30 Minute Wellness Routine

This shop to share my 30 minute wellness routine with you has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #TryALittleGoodness #CollectiveBias

I didn’t  make resolutions this year. Well not really, I decided I’m going to try to live by a couple of choice words this year. One of those words was Wellness. I’ve always been a fan of a rounded out wellness plan. Something that focuses on mind, body and spirit. Stress and a sedentary lifestyle have taken it’s toll on me so I need to make some changes.

Big sudden changes don’t work for me. I lose motivation just as fast as I jump into them. Instead I decided to take some things I’ve done in the past that I kept up with and enjoy, and worked them into a regular wellness routine for myself. What I love about this routine is I can expand it to last an hour or more if I want to, or I can shorten it to fit into a thirty minute time frame. If I have even less time or small blocks of time, I can fit them in randomly through my day.

Today I’m going to show you how I format my thirty minute wellness routine.

30 Minute Wellness Routine

Before you get started gather up your materials. You can complete this entire routine with the bare minimum of a timer, a notebook and pen. If you want to add more supplies to enhance your practice, I give some supply suggestions throughout the routine.

10 Minutes of Yoga. When I was an undergraduate I went through some stressful times, as a lot of students do, and I wound up losing my loan due to a semester of poor performance. I was a mess, but I stepped up and wrote a letter to the financial aid department to explain what was going on and what changes I was making in my life. One of them was yoga. They were impressed enough with my problem solving that, much to my relief, they reinstated my loan.

When I was doing yoga I was amazed at how fast I built up strength, and the focus it gave me outside of the practice. That’s something I want to achieve again! For a yoga practice I like to have my yoga mat, a yoga towel, at least one block, though two are best if you’re unbalanced or not so flexible, plus a yoga strap to help with stretching. You can find some great DVD’s in stores, books that walk you through the movements, or even some great tutorials on YouTube. Like any new fitness routine, make sure you check with your doctor first.

5 Minutes of Meditation. When I had my first daughter one of the compliments I received from the nurses is that they’ve never seen a more focused mother in the delivery room. I’m sure they were exaggerating, but at the time, I knew there was some truth to it. I’d been practicing meditation and if nothing else, I could shut my mind off from everything except the one thing I wanted to focus on.

The beauty of meditation is anyone can do it. Even those of you sitting there shaking your head telling me right now that you can’t do it. Trust me, you can. There are many different varieties of meditation out there. Everything from laying on the ground thinking of nothing to walking, even to spending a few minutes having a good belly laugh. I learned a lot of my beginning meditation techniques from one of my undergraduate professors. He was a Zen Buddhist Monk and with our Eastern Psychology class he had us spend the first 20 minutes of each class doing meditation of some kind. It was in that class I learned about that special meditation cushion in the photo above. It’s called a zafu and it’s normally filled with buckwheat. It’s firm and great to sit on for meditation, though it’s not a requirement.

5 Minutes of Breathing Exercises. I had no idea how important proper breathing was to wellness until I took a couple of classes with Breathing instructor Dr. Belisa Vranich. It was eye opening. I obviously knew I needed to breathe to live, and I knew that if you’re a singer or speaker you need to breathe properly for your craft, but when she started to explain the science behind proper breathing, I knew I was doing it all wrong.

Since those classes I purchased her book and she personally gave me an audio file where she leads me through a breathing class. If you’re looking for more instruction you can grab her book too, or just start with some deep breaths. You know how it goes. Inhale for a slow count of five and exhale for a count of five, Repeat. That’s all you need to do!

10 Minutes of Journaling. I’ve always loved to write down my thoughts. In fact, I own over 20 different journals, and I use all of them for a different theme of writing! You’re not expected to get quite that elaborate, it’s just a reflection of my love of journaling that has grown over the past 20 years.

Write about whatever suits you. Turn it into a sort of diary where you write out your daily activities, write about specific topics, such as gardening, or self improvement ideas, or get your imagination going and write about one of the thousands of writing prompts you can find online. Try out a few journaling approaches and see what works for you.

Finish off your routine with goodnessknows® snack squares. These are delicious and their focus of “goodness to greatness” ties in my routine perfectly. I love them because they use real fruit, whole nuts and my favorite, dark chocolate! Yum! Out of all three flavors, goodnessknows® Cranberry, Almond, Dark Chocolate is my favorite.

There are three different flavors  of goodnessknows® snack squares you can pick up at your local Walmart.

• goodnessknows® Cranberry, Almond, Dark Chocolate
• goodnessknows® Apple, Almond & Peanut, Dark Chocolate
• goodnessknows® Peach & Cherry, Almond, Dark Chocolate

Just pick them up on your way out of the store in the checkout lane.

There you have it, an easy to do wellness routine in just 30 minutes a day! This is what I’m doing and I expect to see these small changes in my life having a big effect.

• 10 Minutes of Yoga
• 5 Minutes of Meditation
• 5 Minutes of Breathing Exercise
• 10 minutes of Journaling
• goodnessknows® snack squares to finish the routine.

What activities do you include in your wellness routine? Share your routine in the comments below.