Today I want to share my top 3 holistic health solutions. I will tell you how you can holistically improve your life. When I think of improving health, the number one thing I think of is sustainability. Because to achieve great health, we must be able to regularly implement these holistic measures.

This is not a list of supplements we take while living the way “everyone else” does - even though marketers are constantly promoting this false means of health. This article is full of amazing lifestyle habits that will change the course of your life if applied.

This article will go into detail on how holistically improve your life, but for those of you who want to go straight to it.

Here are our top 3 holistic health solutions:

Maintain a consistent sleep schedule
Eat real food
Develop your mind - holistic thinking

I want to add that this isn’t in order of value and what determines the value of every given topic is based on what you’re lacking the most. So in no particular order, here we go.

1: Maintain a consistent sleep cycle

Sleep consistency has to be in the top three of my holistic health solutions. Now this topic is a blog post in itself and I could speak to many areas to accomplish this but here we will focus on sleep/wake cycles and how lighting plays a huge role in our hormone production and overall sleep quality.

Modern-day technology provides us with excess light during the evening perhaps while ordering off UberEats and may simply seem like a convenience that allows us to get our late-night snacks while watching Netflix (not endorsing this lifestyle lol) but this advancement has a not-so-subtle effect on our body, especially our hormones - not to mention the lack of integrity of most restaurants.

The lighting from our LED lights, tv screens, phones, etc. signals our body that it is daytime so it keeps our body from producing melatonin - our sleep hormone - and ultimately throws off our internal sleep clock.

When thinking about improving our health, we should emphasize optimizing our hormones and sleep rhythm holistically.

Our internal clock resets as soon as we wake up so it’s important to set up your sleep cycle immediately after waking.

If we expose our eyes to the sun in the early morning, we will set our internal sleep clock which is based on our circadian rhythm. This will signal to our body to begin producing hormones that prepare us for the day and start the countdown for melatonin production for our evening sleep.

A great resource to understand this deeper is Dr. Andrew Huberman- a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. - Here - is a link to a podcast on this topic, make sure to be well-rested and take your nootropics because this boy speaks concisely and packs his podcasts full of valuable information.

Now, you may have noticed a contradiction where I speak to the importance of maintaining a consistent sleep cycle yet throughout the year, yet the days are longer or shorter based on where you are and what time of year it is. I naturally want to sleep a little more in the winter so my sleep/wake cycle changes throughout the year, but the consistency comes with the seasons.

I naturally sleep about 7-8 hours in the summer and 8-10 hours in the winter.

However, bio-hackers such as Ben Greenfield have educated me on tools such as red light therapy, which mimics the sun and provides a ton of health benefits ( article here ). Red light therapy works great for those of us who need to build consistency in a sleep/wake cycle based on a career or lifestyle rather than the sun/moon. Though the preferred routine would be to follow the sun/moon, there will be many who will continue their path and can optimize their sleep rhythm to maintain consistency in the sleep cycle they find best. So if we are waking at a time or simply in a location where we can not get sun light exposure, red light therapy is a great option.

Being consistent means being consistent on the weekends too.. lol.

If we are consistent during the week but consistently inconsistent with our sleep during the weekends, then we never build consisteny and our hormones and overall physiology suffer.

Does this mean to aim for perfection? Ehh that’s getting into deep philosophical questions but I would say to simply switch your intentions to being consistent 7 days a week instead of 5 days a week and be okay with the days you have to stay up past your bedtime.

Since we can see how lighting plays a big role in our sleep/wake cycles - what can we do now?

Expose your eyes to sunlight once you wake up - most glass windows, glasses lenses block the UV rays needed in order to gain the benefits, so go outside, open a window, go for a walk, perform your morning ritual outside…. anything to get the sun registered into your time clock to ramp your hormone production. If sunlight is not an option, buy yourself a Joovv - Red light therapy. That boy Ben Greenfield gets ya $50 off if you enter code word ‘Ben’ in the checkout.
Minimize or eliminate the artificial lighting inside your home as the sun is going down or within 1-2 hours before you go to bed. We can do this by switching our light bulbs to ‘low flicker’ bulbs- that’s a blog in itself- low watt- non LED (unless it’s one of the few types that isn’t damaging to the eye) lighting. We can use candles, or if you’re lucky enough to have great natural lighting and you go to bed with the sun you can simply power your lighting from the sun. We can also wear blue light blocker glasses or a clip-on to our glasses in the evening as well if we need to look at a screen.
Keep your room DARK. With street lights and security lighting installed all throughout the city, our rooms can be blasted with light spectrums that disrupt our sleep so installing black-out curtains on our windows can be a game-changer. I keep most electronics out of the room and minimize any light exposure. I run a HEPA fan in the room throughout the day for air quality but taped over the led light. It may seem like a tiny light but once you black your room out it shines up the room and a little tape does the trick.

2: Eat REAL Food

Eat Real Food: This is one of the most neglected holistic health hacks as it takes awareness, research and alot of discipline. Now, this isn’t the place to determine what foods we should and should not eat because more context is required to dial that in; however, what’s pretty standard for everyone should be to eliminate processed and packaged foods, specifically the ones that include chemicals, synthetic ingredients, artificial ingredients, high sugar foods.

Our bodies are literally constructed from the very foods that we consume. It’s a very intimate thing to put something inside of your body to build the structure of your body at a cellular level, which then fuels the energy needed to pursue your dreams.

In America, the streets are lined with restaurants that sell “food-like products” at best. I personally cannot stand the smell of the drive-through restaurants and when walking by, I feel inclined to hold my breath. I beg you to YouTube how you can order food at one of these places, hold onto it for years, and it’ll look exactly the same on it’s 3 year anniversary of being a “burger.” Actually - let me save you the trouble and link that here.

If this “food” is not breaking down over years then we should probably question our body's ability to break it down at all, especially when we know that real foods mold and the energy from that food will have been transferred a long time before processed foods decompose.

If we are eating these food-like products, then our bodies going to have a hard time utilizing nutrients or creating energy from this food. This will likely be a significant cause of disease by the masses in the near future.

Hippocrates said centuries ago “let thy food be thy medicine”.

If we choose to fuel our body with food from the earth, will almost immediately see significant health improvements in our life. With real food as medicine for our body, it can function the way it’s supposed to and we will feel consistently energized.

The thing about nutrition most of us know is that we should be eating healthier but we don’t invest the time and money to do so. In order to achieve this, we have to change our fundamental relationship with food.

A subtle, yet powerful way to address this is by setting our intention with holistic thinking. I have a very clear intention with food. I consume food that my body can use to function at a high level, ensuring that I take in all the nutrients my body needs, and thus properly fuel my body for all of the tasks I wish to accomplish without losing energy.

Eating healthy does not mean sacrificing your taste buds and eating boring food.

It will, however, expose how highly processed, high-sugar foods high-jack our taste buds. So there will likely be a period of time where real foods taste boring but the exciting part is that our taste buds are changing constantly.

Even if we feed our body processed- sugary foods for 50 years straight, the moment we choose to eat real food our taste buds will detox from the processed foods and will acquire new taste buds that start enjoying real foods more.

Additionally, our gut flora will change - improving our immune health, mood, and hormones. You will literally turn genes on and off based on the new information and many people have seen their chronic diseases reverse when making the lifestyle shift.

With the fundamental building blocks of our body finally being those that allow a body to thrive, you will really be saying “I’m lovin’ it.”

When it comes down to what real foods are the best to eat we need to break it down to individual variables and genetics.

But what seems to be true across the board is that a diet rich in plants works well for most people. Plants contain micronutrients, fiber, and important genetic information. They already contain the blueprints to a healthy functioning body that even Western medicine constantly tries to re-create synthetically for prescription drugs.

Plants are conscious beings and certain plants produce compounds like lectins to ward off predators. There are certain foods an individual may not do well with but they may be able to prepare it a certain way (example: pressure cooking or slow cooking beans to reduce lectins or eating certain foods cooked versus raw. If you want more information on foods that you may or may not do well with, Dr. Steven Gundry is a great resource. This article speaks more to lectins and how to navigate that space better.

Two simple concepts that I follow when it comes to consuming food are:

1: Maintain stable blood sugars

When consuming carbohydrates, our body needs to produce insulin to shuttle the glucose (sugar) converted from the carbohydrate throughout the body to use as energy. When we consume a breakfast such as a muffin and coffee with sugary creamer (natural or artificial sweeteners) or a bagel with high glycemic fruit, we will increase our blood sugars by creating a toxic environment inside of the blood. Instead, try consuming a lower carbohydrate breakfast with fats, low glycemic fruit, and/or protein. At the very least if we consume a higher carb food, we should consume it with fat and protein to slow down the absorption of the sugar, this will help keep the environment of our blood much cleaner.

If we have been consuming a high sugar diet for years, our body may have lost the ability to use fat as energy, creating a dependence upon carbohydrates as energy; so if you just try to switch over to a new way of eating you may experience lethargy brain fog and shifting hormones.

In this case, it may be more harmful to go for a quick transition and you may want to wean off carbs by adding in to fats to your normal breakfast while transitioning yourself away from the dependence slowly. With that said I am not anti-carbohydrate, I’m simply anti-dependence on carbohydrates and see this as metabolic damage.

2: Understand/implement meal timing

Our digestive system has two main roles: to digest food and to heal/repair.

If we are eating food all day, specifically eating food that our body has a hard time processing, it will not have much time for healing and repairing. This will negatively hinder our hormone and immune health and put us at a higher risk to develop dis-eases.

With the Standard American Diet (SAD diet), you will have a hard time narrowing your eating window because they recommend starting your day with a “heart-healthy” breakfast such as cereal or granola. Whole grains laced in sugar are touted as healthy but in reality, most people don’t have the ability to break down whole grains and no one should start their day off with a bunch of sugar. This leads to many issues including feeling like you’re starving by lunchtime.

Fun fact, most of us have over a month worth of food stored on our bodies; we don’t lack energy - we lack the ability to use the energy stored on our body.

We all fast during the time we sleep so for many of us fasting 6-8 hours is guaranteed but how we break our fast (breakfast =break-fast) will highly influence how soon we need to eat again. This is why I break my fasts with fat, it fuels me all throughout the morning and afternoon.

Snacking is also a very American issue where we need a pick-me-up between meals or simply eat out of boredom. These sacred hours between meals should be honored to focus on digestion and healing if we are focused on longevity.

My mornings typically look like this:

I wake up and drink about a liter of spring water, go for a walk with the dogs (movement matters), do my morning ritual, then I make a fatty coffee and go about my day. Most days that’s all I have in the morning but if I do eat, I make a higher protein/fat meal and keep the carbs out or low other than my vegetables. I may or may not eat lunch depending on how active I am that day, then I may or may not eat dinner - again based on the given day- have dinner around 6-7 pm. In the middle of those eating periods, it’s important for me to stay hydrated with quality water and give my gut time to properly function.

Fasting

I often incorporate 24-hour fasts, which is simple by simply eating dinner the same time two days in a row and fasting in between. Walah, you just fasted for about 24 hours and didn’t even have to go a day without eating. I also do 72-hour fasts a couple of times a year, which has been used for centuries in various cultures and delivers stimulus that every one of our bodies should be familiar with to be able to function well. For more information on fasting and the benefits, my boy Shawn Stevenson has a great blog on it here!

To sum this up in actionable steps a few key takeaways of fasting are:

Instead of switching diets entirely, simply add more real foods into your life. Begin incorporating them into every meal and slowly adjust the ratio until you no longer consume high-sugar, processed foods- trust me, it’s a time period that is a game-changer.
Based on your personality you may or may not do well with tapering off because sugar does hold addictive qualities. In this case, keeping real foods in-home, cooked, & ready to eat will set us up for success.
For more energy and mental clarity, try real carbohydrate-dense foods such as potatoes, rice, higher glycemic fruit, raw honey, etc., while also providing your body with good fats to become more efficient at using fuel.

When it comes to determining what food you do best with there are many ways to determine what our body vibes with. We can get anecdotal information through a process called an elimination diet which sheds light as to how you respond to foods once you take them out of your diet for 3-4 weeks.

If you have been consuming food you are intolerant to for years, you develop a tolerance to them. Our bodies have to work with what we give them and are very resilient. Though, if we take it out of our diet for 3-4 weeks and reintroduce it, the symptoms will likely be much more obvious and you will be able to tell if your body does not do well with certain food.

You can also do bloodwork and fecal tests, which provide a lot of valuable information we can measure. If you want more clarity and guidance you can work with a Holistic MD who will guide you to a path of moral awareness about your body. They are becoming more prevalent in America so you may be able to find a local MD or you can get a lot of value from an online appointment from someone such as Mark Hyman, you can check his website out here.

3: Develop Your Mind

Developing your mind is one of the most important holistic health solutions. In the western world, we really value productivity… we are doers. This fundamental mentality sparks anxiety to many when they are simply ‘being’. A constant state of doing does not allow us to really experience who we are as be’ers... as see’ers. This overstimulation leads to all sorts of psychological and hormonal issues.

From a very early age, we get accustomed to waking up in the morning going through the process of schooling then maintain that schedule or expand it into a career. I’ll be quick to say that our society works wayyyy too much and many things suffer such as self-discovery, relationship development, and the time needed to raise children with the attention they deserve.

Most schools, at least when I was a kid, focused on giving you information to retain, then prove your ability to regurgitate it. This is a very important skill and is useful but it only trains your brain in certain regions while leaving other important areas undeveloped. It only trains our brain to seek out information and remember it instead of seeking understanding of the ‘why’ behind the truth we are seeking.

This way of thinking is to seek information, not understanding. This is critical to understand and differentiate. To truly understand something we must focus our attention on something, look at all the angles, understand how it relates to other aspects of life, and apply it. This is the process of mastery and yet the ones who thrive the most do not ever claim mastery, they remain a student for life.

Meditation

Many people think of meditation as sitting in lotus pose and focusing on your breath but in reality, meditation can be anything while remaining in the present moment. It could be walking in nature by yourself or it could be having a conversation with your friend just been completely present.

Growing up, I was told by doctors that I had ADHD - coined a mental health disorder from western doctors - but this is just a stamp on the forehead for very generic symptoms. I did not have a deficiency in Adderall- I had my childhood trauma, toxic home environment, a high-sugar, and processed food diet, and a racing/undeveloped mind. When I first began hearing about the value of meditation, I was really challenged by focusing on my breath, I would regularly find myself lost in a random thought of the past or future.

If you are looking for a means to measure progress. It is the moment you become aware that you are drifting off in thought that you became a little better at meditation.

The accumulation of the 10,000,000’ish times I became aware that I was lost in thought has developed my mind to where I am at this point. Because of that, I am better at focusing, allowing me to accumulate many quality hours developing my understanding of myself and the world around me.

Development of our mentality and spirituality influences every aspect of our life. Naturally, as we develop our minds, we become more clear on our habitual patterns. We accumulate awareness around our belief system and develop the tools needed in order to overcome them. This is an exciting time in our life because we become equipped to empower ourselves and really live the life we desire. On a neurological level, we are rewiring our brains. We will see in life what we focus on, our brains guarantee that. If we leave our minds undeveloped, we will receive all the stressors of life- especially if we watch the news- and be in a reactive state all of the time. This is not a state where inspiration and creation thrive, other than inspiration to get rid of the stress.

One’s ability to react less and respond more increases in correlation with one’s development in their mental and spiritual. This responsiveness comes from self whereas reacting is controlled by the stress stimulus.

For many years, the culture has gotten away from spirituality & religion and taught science for all of the answers. As an analytical man, I value measuring and repeating experiments to be certain of the outcome but the more I explore the world and my mind, the more faith I grow in a sense of a higher power and connectivity to everything around me.

“Spooky action at a distance”

Albert Einstein

A beautiful thing about these times is the exposure and further understanding of Quantum Physics. Though the egos… maybe the sanity of scientist who dabbled into Quantum Physics to find themselves fumbling over the “spooky” attributes of Quantum Physics.

Quantum Physics shows us that the observer influences the outcome. There are many ways to go in the conversation at this point. We could bring up the Double Slit Experiment- but it’s easier to have a visual so- here is a Youtube video for ya.

Then there’s quantum entanglement. I remember when I was a dumb 20-year-old and I got in trouble and went to jail, my mom told me the next day, after I was released but haven’t yet told her, that she knew something was wrong. She had an instinctual feeling and dreamt about it that night it happened. This entanglement happens all the time and once we are entangled we develop heightened senses, a bond, that keeps us connected no matter where we are physically. A great video to check out on quantum entanglement is here.

My TOP 3 resources I use to develop my understanding on these topics more are:

Bruce H. Lipton, PhD

Dr. Joe Dispenza

Dr. Andrew Huberman

Click on any of their names to go to their website or search them in YouTube for countless informal videos.

Here are a few things I highly recommend:

Develop a morning routine consisting of any variations of mindfulness development or “me time”. Every morning I drink some water, I take the dogs for a walk, and then I meditate and typically focus on breath work while being present or sometimes I will focus on healing, and I often use visualization. After my meditation, I journal about anything I want on and finish with some gratitude.

Set your intentions to be present throughout the day and seek to understand others around you instead of trying to prove your point of view. This is a very powerful way to wire our brain. Our brain will function however we either consciously or unconsciously choose to use it. So if we consciously choose to seek out new patterns instead of reliving old patterns, it wires our brain to have infinite growth, which it’s really powerful. Those who seek to be called masters or experts and claim to know everything- those who begin to lose interest in learning and lose their curiosity never excel the way students do so. So becoming a student for life is fundamental in order to continue development of our brains which have limitless potential we can do so our entire lives.

Journaling to be a powerful tool to develop awareness around stuck patterns of the past and to become more clear as to what goals we are striving to accomplish in the future. There are times when our minds are focused on stuck thoughts of the past or anxious thoughts of the future. If this is the case, our minds are unsettled and we can alleviate it by simply writing down our thoughts. it’s like unloading a truck that has a full load. I hardly ever go back to re-read journal entrys (though there is value to that to help recognize patterns) but get so much value from writing it down.

The last exercise to rewire and develop our brain is a gratitude practice. This simple yet effective means of thinking allows us to rewire our brain by simply changing what we’re focusing on. Our brain is designed to see in life whatever we’re focused on internally so when we choose to focus on gratitude, it literally wires our brain to seek out things in life to be grateful for. This is SO powerful because we could have two people who live the exact same life but one focuses on gratitude in the other focuses on scarcity and their outcomes will be extremely different.

These three holistic health practices are a part of my daily life and there’s no doubt that it has completely changed the way I navigate and see life. I feel I’ll never master the practice yet I will always grow and develop.

These three holistic solutions, when understood and applied can be a game-changer for your life. We can turn genes on and off simply through our lifestyle measures, now that’s empowerment. We can develop our minds for an entire lifetime and I truly believe our soul seeks eternal growth.

To a more functional life!

Brandon Brown

If you are ready to change your life, apply for a free clarity call and we’ll get you into the Holistic Method right away.