Free Self Care
By Free Self Care
Free Self Care Jun 26, 2019
Why You Need to Stop Comparing to Others
Top Health Benefits of Yoga
Simple Tricks to Boost Your Mood
Hacks to Make Exercise a Habit
Why You Should Practice Yoga
Sneaky Situations Derailing Your Diet
7 Steps to New Positive Habits
Listen to this episode for the 7 steps to start building more positive habits in your daily life!
How You Can Benefit From Side Projects
Finding The Best Workouts For Your Goals
Ask yourself first, what do you aim to achieve with exercise? Then listen to learn which of the various workouts are best to help you to reach your goals!
How to Better Deal with Change
Change, well it’s inevitable in life. In fact, it’s one of the most constant things that we can count on happening in our day to day lives. Most people fear change and not only that, worry about it before it even happens. Instead of worrying about change, today we'll discuss 7 ways to better deal with it and come out on the positive side.
Simple Ways to Unplug from Your Phone
How many times a day do you check your phone? How about how many times per hour? Probably way too many times right?!
If just thinking about unplugging from your phone makes you feel anxious, don’t worry, you don’t have to fully detach from your phone to get the same benefits! Starting with just small steps to being on your phone less can be very beneficial, you just need a plan of action. In this episode Sarah-Kate gives you the best minimally invasive ways to decrease your time on your phone and more time in the present.
How to Sleep Better at Night
In this episode Sarah-Kate helps you with your bedtime routine to get a better sleep at night. Sleep is so incredibly important for our mind and body, and is a necessity for optimal functioning and for us to feel our best. After a good sleep you feel energized, happy, less stressed, and that’s because all of your hormones were able to reset and recharge while you were sleeping. Unfortunately, the opposite is true when you get a bad sleep – you are irritable, tired, hungry, the day just seems longer and everything appears harder. This is why we want to minimize bad sleep as much as possible!
Most of the things that can prevent you from getting a good sleep occur just a few hours before you want to sleep, which is a good thing because this means they can be completely avoidable – you just need to know what they are!
Avoid These Foods for Weight Loss
Eating Healthy on a Budget
In this episode Sarah-Kate (our resident health expert) discusses the cheapest and healthiest foods that you can find in the market to help you to put together simple, healthy, and cheap meals. As a full-time college student for about eight years, SK had to learn how to eat healthy on a very tight budget – especially when living in New York City where prices seemed to be exponentially higher for everything! Learn her tips and tricks in this episode!
How to Prevent a Hangover
I can imagine that just about everyone who has drank alcohol before has experienced a hangover at some point in time. Hangovers range in quality and severity with symptoms such as fatigue, nausea, headache, shakiness, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, anxiety, and depression.
The only real way to prevent a hangover is to not drink alcohol, but here are some tips that can make it less likely that you will experience a hangover, or at least ways to prevent its severity.
How to Prevent Constipation
This is a very common question that I get from my patients as well as our online community and on Instagram. Constipation is incredibly common but it doesn’t have to be! There are many ways to prevent constipation – or at least relieve symptoms of constipation to some degree – by making a few lifestyle and food changes.
Listen to learn the best ways to prevent constipation!
How Coffee Can Help You Lose Weight
Good news coffee lovers – coffee may help you to lose weight and help you to reach your fitness goals quicker! Listen to learn the top 5 ways coffee helps you to lose weight!
Why Breakfast Is Your Most Important Meal
Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? This is one of the most common questions I’ve had in practice. And to answer simply, yes it is. What you eat (or don’t eat) in the morning does dictate how you will feel for the rest of the day.
Listen to learn why breakfast is the most important meal of the day!
Surprising Foods That Make You Hungrier
If you feel like you are always hungry and constantly needing to snack, it’s probably a good idea to take a look at what you are eating on a daily basis. It could be that you are just not eating enough at breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner, or it could be that it’s WHAT you are eating that is making you hungrier sooner.
Listen to learn the top foods that make you hungry!
Top Healthy Ways to Gain Weight
Gaining weight is not as easy as it sounds, especially if you are someone who likes to eat healthy and loves to exercise. That being said, there are definitely ways to tweak your diet and exercise routine to gain weight in a healthy way without having to ditch your healthy lifestyle.
Listen to this episode to learn the best ways to gain weight the healthy way!How to Be a Great Communicator
With all of the chatter going on in today’s world, it’s incredibly important for you to be able to stand out from the crowd and communicate effectively. In fact, one of the most common traits of successful leaders is that they are great communicators.
In this episode Eric discusses 8 ways to improve your own communication skills.
Food and Drink Causing Your Heartburn
Heartburn is when acid from the stomach shoots up into the esophagus, causing that burning like feeling down the throat – this is why heart burn is also referred to as “acid reflux.” I once had it described to me as a burp that won’t come out, which I think is probably the best description of how it feels!
Heartburn is an incredibly uncomfortable thing and just about everyone will experience heartburn at some point in time. There are certainly ways to prevent acid reflux, and the prevention starts with food and drink. You don’t have to necessarily cut back on all of the food and drink that can cause heart burn, but cutting back and just being aware of the top offenders is good for your to know in case you start experiencing heartburn, or if you want to prevent heart burn in the first place.
Listen to this episode to learn the top food and drink to avoid to limit your heartburn!
How to Quiet Your Monkey Mind
Do you constantly feel like you have a voice in your head (feeding you negative thoughts!)? Well the good news is that this doesn’t make you crazy, it’s actually built into our DNA to have this pesky sidekick living alongside us. This mostly unwanted friend is often referred to as our “Monkey Mind” and like any monkey – it needs to be properly tamed. If the monkey mind is not properly tamed and we attach ourselves to it, that’s when serious problems begin to arise in our lives.
In this episode, Eric talks about 6 ways that you can quiet your monkey mind and start living more in the moment.
Physical Symptoms of Depression You Need to Know
Think depression is all in the head? Well, think again. Depression is much more than just feeling sad and it actually may manifest itself in many different physical ways that you may not be aware of. Listen to this episode to learn 8 physical symptoms of depression.
Healthy Habits That Aren't So Healthy
The worst is when you are actively trying to be healthy and trying to incorporate healthy practices into your daily routine, only to find out that what you are doing is not helping, or may even be hurting you.
The Worst Vacation Habits Making You Gain Weight
Taking a vacation is one of the very best things you can do for yourself because it’s a time to make happy memories and to reset and recharge. That being said, vacation can also be a time that you sabotage your healthy diet and exercise routine if you don’t plan accordingly. Listen to this episode to learn the worst vacation choices making you gain weight.
Saltiest Foods Making You Bloated and Heavy
Do you ever consider how much sodium you are consuming? Most individuals need under 2,300 mg of sodium per day. This might sound like a lot, but it actually adds up very quickly and most will actually eat twice as much of this recommended amount. Ok, so why should you care? Well, aside from being linked to heart problems and certain diseases, too much sodium can also make you very uncomfortable. This is because an overload of sodium in the body leads to fluid retention, weight gain, bloating, and all around puffiness – nobody wants any of that. Listen to this episode to learn the foods you should limit and maybe avoid.
Our Favorite Healthy Travel Snacks
Traveling can be fun, but it can also be unpredictable and it can be hard to stick to a healthy diet while traveling. The key is to have a plan, and to have healthy snacks on hand.
A key point is to make sure you buy your snacks before you get to the airport or gas station, because the prices will be SO much higher at these places!
What You Should Know About the Keto Diet
A ketogenic diet means that most of your calories are coming from fat, you are eating a moderate amount of protein, and keeping carbs low – around 50 grams net carbs. In my opinion, when done correctly this type of diet is best for controlling and preventing chronic disease – most notably diabetes and obesity – and can make you feel awesome!
"Healthy" Drinks You Should Really Avoid
It’s not easy sticking to a healthy diet, and what makes it even worse is when food and drink are marketed as healthy, only for you to find out that they are anything but healthy! Beverages are the worst offenders because they are easy to consume without them making you feel full or realizing that they are actually loaded with sugar. Listen to this episode to hear the top 6 beverages you should really avoid.
Simple Mindfulness Practices for Children
In this episode we discuss 6 ways you can practice mindfulness with children and start their journey to a mindful life at an early age.
Let's Talk About Fruit
Fruit has a ton of nutrients and vitamins, but it also contains a good amount of sugar. Too much sugar from any source is toxic to the body, and too much sugar in the body is a risk factor for basically every type of chronic disease including diabetes and obesity. Learn about the good and the bad when it comes to fruit in this episode.
Dehydration Signs You Need to Know
Dehydration is extremely common, it’s probably one of the most common conditions I see in practice. Identifying that you are indeed dehydrated can be tricky because the most common symptoms are often very subtle. Understanding the symptoms of dehydration is extremely important to be able to treat the underlying cause of your symptom and make you feel better quickly and easily.
The Supplements We Take Daily
There are thousands of different supplements in the market today, and the efficacy is questionable for at least half of them. Let us start this first by saying that I believe diet and lifestyle are always best, but in cases where this is not enough, taking a supplement can certainly be beneficial. In this episode Sarah-Kate gives you her list of supplements that she gets the most questions about from patients – and which she recommends you take on a daily basis. We recommend after listening to this episode you check out labdoor.com which is a company that ranks brands based on efficacy, safety, and label accuracy.
Quick Ways to Boost Your Energy
Having low energy is the worst! Feeling sluggish and fatigued can also make you feel depressed, down, and unproductive – not good! We all feel a little low energy at times which is fine, but there are definitely ways to kick start your energy back into high gear quickly. In this episode Sarah-Kate gives your her top ways to increase your energy right NOW!
How to Make Healthy Breakfast Choices
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day because what you eat (or don’t eat) will play a huge part in how you feel the rest of the day. Yes, that one meal in the morning will affect your mood, blood sugar, hunger, and food choices for the rest of the day – wow! So what do you choose when it comes to choosing your breakfast? In this episode Sarah-Kate will help you with what to eat and what to skip when it comes to breakfast.
Tips to Stay Healthy on Vacation
Vacation can be incredibly beneficial for your health because it is a time to reset and relax, and to get away from stressors of everyday life. However, sometimes vacation can turn into a time that we over indulge and by the end of the vacation you might feel like you need a vacation from your vacation! In this episode Sarah-Kate gives you her favorite ways to stay in shape and feel great while on vacation.
Thoughts on Living a Life of Purpose
I think we can all admit that we often spend our days navigating busyness while on ‘autopilot’, jumping from task to task, not living life with a true intention. When we do this we don’t feel a sense of joy or purpose in our lives, but instead feel anxiety and chaos. In this episode Eric gives you 7 tips to live your life more deliberately.
Travel Hacks You Need to Know
Travel is one of the best things you can do with your money because the experiences and the memories last a lifetime. Experiencing other cultures and other ways of living broadens your scope of perspective and enhances the quality of your own life. Studies have also found that spending money on experiences makes you much happier than spending money on things. That being said, travel can be costly, stressful, and energy-zapping, sometimes making you feel you need a vacation from your vacation! In this episode Sarah-Kate shares her top travel hacks to improve the travel experience and prevent the downsides of traveling.
How to Bring Out Your Positive Emotions
We all have positivity inside of us, it just takes cultivating certain daily approaches to life to bring it out. Our brains are wired to default to the emotions that are most often demonstrated – so instead of focusing on fear, grief, and other negative emotions – focus on love, passion, and other positive emotions. In today's episode we discuss the 7 emotional “seeds” to try and plant daily.
Eat Healthy and Save Money on Vacation
Experiences and memories last forever which is why vacation is one of the very best things you can spend your money on. That being said, vacation can be quite costly! One aspect of vacation that can either make or break your bank account is the food. Think about how many meals you eat a day, the drinks you order, the snacks – it all adds up quickly! The good news is that with a little planning, you can easily create healthy meals from your hotel room and save yourself a few hundred bucks in the process.
Listen to this episode to learn which food items you should pack to easily put together cheap and healthy meals.
Quick Tips to Upgrade Your Life
We’re always looking to improve and optimize our lives, so this episode give you 8 of our favorite quick tips to give you a boost! Give it a listen and start upgrading your life today!
How to Exercise on Vacation
Travel is something that we all likely do at some point over the Summer (and throughout the year), and so you probably know that traveling can make it hard to stick to your workout routine. The best way to stay in shape while traveling is to have a plan before you travel, and to schedule exercise into your daily activities. In this episode Sarah-Kate gives you the best ways to incorporate exercise into your travels.
Key Factors for Weight Loss
It seems like everyone is always trying to lose weight or at least trying to prevent fat gain. It is harder for women to regulate the amount of fat on their bodies than men, due to the fact that women’s body’s are much more highly regulated by hormones and women need more fat on them than men. This doesn’t mean women can’t get leaner, it just means women tend to have a harder time regulating their body fat. In this episode you'll learn the best ways men and women can prevent fat gain.
Foods to Eat for Better Skin and Hair
What you eat plays a key role in how you look, and fat is one of the most important building blocks for healthy skin and hair. The best fats are anti-inflammatory fats that are also packed with other vitamins and nutrients, so that you get the most bang for your buck. Listen to this episode to learn what foods to eat to promote healthy skin and hair.
How to Increase Your Focus
We’ve all been there, you have a ton of work to do or you have a big presentation coming up and you just can’t get your mind to focus, it’s the worst right! If you find your mind wandering and you can’t seem to get yourself to focus on your task at hand, this episode will give you tips on how to help improve your focus and attention quickly!
Common Traits of Elite Performers
It’s always great to see the elite performers of the world reach their goals. Whether it’s an athlete finally winning the championship or an entrepreneur building their dreams – it’s fascinating to see the end result of hard work. If we look closely at these successful people, we can find the bread crumbs that they left behind and replicate their success. After studying elite performers across various disciplines, this episode will give you the 5 traits that all seem to have in common.
Benefits of a Diet "Cheat Day"
In this episode Sarah-Kate talks about "cheat day", consuming more calories than you do on the other six days of the week. It’s when you can indulge in a food or foods that maybe aren’t 100% healthy – and that’s totally fine and good! Find the show notes here.
Ways to Stay Positive When Life Gets Hard
Sometimes life is hard. Whether it’s dealing with family issues, a tough work situation, or any other of life’s little challenges – we all face difficulties. Just because you are going through a difficult moment in your life, that doesn’t mean you still can’t maintain your positive outlook – it just means you need to try a little harder and have it top of mind. In this episode Eric talks about 6 ways to stay positive when life gets tough.
You Can Lose Weight Overnight
Want to lose some weight overnight? You definitely can! The catch is that it won’t be fat, but it will be extra water weight that you are holding onto. Water weight can account for several unwanted pounds around your midsection as well as around your entire body. The trick to decreasing this extra water weight is to cut back on your sodium (aka salt) intake. Salt attracts water and so the more salt you have in your body, the more water you are going to hold onto.