The Top Ten Steps to
Creating Health-Fitness-Excellence
Effective Stress Management
and High-Level Fitness

By Jeffrey D Brown
Founder of Artful-Balance.com

In 1986, my mentor, Robert K. Cooper, Ph.D., developed an extraordinary program for building health-fitness-excellence that he later wrote about in his landmark book, Health and Fitness Excellence.

During a two-year professional study and certification program with Dr. Robert Cooper, I got to see just how important these principles are for building a sense of vitality and well being.

Through the years, I have watched these concepts transform people's lives. I trust that they will prove just as valuable to you today as they did when I first began teaching them in Colorado health clinics in the late 1980's.

Ten Health-Fitness-Excellence Tips

The steps are progressive ... building strength, resiliency, and well-being each time you put them into practice.

2. Excellence in health and fitness requires a balanced strategy, effectively integrating seven key areas.

These seven areas include the following:
Stress Strategies; Exercise Options; Nutritional Wellness; Bodyfat Control; Postural Vitality; Rejuvenation and Living Environments Design; Unlimited Mind and Life Unity.

3. Stress Strategies include Tapping into Positive Imagery and Accessing Inner Calm.

"Stress strategies" refers to effective, simple techniques for meeting the stressful challenges of daily living.

Effective strategies: deep daily relaxation with the help of meditation or relaxation tapes; an Instant Calming Sequence, which is a simple method for accessing inner calm and focus as needed throughout the day; developing personal "hardiness" to enhance your effectiveness in response to stress; a regular program of physical activity -- like dance, yoga or aerobics -- to enhance your body's ability to handle stress; body-centered therapies like massage, tai chi, or chi gung to release tension and resolve stagnant energy that lies dormant in the body and becomes a source of pain, inflexibility and fatigue.

4. Select the Proper Exercise and Fitness Options for You.

A broad range of options exist. Taking into account your personal preferences, select a program that builds fitness while creating a healthy, balanced body.

Options include: aerobic activities; strengthening activities; posture-enhancing activities; yoga; and, pilates-style physical conditioning exercises for integration and balance.

5. Tend to Nutritional Wellness

The key to nutritional wellness is to eat small, frequent, well-balanced meals throughout the day. This provides your brain and body with the fuel you need to be at your best.

Essential to nutritional wellness is a diet that is varied and provides a broad range of natural nutrients. Tending to your body's unique needs includes ensuring healthy digestion and proper absorption of nutrients. When you digest and absorb well, you get the greatest nutritive value from the foods you eat.

For helpful tips for nutritional wellness, including recommended books, and information on choosing broad-spectrum nutritional supplementation for greatest benefit, check the updates at our website.

6. Develop BodyFat Control and Metabolic Excellence.

This refers to an integrated approach to health wherein stress management, nutritional wellness, effective exercise, and eliminating faulty belief and behavior patterns, all play a role in developing a healthy, just-right-for-you body.

7. Embrace Postural Vitality and Structural Balance.

Without attention to good posture, you may lose many of the potential benefits you could have otherwise gained from the previous four steps. Posture-balancing massage, a few key postural-enhancing exercises, and regular work-breaks to release held-tension from the body are elements of this approach.

For more on Postural Vitality, see my companion top ten list: The Top Ten Postural Principles for Better Work Performance.

8. Rejuvenate, and create healthy environments by design.

There are many levels of self-care that just don't fit in the previous five steps. From simple, at-home, health rejuvenation practices that include just about every key area of your body, to advanced ideas for creating a healthy home and optimum work environment, this step offers the often missing keys for creating and maintaining excellent health and peak performance.

Rejuvenate yourself and your home by design. As needed, engage professional help. Look for someone who is well-versed in these areas and can help you select the best options to meet your needs.

9. Discover Unlimited Mind and Life Unity.

So, just where does spirituality and the amazing capacity of the human mind fit into this picture of radiant, vibrant, dynamic health?

Dr. Cooper called it Life Unity. This includes all those intangible qualities that, woven together, create a life well lived.

As a wellness-based coach specializing in the art of human development, I consider this a vital aspect of my work with people. Clients report that a clear sense of themselves ... their mission and purpose in life ... enables them to find a sense of balance and wellbeing more easily, regardless of external factors in life.

And herein lies a fundamental key to excellence in health and life: there is more to us than we tend to be conscious of. Accessing these untapped aspects of mind and consciousness is vital if you are to fully express your gifts and talents while navigating today's challenging world.

10. The best health and fitness program for you ... is the one you consistently practice over time.

We are each unique individuals with our own needs and preferences. On your journey to health and fitness excellence, an integrated picture of wellbeing, plus a balanced, easy-to-implement approach, is essential if you want to be your best.

Virtually everyone benefits from having the right resources and support from time to time. A supportive community of family and friends can help you stay focused and on-track, making success easier.

Another powerful mechanism for implementing these principles is to work with a qualified professional, a trained wellness and fitness coach who can provide you with referenced information and easily mastered techniques for excellence in each of the above seven areas.

Invest in yourself ... begin your journey now ...implement one or more of these principles each day ... and you will find yourself experienceing high-level wellness, energetic fitness, and personal wellbeing ... progressively over time.

To your health and happiness!
-- Jeff

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(c) Copyright, Jeffrey D. Brown and Artful-Balance.com, 2001.
This article is published for the visitors of Artful-Balance.com. It may be freely distributed if the attribution is kept intact, including the name and contact information of the author, who can be reached at http://www.artful-balance.com
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For more health-fitness-excellence tips, refer to our newsletter, Balance-Builder!

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