I’ve tried lots of life hacks over the years. Most of them have fallen by the wayside as I’ve found ones that work better and stopped trying everything under the sun. Today, I’d like to focus on the ones that have helped me the most with my physical health. Here are my three best health hacks.
- Letting go. By far the best life hack I’ve ever found. Releasing negative emotions has made things much easier at my job, in relationships, and everywhere else I encounter difficulties. It’s also vastly improved my emotional, mental, physical, and even spiritual health. I’ve talked a lot before about how much this helped me heal emotionally after my dog Sawyer’s death. For physical healing, the best example of this occurred around Valentine’s Day 2021. After an incredibly awkward interaction, I felt so upset about it that my back started hurting increasingly more over a period of several days. It got so bad that I could barely sleep or take more than shallow breaths without severe pain. I ended up doing two sensory deprivation floats in one day and worked through a ton of emotional pain in both. My back felt almost completely better afterward, and I slept soundly all through that night. Doing even more letting go later in that year when my back similarly started hurting (for no discernible reason this time) and floating was unavailable to me got rid of the pain while it was still mild. While I’m primarily interested in letting go for how much it’s improved my emotional health, I’m still so thankful that it’s also done so much for my physical health.
- Taping my lips shut at night. Since I’ve habitually breathed through my mouth for most of my life, I still find it hard to breathe through my nose during the day. Taping my lips shut before I go to sleep has forced me to breathe through my nose at night. I started doing this over a year ago after remembering what James Nestor wrote in his book Breath about the benefits of nose breathing and the dangers of mouth breathing. Breathing through my nose while I sleep has made me sleep better and feel more refreshed when I wake up in the morning. Before, I’d often feel mentally fried when waking up. At this point, that only happens if I toss and turn throughout the night or go to bed too late. It also seems to have improved my immunity as I’ve only gotten sick once since I started doing this where I normally get sick multiple times a year. This was a pretty easy change to make, and I plan to continue doing it for the rest of my life, along with working on breathing through my nose more consistently during the day.
- Improving my ear cleaning routine. I’ve long used earwax removal drops for a few days to remove excess earwax as needed. Since last year, I’ve been following that up with an electric ear irrigator. That combination works better than either of them alone and is great for cleaning out my ears as well as reducing pain and pressure when I’ve been wearing ear plugs often enough for lots of wax to build up. I don’t have to go through this routine often, thank goodness, and I’m glad to have it down whenever I need it.