Learning to break the cycle of modern living is important, especially in our modern western world. Our modern society has turned into a disconnected industrialized society where people are over fed and severely under nourished. Not only that, but our current society also promotes overworking, hustle culture, neglecting the bodies needs, and eating food devoid of nutrients, high in preservatives and artificial ingredients. Our society has become full of laziness, sedentary lifestyles, and we’ve developed an overall fear of making our own decisions when it comes to our own health. All while women feel more and more pushed to take on a masculine role while neglecting their cyclical and maternal needs.
We currently live in a world where chronic debilitating illness rates are at an all-time high. Childhood cancer is at an all-time high. Our mortality rate is now lower than our parents. Infertility rates are at an all-time high, testosterone is at an all-time low. We are more depressed and anxious than ever all while being overmedicated. In a world thats disconnected from our bodies, lacking the ability to take our health into our own hands, and lacking the confidence to make decisions for our own health. Breaking the cycle of modern living is so important to see lifelong change. Today let’s dive deep into 5 different ways we can break the cycle of modern living to change our lifestyle, health, and mental health in a world that disempowers us to do so.
1. Cook Food From Scratch
One of the easiest ways we can start the journey of breaking the cycle of modern living is to learn to cook food from scratch. From scratch cooking is slowly becoming a dying skill in our modern world thats more focused on convince, overworking, and being in a general state of rush. We bring back so much power to ourself and our family when we’re able to slow down, be present, and make a meal at home. It may sound cliche but its much more impacting than you’d expect.
The first step to make cooking from scratch/cooking homemade meals feel apart of your normal day to day routine is becoming more of an ingredient household. This may sound daunting at first but its really not as bad as you’d think. When grocery shopping it helps to shop the borders of the store rather than all the middle isles. Most grocery stores have the produce, dairy, meats, and deli on the border of the store rather than the middle isles that are almost always filled with fake, chemical filled, and preservative loaded boxed “foods”. Focus on getting real ingredients like red meat, chicken, seafood, vegetables, cheese, fruit, spices, unbleached unenriched flour, maple syrup/raw honey, etc. Rather than prepackaged frozen and boxed foods that are almost always loaded with artificial ingredients, unnecessary preservatives, and synthetic vitamins.
The second step is to start with one meal a day.
Baby steps are key to seeing true lifelong change that helps us break the cycle of modern living. I personally recommend starting with breakfast because it can be one of the easiest meals to make from scratch. Instead of getting an artificial preservative filled sandwich or baked good from a chain coffee shop (like Starbucks or Dunkin), get up 15 minutes earlier than normal and fry up 2-3 eggs with some bacon or sausage. Smoothies are also a great way to get high protein and nutrients in before leaving the house! Add in things like raw milk, raw egg yolks, yogurt, avocado, protein powder (use my code HHEARTLAND for 15% off of Equip Prime Protein Powder), and antioxidant rich fruits, adaptogenic mushroom powders, herbal tinctures, etc.
The third step is to get comfortable in the kitchen. It may feel foreign to you now but soon it will be a place of abundance, inspiration, and creativity! Buying books that have your favorite recipes is a great way to get accustomed to the kitchen. Learn how to make a dish you’ve never made before or that favorite dessert you haven’t had in awhile. Remember, failure is apart of the process and we shouldn’t be afraid to fail in the kitchen. Failure is bound to happen, the first few weeks can feel like a failure but just remember that to become good at something we must fail at it first. Being able to get up and do it again teaches us perseverance and also proves to ourselves that we are completely capable of doing and learning hard things. Take it one day at a time and one meal at a time, don’t try to learn everything at once.
2. Slow Down, Reject Hustle Culture
In a world that’s focused on hustle culture and abandoning our own mental/physical needs learning to break the cycle of modern living truly sets us free. Learning to break the cycle of modern living by actively choosing to slow down, be present, and do things that bring regulation to the mind and body is so important for creating a life that doesn’t feel rushed. It can be so easy to get caught up in modern day to day hustle that it may feel foreign at first to actually slow down and give your body the rest, regulation, and ease it needs to thrive and come out of a sympathetic state (flight, fight, freeze response of the nervous system – more on this topic later).
Slowing down can be much easier said than done especially when our normal is stress, overwork, and the “don’t stop until you drop” mentality thats been engrained in most of us from youth. An easy way we can teach our body its okay to slow down is to start chasing slow dopamine. Meaning putting our extra time into things that bring the brain slower reward, endorphins, and regulation. For example, reading a good book rather than doom scrolling, going on a walk or hike in nature, going barefoot in your backyard to bask in the sun and just be, journaling, gardening, baking, and even cooking.
Studies show that reading can help to bring down the nervous system from a sympathetic state while promoting a parasympathetic state(rest and digest of the nervous system).
Choosing things that offer reward and gratification in a much slower way can really benefit the nervous system and how we perceive the world around us. Another way we can slow down and break free from hustle culture is by not allowing ourselves to become a slave to a company or job. Yes, I completely understand that we need money to survive and our current world is so hyper focussed on working until we drop. Regardless of that we have a choice to take a step back when needed and give ourselves the time we need to rest, heal, and regulate.
I too have to have a part time job outside of the home as we work on getting our life put into place and to buy a home. Just remember that we aren’t forced to stay somewhere that doesn’t bring us life, energy, and the money we need. We have freedom and freewill to quit, apply to other better fitting jobs, and find a workplace that better fits our current needs and wants. Some things I’m doing to help me slow down and reject hustle culture whilst having a part time job:
- Choosing a job that actually makes me happy and still provides me enough pay that fits our current financial situation.
- Only working part time so I still have enough time to do the things I need to heal and rest while still making enough money to get by, afford what we need, and pay bills. I refuse to overwork myself, especially coming from being bedridden and debilitated from chronic illness. My health is more important that living lavishly or making more than what we need right now, my priorities are in my health
- Putting my trust and faith in God, knowing that I will be provided for regardless of what we don’t have or when money feels “tight”.
- Making sure each day I do work that I’m still thinking about my health, wellness, and food intake regardless of working. Still making sure I eat a nutrient dense diet, focus on from scratch foods cooked at home, getting body movement in, focusing on lymphatic drainage, and getting the mental and physical rest I need to keep going.
- Not allowing excuses or laziness fog my mind to where I start slipping back into old habits just because of a part time job. That can be a tough one to hear, but a lot of our issues are stemmed from our own laziness, unwillingness to try, and always saying “I’ll get to that tomorrow”. We must focus on being proactive, dedicated, and pushing through so we can actually achieve healing and maintain homeostasis during working.
- This in no way means we must neglect our bodies and keep going when our body is screaming to stop and rest. More-so meaning that we cant let modern day laziness and bare minimum effort hold us hostage to a lifestyle we don’t even want and are actively striving to get away from. Rest when you need to rest but we must understand the difference of true rest and regulation vs laziness, numbing out, and disassociating from modern day to day tasks/struggles.
3. Remove Systems That No Longer Serve You or Your Family
Deciding to no longer follow in the footsteps of a system that no longer serves you or your family is liberating. Some say that it just means more work for you, that can be accurate in a sense. But, when we decide to break free from these systems we tend to learn how to do more things ourselves. But overall that hard work actually brings more gratitude and satisfaction for choosing to grow or learn rather than stay stagnant. Along with that we usually end up building a stronger community around us too.
Some systems that may no longer be serving you could be big pharma, mainstream medicine, modern doctors, modern dentistry, mainstream nutrition guidelines, etc.
This is in no way saying things like mainstream doctors dont have a purpose, they’re amazing at what they’re trained to be good at, emergency situations. But when it comes to things like chronic illness, autoimmune diseases, etc it can be hard getting the proper care you need to actually heal and move forward. For example: From 16 to 22 I suffered with chronic debilitating pain(fibromyalgia), severe IBS, chronic constipation, chronic fatigue, cyclical vomiting, fainting/passing out, dizziness, hand pain, loss of grip, and so much more.
It’s crazy to think back now at just how bad things were, I was so lost and afraid. I didn’t find much help with mainstream medicine either. The top doctors in America and Mayo Clinic told me, word for word, that my only options were to “cope and medicate”. That healing wasn’t possible for someone like me with my diagnoses. Years went by going through the mainstream medical system and nothing got better, in fact I even got told by my doctors at the time that my quality of life would only deplete, I was only 19 years old! It shatters my heart thinking about other young women who are in a similar situation that i was in at such a young age. Feeling gaslit, hopeless, and made to feel that there was nothing to do to help heal or move forward.
Long story short, getting told such blatant lies and limiting beliefs lit a fire inside me to understand the truth. The truth that sometimes you need to break free from the systems that claim to be there for you when in reality they’re made to keep us stuck in a never ending cycle of symptoms, medication, and dis-ease. The best thing I did for myself was to break free from the mainstream medical system and start to do self research into all my diagnoses and symptoms. Slowly I was able to adapt a much more natural and holistic full body approach to healing, rather than separating my body into a million pieces the way mainstream medicine does. I was able to figure out that most of my issues were correlated with a severe leaky gut, hormone dysfunction, and an extremely dysreguated nervous system that was stuck in a maladaptive stress response loop.
Sometimes we need to remove ourselves from a system that no longer serves us and find a solution that works to get us to a place of healing and moving forward.
Rather than staying with a system that keeps us stuck feeling sick, hopelessness, stagnant, and disempowered in our bodies. For me, this looked like finding a functional holistic care team that went about healing in a much more natural full body approach. I now see a functional holistic women’s practitioner whom ive loved working with because she actually takes me seriously, understands my symptoms without discrediting me, and also looks at the big picture aka my entire body and how its all interconnected. I also see a holistic dentist whos approach to mouth and teeth health is vastly different from whats offered at modern dentistry practices.
Aside from working with holistic minded functional practitioners, doing your own research is key to fully understanding the body as a whole, what our symptoms mean, and actually figuring out a way to move forward towards healing; not just coping and medicating our way through illness, aka slapping a bandaid on our symptoms and calling it a day(which is what most mainstream doctors do sadly). Learning about gut health, leaky gut, the gut brain connection, nervous system regulation, somatic practices, brain rewiring, hormone health, what our organs purposes and functions mean, and how the whole body is truly interconnected.
Some books and resources to help get you started on your journey of removing systems that no longer serve you or your family:
- GAPS: Gut and Physiology Syndrome by Dr. Campbell Mcbride
- GAPS: Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Campbell Mcbride
- The Weston A Price Foundation and all of his work and articles
- DNRS (Dynamic Neural Retraining System), a nervous system & brain retraining program
- Nourishing Broth by Sally Fallon Morell
- Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon Morell
- Nourishing Fats by Sally Fallon Morell
- The Truth About Contagion by Thomas Cowan and Sally Fallon Morell
- Wired for Healing – Annie Hopper (Book about DNRS and the limbic system within the brain)
- Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price
- Vaccines, Autoimmunity, and the Changing Nature of Childhood Illness by Thomas Cowan
- Folks, This Ain’t Normal: A Farmers Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World by Joel Salatin
- Alchemy of Herbs by Rosalee De La Foret
- Holistic Health and Healing by Brigitte Mars and Chrystle Fiedler
4. Movement is Medicine, Choose to Move the Body Daily
In our world thats mostly sedentary and limits us to confines of a desk, office, and being inside sitting all day it’s so empowering to be able to move our bodies and break free from that cycle. Daily movement doesn’t have to be crazy. We can choose what works best for us and not over working our bodies which just leads to more sedentary living/giving up. Being able to find balance between work, day to day life, and moving our body is key. Starting small is also going to help a ton, don’t overdo it and find yourself back at the beginning feeling defeated and discouraged.
Daily body movement can be different every day or if a routine is your thing, stick to a specific set of movements throughout each week and repeat. For me, I enjoy diversity in my movement. One day it’s simple stretching on my mat in front of my red light. Other days it’s full 25-30 minute low cortisol workouts with stretching or gentle strength training. Sometimes it’s even just putting on some upbeat music and doing intuitive movement in whatever way my body needs to move. Other days I’ll go out hiking and walk over 4 miles or just a quick walk around my neighborhood.
When it comes to moving our body, I think we can get so caught up on how we look.
Being able to step outside of ourselves to realize movement can be for release, relaxation, and a wonderful way to boost our love for our body. Movement doesn’t have to be about performing or looking a certain way, in fact it shouldn’t be about looks or performance. Movement is a blessing and you know what they say… “use it or lose it”. That cliche statement holds a lot of truth, in order to achieve our goals with health we have to keep using our body in ways that will actually provide lifelong change and growth. It starts by holding ourselves accountable for moving our bodies daily, a couple times a week, or just once a week. Theres no perfect schedule to follow which is why it’s best to learn what our body can handle right now and stick with that for a while before pushing ourselves to new extremes.
If you’re healing from chronic illness you may benefit from resistance training, slowly building muscle growth, gentle flow stretching, intuitive movement, hiking out in nature, and walking after each meal. Starting is the first hard step, don’t wait till everything is perfect to start. Don’t wait for the gym membership or home equipment. There’s so many things readily available to us for free that we can use to improve our health and get in daily movement.
With all this being said, rest and prioritizing what the body needs is still most important. If you’re a woman reading this, it could benefit you to get in sync with your cycle to understand what workouts and types of movement are best. for you during each phase of the cycle. Making sure we understand when our body needs rest and when its calling for movement is key. Along with working through laziness, limiting beliefs around movement that hold us back, and paralysis by analysis is important when we’re wanting to incorporate a new way of being and living.
5. Regulate Emotions and The Nervous System
As surprising as it may sound, most adults can’t can’t even articulate what they feel, control their anger, understand what their emotions mean, and how to work through difficult emotions in a healthy way. Our society is obsessed with quick fixes, numbing out the pain, disassociating, self medicating away the feelings/pain, drinking away the feelings/pain, and pushing aside our true emotions and feelings. This constant state of numbing out can take a toll on our nervous system and its ability to come down from the sympathetic state(flight, fight, and freeze state – more on this below).
Our nervous system is a network of nerves and cells which regulate all vital functions that take place in our bodies. The sympathetic nervous system(SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) are both components of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Together, they regulate the involuntary and reflexive functions of the human body.
The PSNS controls the ‘rest and digest’ functions of the body and maintains the body’s internal environment. It is responsible for regulating digestive and sexual function while keeping heart rate and blood pressure steady. The SNS is the driving force behind the ‘fight or flight’ response and triggers a number of physiological changes that prepare the body to confront or flee a perceived threat. If we find ourselves in a dangerous situation, it is the SNS that prepares us to save ourselves by either fighting the threat or running away from it. When confronted with a potential threat, the SNS directs energy away from non-essential functions (like the digestive system) and towards functions that are essential to survival.
This is a huge reason why if we’re in a constant maladaptive stress response look stuck in the sympathetic state; things like digestion, healing, and true regulation can be extremely hard to achieve. Our modern word is focused on overworking, hustling, and the “don’t stop until you drop” mentality that its caused an epidemic of a huge portion of our society thats stuck in a flight, fight, and freeze response. We no longer feel like we “have time” for proper rest, actually expressing our emotions, and learning how to regulate them in a healthy way to have tools at hand to actively regulate when hard times arise. I firmly believe this is whats contributing to the overabundance of leaky gut syndrome, chronic illness, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and the inability to regulate emotions in a healthy way.
Ways to work on regulating the nervous system and emotions:
- Actually give yourself space to FEEL your emotions. Instead of immediately shutting down, make room to express what you truly feel without guilt or shame. Many of us were told things like “stop crying” or “why are you being so overdramatic” or “get over it” as children thus furthering us from being able to truly feel without embarrassment, guilt, or shame.
- Identify where the feelings are in your body. Most of our emotions and feelings hold tension in the body. This is why when we suppress our emotions we end up feeling the tension in the body. Theres a huge correlation of chronic body pain and surpassed emotions, a dysregulated nervous system, and trauma. Being able to identify where the emotions, tension, or pain is in the body is the first step to putting into words what we feel and where we feel it at.
- Put words to what you feel. Say it out loud to yourself or a loved one who can help correlate with you or write it down in a journal. Being able to put words to our emotions and suppressed feelings when they come up is the second step to help get us to a place of regulation and that parasympathetic state of rest and digest.
- Learn somatic practices you can utilize during moments of big emotions or when suppressed traumas/memories arise instead of numbing out. Looking up somatic practices on Google or Youtube can be helpful on your journey of learning to regulate bug emotions and suppressed traumas. Theres also some amazing books out there that can help teach you the tools you need to work through big or suppressed emotions/traumas.
- Do research on rewiring the brain. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to adapt and change. This ability to change can be both positive and negative. We can utilize neuroplasticity in a positive way to help get the brain out of a maladaptive stress response loop keeping us stuck in the sympathetic state. We don’t have to be bound to our brains wiring, especially when most of the way its wired was from early childhood experiences, shaped by the trauma we endured, etc.
DNRS (The Dynamic Neural Retraining System™ is a drug-free, self-directed program that uses the principles of neuroplasticity to help reverse limbic system impairment in the brain, and to regulate a maladapted stress response involved with many chronic illnesses. The program incorporates both top-down (brain to body) and bottom-up (body to brain) processing strategies to heal the brain and body.)
DNRS is a great resource to help learn about the brain, its connection to the gut, and its ability to heal. Primal Trust and the GUPTA program are also amazing programs offered to help rewire the brain and learn how to regulate the nervous system. I’ve personally only tried DNRS and loved it which is why i recommend that one. But dear friends of mine online have talked highly of the other two so I wanted to offer those too.
The brain is the control center for optimal health and drives the functioning of all systems of the body.
The limbic system is a complex set of structures in the midbrain and is associated with emotion, learning, memory and the body’s stress response [1]. Ongoing or chronic stress and various forms of trauma such as a viral or bacterial infection, extreme emotional or psychological stress, toxic exposure to chemicals or mold, physical injury, as well as many other forms of trauma can cause threat circuits in the brain’s limbic system to fire more rapidly. This is the brain’s innate response to stress and trauma, however, in some cases the brain’s limbic system can get stuck in a chronic fight, flight or freeze response and become impaired.
This maladapted stress response is called Limbic System Impairment. The brain and body remain on high alert, even if the initial threat or trauma is no longer present. Limbic System Impairment can be caused by a single trauma, or more often from a combination of stressors and traumas over time, and for so many it is at the very root of their ongoing suffering.
Limbic System Impairment can affect many systems of the brain and body, including those involved with emotion, sensory perception and cognitive function. Symptoms may include chronic inflammation, poor memory, brain fog, digestive issues, lowered energy levels, numerous sensitivities, chronic pain, sleep issues as well as a host of other symptoms [4, 5]. Bodily functions such as detoxification, absorption of nutrients and cellular communication can also become compromised.
Through brain rewiring and regulating the nervous system we can get out of the maladaptive stress response loop thats keeping us stuck in illness. This is great news! We have ways to heal, it may take time but allow yourself to be patient along the healing journey as you learn a new way to live, approach big feelings, and handle suppressed traumas that come up. Most of all, remember that healing is possible. Our body is wired to heal and when we give it all the things it needs to thrive we create an even better success rate for healing.
Healing IS Possible
Breaking the cycle of modern living is a choice that leads to healing, understanding the body as a whole, and taking your health into your own hands. We have the choice daily to show up for ourselves and do the small daily inputs needed to see change and growth. Start today and remember that baby steps are key to sticking to a lifestyle change and seeing lifelong change. You got this.
Follow me on other socials for more content on all things healing, breaking the cycle of modern living, cooking, herbalism, and so much more!
Youtube: @homesteadingheartland
Leave a Reply