Healthy Nordic Life Choices

This month I am talking about healthy Nordic Life Choices. Being healthy and happy applying 7 Ways to Become Healthy with Nordic Life choices. Some of the choices might surprise you, some you might be already doing. Great! Or some that you think are not that important. But all together they make you a happier and healthier person, the reason why the Nordics are known for their longevity.

Surround Yourself With Nature

If you have greenery around you, if you have trees and grass around you, it de-stresses you.  Maybe you need to bring some plants inside? Flowers? There are studies saying that people are more centered and less stressed if they are looking after plants.  Having a pet does the same thing, right? My boys are begging to have one and once the renovations are over I have promised to give in. But having nature around you is calming hence the cities in the Nordics are surrounded by parks, forest, and water.

Have a Happy Healthy Diet

A happy diet does not mean binge eating for your heart’s content. It means enjoying the food you eat. Taking time to eat, spending time on the dinner table with the family. Have portion controls, not too much not too little just enough like the Swedes say:Lagom. Think about the food when you’re eating it and savor the taste of that food. Don’t just rush it in and think about the next thing that you have to do. Take a moment to enjoy the meal and food that you are eating.

All in Moderation Like the Nordics

No, we are not talking just about food. But everything. Just do it all in moderation.  Healthy nordic life choices is about enjoy what you do. Also, like digital devices don’t sit in front of the telly, or your iPad, your iPhone all day long. But use it sparingly, only when you need to, or when you want to relax a little bit.  All in moderation means that you need to moderate your behavior to enjoy life a little bit more.

Enjoy Life More

Like, having a fika which is the Swedish term having a coffee and a cake where they’re going to sit down and enjoy it with their friend with their family. It is about enjoying life when we are in this constant battle of doing something new and trying something different and just going from one thing to another.

We don’t have time to stop. We don’t stop we just go. And this is about what the Nordics do so well. They enjoy life more and they savor every moment that they can.

Enjoying life could be learning something new, traveling to places you have never visited.  Perhaps for you, it is about learning something, reading a book.

“Look at what you have, how you can enjoy what you already have more.” 

Exercise Like the Nordics

Take time to move your body. In the Nordics, they go skiing, ice skating, downhill skiing, nordic pole walking, snowshoe walking you name it and there is a lots of opportunities out there. You just have to find what works for you.  Everything, anything that you can do to minimize the stress and one of them is to get yourself moving. So include exercise in your everyday activities to have healthy nordic life choices.

Even older people in Scandinavian countries tend to walk more. They have groups of people who go those nordic pole walk-ins together and they go roaming, foraging the forests for mushrooms,  berries etc. We have become disconnected from nature and too urbanized avoiding strenuous activities in many places. So we need to change the tide to be more active.

Reduce Stress

All these things that I’ve been telling you before this exercise, enjoying life and all in moderation and having an happy diet and surrounding yourself with nature. They all reduce stress. But what else can you do to reduce your stress?

At the Nordics, it would be having a sauna. Sauna is common in many households in the Nordics.  For you it might be having a massage, going for a spa to relax.  You might like sitting by the sea watching the waves and just letting time go by. Whatever it is that you do, do more of it.

The people at the Nordics, they’re alive and they’re exercising. So reducing stress, if you’re living somewhere else not in the Nordics, it is possible but you just have to find the trigger for you.

Have Some Sisu

Sisu means that you have strength, reliance, determination. You have the strength to go through all obstacles for whatever life throws at you. Sisu is what we all carry inside of ourselves. Sisu is not a thing that you can buy. It is about how we express our character and have some Sisu when times get hard. At the moment during the global pandemic, this is what is getting us through: Sisu.

If you wanted to listen or read the episode where I talked about the terms Fika, Sisu in more detail What is the Meaning of These Nordic Words. 

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