I love this time of the year! I like the idea of closing the door to the last year and choosing to walk in the open door of the New Year. To me, there is nothing better than a chance to make “new healthy lifestyle choices,” because what else do you and I have but our health?

So many of our lifestyle choices have gotten us where we are today. Maybe we are overweight with back pain, have heart disease, or high blood pressure.

Maybe we have Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, or so much anxiety we can't sleep at night. Maybe we think we have no choices in all of this, or maybe we just don't want to make good choices or choose a different life, because it feels like too much work and we are not up to it.

You see, I've learned that it's what you do everyday that makes a difference, not what you do once in awhile. You can only change your life if you decide to choose a new life everyday. It means rolling out a bed with a new mind set that chooses you and your health.

It means stopping all the old thoughts and patterns that governed your life before and looking to make change because you value yourself that much. It's such a challenge in the world we live in today to make a change. Everyone and everything demands so much of you, and yet to be well it takes time and effort, and only you can choose to do this.

In the 1960s, Halbert L. Dunn developed the idea that “wellness” was a “lifestyle approach that pursued elevated states of physical and psychological well-being. He described it as a disciplined commitment to self-mastery.” Many people talk about wellness like the spokes of a wheel. There are eight spokes to the wheel: physical, emotional, intellectual, social, environmental, financial, occupational and spiritual.

Your physical wellness makes up things like your sleep patterns, nutrition, dietary habits and exercise. All of the spokes are important but the physical is so directly related to the rest of them. If the physical is broken the rest quickly breaks, so it is an important one to get a hold of in your life.

I am not a big New Year's resolution gal, because most resolutions (according to one study) are broken in one month. However, that being said, I still believe this time of year is a good time to take inventory of my health. It helps me think of what's working well in my life and what's not working at all. So, what healthy lifestyle choices do you need to make this year? What do you want your physical wellness to look like this year?

Physical Wellness Starting Points:

1: Sleep: Adults need six to eight hours of sleep a night to replenish and heal the body, more often if you have an injury or are healing after surgery. Children need eight to ten hours a night.

2: Nutrition: This is what the foods you eat provide you with everyday: phytonutrients, vitamins, minerals, fats, carbohydrates, etc. Your body must have the ability to break down the foods you eat to use these nutrients to help with body be well. Just because you eat good foods does not mean your body has the right enzymes to break the foods down, or the right flora and fauna in the gastrointestinal tract to absorb them. Get help with these things if you are not sure, your gastrointestinal tract directly affects your immunity.

3: Exercise: 30 minutes a day of aerobic exercise, and at least three to four times a week of strength training exercise.

4:Diet: These are the foods you need to eat to be well: vegetables, fruits whole grains and healthy proteins, and water daily, with limited sugar-based drinks.

Sheree DiBiase, PT is the owner of Lake City Physical Therapy, and she and her staff wish you a Happy New Year. They want to encourage you to make a commitment to your health this year!

You can do it, and we can help you, come see us in our Coeur d'Alene (208) 667-19988, Hayden (208) 762-2100 and Spokane Valley (509) 891-2623 offices.