not be eating it. A quality life needs quality food. No vitamin and supplement can duplicate the nutrients in real food. Eat mindfully which means evaluate how you feel when you eat food. Foods which lower your energy, keep you up at night, or give you digestive issues and skin problems should be eliminated from your diet. On the other hand, feel-good cuisine should be part of your daily meals and snacks. It’s really quite simple.
  
• Sleep: Sleep regenerates cells, resets hormones, sifts out the mental chaff from the important thoughts, and controls appetite. Overriding your natural rhythm with technology comes with a hefty health cost. You need to power down and create a sleep ritual to drift into restorative sleep. You will come back better the next day.
  
• Every Day Begin Again: Waking up every morning to new possibilities to a fresh start provides hope, resiliency, and a positivity bias. If you ate the wrong thing or failed to exercise yesterday, you can do it today. You can mend relationships, forgive, or move on. How wonderful to wake up with a beginner’s mind and a beginner’s heart ready to learn new things and have a romance with life.

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For more information on managing your stress and reclaiming your life read my book, Addicted to Stress: A Woman's 7 Step Program to Reclaim Joy and Spontaneity in Life. To listen to archived radio shows with guest experts visit Turn On Your Inner Light Radio Show