In recent years, health has taken centre stage, especially as we explore ways to optimise our well-being with technology. After my son fell ill with an autoimmune condition three years ago, I found myself spending countless hours working with a range of professionals. I became a big fan of biohacking, especially after discovering so much through testing along the way. While there are many incredible and innovative tech-driven health hacks, too much focus on them can make health feel complicated and, frankly, expensive.
That’s why I believe in simplifying health by reconnecting with nature and going back to the basics with foundational, holistic habits. These habits are easy to implement, effective, and cost-friendly, making them the perfect antidote to the overcomplicated health trends of today.
By returning to these simple yet powerful habits, we can support our bodies natural healing intelligence and enhance our well-being without overcomplicating things. Here are 10 holistic habits to embrace, rooted in nature, that can transform your health for the better.
Holistic Habit #1: Limit Blue Light Exposure
With the rise of technology and screen time, we could all benefit from this holistic habit. Many of us experience unnatural levels of blue light exposure daily. While blue light itself isn’t inherently harmful, prolonged or excessive exposure—especially from synthetic sources—can cause a variety of issues, including disrupting circadian rhythms, hormones, and sleep patterns. Here’s how to incorporate this holistic habit into your routine:
→ Limit blue light exposure from screens.
Reduce screen time outside of work and essential tasks.
In the evening, unwind with a good book rather than watching TV.
Wear blue light-blocking glasses during the day, especially if you spend extended periods on a screen. (We recommend these from Bon Charge!)
→ Replace synthetic lights high in blue light.
Most LED lights emit high levels of artificial blue light without the balancing effects of red light.
Avoid LED or energy-efficient bulbs that use alternating currents, as they can cause an invisible flicker that strains the eyes and disrupts the body’s rhythms.
Opt for bulbs with direct currents or full-spectrum wavelengths. We love the customizable full-spectrum bulbs or the flicker-free, low-blue-light options from Bon Charge.
Alternatively, swap out bulbs for non-toxic candles, which create a calming ambiance.
→ Balance blue light exposure with natural red light therapy.
A simple, free way to benefit from natural red light is by spending time outdoors during sunrise and sunset. These times have higher levels of natural red light wavelengths, providing a natural balance to blue light.
→ Use apps and settings to reduce blue light on your devices.
While limiting screen use at night is best, you can still manage your device usage by adjusting settings to reduce blue light exposure.
Set your phone to "red mode" after sunset, or use apps that filter out blue light to help ease the impact on your body.
Holistic Habit #2: Upgrade Your Diet
From a holistic health standpoint, your diet may seem like an obvious area to focus on. But believe us, this holistic habit is one of the most effective ways to return to the basics. Let’s dive into how you can optimize your nutrition to support longevity.
→ Reduce or eliminate refined sugars, gluten, and alcohol.
Over time, these foods can cause a variety of issues within your body, including:
- Imbalance and dysregulation in the gut
- Chronic inflammation
- Metabolic dysfunction
- Blood sugar spikes
→ Choose ethical and pasture-raised meats when possible.
High-quality, pasture-raised meats are a nutrient-dense source of protein. They’re far more effective at fuelling your body, stabilising blood sugar, and building muscle a crucial element for aging gracefully.
→ Focus on unprocessed whole foods.
The fewer ingredients, the better!
- Opt for organic whenever possible. Regenerative options are even better if they fit your budget (even if just occasionally).
- Visit a farmer's market, where you can talk to farmers directly about their practices.
- Cook at home more often to maintain control over the quality of your ingredients. Make it enjoyable—try rediscovering old recipe books!
- Incorporate superfoods to nourish your body and skin.
→ Swap seed oils for healthier fats.
Seed oils are often extracted from crop by-products, processed with chemicals and high heat. This creates damaged fats and unstable oils that are not ideal for consumption.
Since our cells are primarily made of fat, it’s important to provide our bodies with the right building blocks. Choose healthy, saturated fats like:
- Tallow from grass-fed cows or other animal fats like ghee
- Unrefined coconut oil
- Avocado oil
- Olive oil or grass-fed butter (*use at low-medium temperatures)
→ Upgrade your water with minerals and filtration.
Water is essential for hydration, and your body needs proper hydration to function optimally, including skin health.
- Eat your water with gel-like foods such as chia seeds, melons, cucumbers, or lettuce.
- Add a pinch of salt and lemon to your water in the morning. Try Celtic Sea Salt or sea moss, both rich in trace minerals.
- If a whole-house filtration system isn’t within reach, start with filtered drinking water (a good pitcher filter or an under-sink filter are budget-friendly options).
Holistic Habit #3: Feed Your Passions & Find Your Purpose
Holistic habits are about honouring your body as an interconnected system with diverse needs. Your mental health is deeply linked to your physical health, so supporting both is essential. This holistic habit focuses on nourishing your passions – discovering what makes you feel truly alive and authentically YOU.
→ Reconnect with your vision.
Without a clear vision, we lose direction. Vision provides the inspiration and motivation needed to keep going, especially through challenging times.
Take time to reflect on your personal and professional journey. Consider how you want to grow in the future. Revisit your core values, dreams, and aspirations for yourself or your family.
→ Clarify what you want.
Identify what truly matters to you. Take deliberate steps to realign with your career, relationships, or family. Understand your priorities deeply so that you can make a greater impact with your time and resources. Let go of others' expectations, and tune in to your inner voice – this will help reduce stress and prevent burnout.
→ Make more time for your passions and interests.
Engage in activities for the joy of it – play without an end goal. Read a book to spark your imagination and dive into the transformative power of storytelling. Spend time with children – their unfiltered passion for what they love is incredibly inspiring.
Holistic Habit #4: Intentional Stillness
In the midst of daily life, taking moments of stillness can help you reconnect with your inner self and reduce stress:
Practice meditation or prayer: Regular practice can lower heart rate and blood pressure, helping you centre yourself.
Cultivate gratitude: Science shows that gratitude can enhance both your mental and physical health, contributing to a greater sense of peace and contentment.
Holistic Habit #5: Support Your Best Sleep
Sleep is when your body rests and performs essential repair work. Without high-quality sleep, your body can’t fully heal, preventing you from feeling your best. A good night’s sleep, however, has a wide range of benefits. Here are some affordable and accessible tips to help you make optimized sleep a holistic habit:
→ Eat your last meal 2-3 hours before sleeping.
Eating too close to bedtime can disrupt restorative sleep. Since digestion requires significant energy, finishing meals earlier allows your body to focus on repair during sleep.
→ Drink Magnesium before bed – or apply it topically.
A magnesium drink before bed can support melatonin production and calm anxious or racing thoughts. Alternatively, you can absorb magnesium topically by spraying it on the bottoms of your feet or forearms before bed.
→ Sleep in complete darkness.
Our bodies crave darkness, as it promotes the deepest sleep. Research shows that even small amounts of light can interfere with circadian rhythms and bodily functions.
Use a sleep mask or blackout curtains to eliminate light. If you or your children need a night light, opt for a red light instead.
→ Sleep in cooler temperatures.
Your body naturally cools down at night, triggering the production of sleep-related hormones and processes. You can support this by lowering the temperature in your room.
The ideal temperature range is around 15.6°C to 19.4°C.
Holistic Habit #6: Oscillating Temperatures
In today’s world, we often live in temperature-controlled environments, meaning our bodies aren’t regularly exposed to the fluctuating temperatures that our ancestors experienced. This lack of variation isn’t ideal for our biology.
The good news is that we can use exposure to extreme temperatures as a form of beneficial stress, which helps to build resilience, reduce inflammation, and offer numerous other benefits. Here are some simple ways to integrate this holistic habit into your routine:
→ Try Cold Therapy through cold showers, ice baths, cold plunge tanks, or polar plunges in nature.
Cold therapy lowers your core body temperature, triggering a range of physiological responses. The benefits include:
- Improved cardiovascular health
- Better circulation
- Enhanced mental clarity
- Uplifted mood
- Reduced inflammation
- Lowered depression and anxiety
- Decreased muscle soreness
- Boosted immune function
- Increased metabolism
- Activated "brown" fat that burns energy
- Reduced insulin resistance
Tip: If you’re not ready for a full cold plunge, start gradually. Try applying ice packs to your neck or wrists or finish your shower with a cold 20-second blast!
→ Try Heat Therapy through a hot bath or sauna (available at many local gyms) or even outdoors on warm days.
Heat therapy raises your core body temperature and dilates blood vessels. The benefits of this practice include:
- Enhanced cardiovascular health
- Detoxification through sweat
- Release of physical tension
- Calming effect on the body (parasympathetic activation)
- Improved circulation, blood pressure, and blood flow
- Regulation of blood sugar levels
- Calorie burning
Tip: Boost your hot bath benefits by adding Epsom salts, which can further support relaxation and detoxification.
Holistic Habit #7: Grounding/Earthing
It’s essential to reconnect with nature on a physical level. The earth naturally provides an abundance of negative ions, which help neutralise the excess positive ions our bodies absorb from technology. Grounding is a simple, yet powerful habit to integrate into your daily routine!
→ Make time to ground for at least 30 minutes each day.
Grounding offers a wide array of health benefits, with the most notable being a reduction in inflammation. Lowering inflammation allows your body to restore itself to optimal function, freeing up energy to focus on other areas of health. This creates a ripple effect, benefiting:
- Wound healing
- Improved sleep
- Activation of the parasympathetic nervous system
- Reduced stress hormones
- Elevated mood
- Treatment and prevention of chronic inflammatory or autoimmune conditions
For children, grounding can be as easy as spending time outdoors barefoot on natural surfaces like grass, sand, mud, unsealed concrete, or near water.
→ Enhance your grounding practice with forest bathing.
When we slow down intentionally and immerse ourselves in nature’s healing energy, we receive more than just the benefits of grounding. Forest bathing adds an additional layer of mindfulness and rejuvenation.
→ Get creative—spend more time outdoors!
- Sip your morning beverage outside.
- Meet friends at the park, barefoot.
- Read a book with your feet on the earth.
- Eat dinner outdoors with your feet touching the ground.
- Try wild swimming .
- Tend to your garden barefoot.
Holistic Habit #8: Movement
As a society, we’ve become far too sedentary. In the UK, many jobs especially office based roles require little to no movement, contributing to an inactive lifestyle. Returning to nature and embracing ancestral wisdom reminds us that movement is a vital part of our daily lives.
This idea extends to how we care for our skin and bodies as well. With a long list of benefits and no negative side effects, incorporating movement into your routine is an incredibly easy holistic habit to adopt.
Movement is essential for our bodies to:
- Stimulate lymphatic flow
- Detoxify
- Aid digestion
- Build muscle
- Burn fat
- Maintain healthy blood pressure and circulation
Here are some top tips to help you move more:
→ Make fitness enjoyable!
You don’t need a full gym setup, but sometimes even just one new fitness accessory can motivate you to move more.
→ Take daily walks.
They may seem simple, but regular walks can make a huge difference. They’re so easy to fit into your day, and you can even enjoy your favourite podcast while you walk.
→ Move frequently throughout the day.
Small stretches and movements every hour can greatly support the health of both your body and mind.
→ Try somatic movements.
Our muscles often hold stress and unresolved emotions. Fortunately, movement can help release that tension and process emotions. Somatic movements, in particular, target trapped emotions, helping you to thrive both mentally and physically.
Holistic Habit #9: Intermittent Fasting
Fasting is a free, scientifically backed holistic habit that offers numerous health benefits. When practiced with mindfulness around your menstrual cycle and in tune with nature’s rhythms, fasting allows you to reconnect with not just the earth, but with yourself on a deeper level. Here are the key points to consider for optimising this practice:
→ Align your fasting with your menstrual cycle.
As a woman, fasting may seem intimidating, especially with conflicting opinions about its safety. However, based on expert insights and personal experiences, fasting can be particularly beneficial during the follicular and ovulatory phases of your cycle.
→ Autophagy is one of the key benefits.
Autophagy is a natural process where your body, during fasting, takes a "break" from digesting food. This pause allows your body to focus its energy on important tasks like repairing damaged cells, removing waste, fighting aging signs, and addressing chronic inflammation.
→ Start with circadian fasting.
Circadian fasting is a simple yet effective practice. It involves eating only while the sun is up and avoiding food once it gets dark. This gives your body ample time to digest before sleep, ensuring you wake up refreshed and restored.
Lastly, don’t forget about another essential holistic habit for thriving health: nurturing your relationships and connecting with others.
Holistic Habit #10: Cultivate Connection
As humans, we are inherently relational beings. We thrive in community mentally, physically, and emotionally. When we view our bodies as interconnected systems, it becomes clear that social connections play a critical role in our vibrant health, even though it’s often overlooked.
Here are some reasons we cherish this holistic habit of reconnecting with our innate need for meaningful relationships and returning to the basics of a well-lived life.
→ Develop resiliency and confidence.
Being vulnerable in relationships builds our resiliency and boosts our confidence in facing life’s challenges. Sharing your truth in trusted circles empowers you to reclaim your worth, making it easier to cope with mental health struggles like stress, anxiety, or imposter syndrome.
→ Find belonging and encouragement to improve.
Belonging is a cornerstone of human well-being. Kind words from those who truly know you make you feel seen and valued. This encouragement sparks a desire to become a better version of yourself, and this positive influence extends to both your mental and physical health.
→ Embrace positivity and the highs and lows of life.
Meaningful relationships allow you to find joy in asking for help and feeling supported. Trusted connections remind you that you are never truly alone, and the weight of challenges becomes lighter when shared. These bonds enable you to shift negative thoughts and see obstacles as more manageable.
Rooted in Nature: The Ultimate Health Hack
At Kayle at Home, our goal is to simplify health, not complicate it. Supporting your body in doing its best work requires intentionality, but it doesn't always demand a lot of time or expensive supplements.
There is great power in simple, holistic habits grounded in ancestral wisdom, supported by personal experiences, and confirmed by modern science.
Let’s return to the basics and reconnect with our health in the way nature intended.
Kayleigh xx
