Energy, mind, mood... The best pro tips to apply now to get back on track!

Sports activity, diet, personal development… To start the year on the right foot, draw on the advice of our experts to make new resolutions, but without pressure!

Who says new year, often says the desire for a new start, desire to improve and put in place things that do us good. But there is no question of putting pressure on yourself. The solution? Change slowly, but surely, modify small parameters in our lifestyle and our way of approaching our days, to obtain benefits for our body and our mind in the long term.

Objective #1: move more, to gain vitality

What do I gain from it? The WHO recommends 150 minutes of physical activity per week or about twenty minutes per day. The figures confirm it: we are not moving enough! But don't panic, physical activity is not just about practicing a sport: every daily movement is important to protect us from chronic diseases, boost our energy, keep our body in shape and preserve our mind.

How do I do? We (re) put movement in our daily lives! Mélanie Michaux, the sports coach, and dietician remind us how easy it is to move more, in the end...

• I optimize my trips: park further away by car, get off one stop earlier when you take public transport, favor trips on foot or by bike, prefer stairs to elevators and escalators...
• Do I build muscle during my journeys: sitting at the wheel, standing in the metro? Work your abs! Inhale slowly through your nose, expand and lock your perineum, exhale through your mouth maintaining this self-expanding (feel your perineum activate and your belly tighten).
• I avoid prolonged sitting: make your phone calls while walking, swap your chair for a swiss ball (a few minutes to a few hours a day), every 2 hours minimum get up, stretch and take a few steps in the room (or even better, outside!), if possible, visit your colleagues rather than send an email.
• I take advantage of the weekend to move more: organize a walk in the fresh air (in a park, in the forest), include relatives in these activities to make the moment more convivial, garden, put on lively music to do household chores while pace, tidy up by doing gym -inspired moves like squats to bend down, lunges to vacuum. Finally, brush your teeth and do the dishes while leaning on one foot (and don't forget to switch sides!).

How do I choose my sport?
To enjoy the benefits of physical activity, no secret, regularity is essential! Find the way to move that works best for you and keeps you motivated. List what you have already done before, the different sports practices tested, and highlight those that you liked, that boosted you. Ask yourself what attracts you in terms of activity: rather calm or dynamic? Rather collectively or individually? How often and how long can you devote to it per week?

If despite this point with yourself, you are lost, do not hesitate to be accompanied! Consult your doctor or a physiotherapist if you suffer from contraindications or need appropriate advice. And turn to a sports coach for a few sessions, to get back on track and get started safely.

The advice of the coach: remember that you are an actor of this change, you have the choice in practice, duration, intensity, regularity. This recovery must remain a pleasure to become sustainable.

Objective #2: be less stressed on a daily basis, to increase your energy tenfold

What do I gain from it? The brain is the biggest consumer organ, and overstretching it with latent stress depletes both mental and physical health. "Negative emotions trigger cortisol secretions, which will have short-term and long-term negative consequences", warns Géraldine Lethenet, yoga teacher, author of 50 exercises to slow down, Éditions Eyrolles, ( www.geraldinelethenet.com ). The key to this change? "A feeling of dynamism, daily reactivity, lightness, and rediscovered spontaneity!" Encourages the therapist.

How do I do? We can observe that stress, the emotions that pass through us, have an effect on our breathing. The idea would therefore be to use breathing to bring the body and mind to a more peaceful state, as the yoga teacher suggests.

This exercise, to be practiced as soon as you feel the need, requires you to breathe through your nose.

• Make yourself comfortable, sitting or lying down, place one hand on your stomach and the other in the hollow of your chest. To start, focus only on your stomach. Inflate the belly on the inhale and let it deflate on the exhale. Feel the belly hand move, but not the heart hand. Do 10 times.
• Then, inflate the belly at the beginning of the inspiration, then deploy your rib cage: feel your ribs opening on the sides, and the hand of the heart rising. Exhale without control. Do 10 times.
• Finally, raise the breath very high under the collarbones. If needed, move the hand from the belly to the base of your neck to feel. Then, in the same inspiration, feel first the belly inflate, then the rib cage, then the clavicles open to let the breath pass almost under the shoulders. Exhale without thinking. Do 10 times.

Good advice: beware of mental games in times of stress. Do not stop practicing this exercise until you have calmed down. This can take several minutes, be patient... If a little voice inside you says "go ahead, you're wasting your time, you'll never be able to do everything, stop, you have files to complete": c is precisely the sign that we must continue to practice it!

Objective #3: slow down, to stop exhausting yourself mentally and physically

What do I gain from it? Exhaustion, nervousness, aggressiveness, difficulty finding meaning in what we are doing... In short, it may be time to press the "pause" button! To cope with the "whirlwind of life" in which we can quickly be caught up, Géraldine Lethenet advises going from listening to Chronos time (the time guided by our watch, the file to be returned or the appointment to be honored at such an hour), at a time called "kairos", which she qualifies as more "natural", that of the "opportune moment", specific to each one. An awareness that can lead to a more positive state, a way of approaching the days that pass more serenely.

How do I do? Start, as soon as you can during the day, by taking a moment just for yourself: listen to your needs, your heart. “Take this time to listen more inside and less outside (the requests, the injunctions, which feed your stress, your anxiety…)”, details the yoga teacher.

To help you, several tools exist, you can for example turn to meditation.

This one, proposed by Géraldine Lethenet will only take you 3 minutes and consists of placing yourself at the center of your mental activity and watching what is happening around you like a spectator at the cinema.

• Take a timer. Make yourself comfortable, sitting on the floor, on a chair, on a sofa, with your back straight in a position that inspires you with dignity.
• Set your timer to 3 minutes. Close your eyes.
• During the minutes that separate you from the ringing of the timer, observe what is going on in your head, do not judge anything, simply meet. Nothing is good, nothing is bad, nothing is stable...
• When the bell rings, take a deep breath, stretch, and get back to your day!

Include this quick and beneficial practice as often as possible in your agenda, and you will see, you will not be able to do without it!

Objective #4: learn to say no, to gain self-confidence

What do I gain from it? Do you find it difficult to say no to your friend who asks you non-stop, to your family who forgets that you have a personal life, or to your co-worker who makes you do part of his job? As a result, you find yourself quickly overwhelmed, you ruminate without ever daring to say that it does not suit you, and your mind takes a hit. This year, we are learning to say NO!

"Knowing how to say no to someone means being able to defend one's resources and set one's limits. Sometimes it also means making trade-offs that concern others", explains Sylvie Riondel, coach, a specialist in positive psychology, author of ' Assert yourself gently, Develop your assertiveness to reconcile self-affirmation and respect for others' (Editions Eyrolles).

How do I do? Self -confidence, and the ability to assert yourself, it takes work. For small daily interactions, practice is key!

To start, you can learn typical phrases, which will prevent you from saying "yes", without even realizing it. For example, "I need to check my calendar before answering you", or quite simply, "I see your problem, I will think about how to help you", or even "I cannot accept, I suggest you instead...".

There are many ways to say "no": we can partially accept, set conditions, defer the answer, give explanations, reframe the requester, offer alternatives, empathically refuse outright, or be ultra-firm if nobody persists, even if it means playing the broken record.

"Each small step counts to gain self-confidence, and succeed in asserting yourself on a daily basis: start with the small details", advises Sylvie Riondel. Then, with more ease, you can finally say "no" with tact, to requests that involve you more, without harming the relationship with your interlocutor.

Objective #5: Change your diet to feel better inside and out

What do I gain from it? Eating is something we do at least 3 times a day. So many chances to have fun, and take advantage of it to cultivate well-being. "By eating better, qualitatively and quantitatively, we have everything to gain on a physical and mental level. In the short term, digestion is improved, sleep is more restful, but this can also be seen in the quality of the skin, nails, hair, water retention and the appearance of cellulite", underlines Sarah Marin-Maire, dietitian and co-founder of Make me Healthy. In the long term, eating a balanced diet simply allows you to stay healthy and prevent the development of many pathologies, whether benign or not.

How do I do? If a consultation allows you to have personalized advice according to many parameters that are specific to you (metabolism, weight, height, etc.), certain good reflexes can however be adopted by the majority of people, explains the dietician. Replace white starchy foods with whole or semi-whole foods for their fiber intake, take advantage of weekly markets to eat fresh organic and seasonal fruits and vegetables, free of pesticides, or even improve the quality of the lipids you eat, by varying your oils (olive, rapeseed, walnuts, flax, camelina, sesame, etc.) and by consuming oilseeds without added salt or sugar, for example.

Remember to vary your protein sources: the ideal is to alternate animal proteins (meat, fish, eggs) and vegetable proteins (tofu, tempeh, seitan).

Finally, consider setting up a snack at the end of the day to limit excess when you get home in the evening: a handful of oilseeds (almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, etc.) with fresh seasonal fruit.

Not to mention hydration! Drinking at least 1.5L of water a day is essential to keep the body (and brain!) healthy.