5 reasons to refresh your morning with a cold shower

Is it time to revamp your morning routine with the recent change of season? Starting your day with a cold shower might be just what you need!

Chances are, you would have heard of the Wim Hof Method. Wim Hof is an extreme athlete, a motivational speaker and is commonly known as The Iceman because of his ability to withstand extremely low temperatures. He is also the founder of The Wim Hof Method which is about reconnecting with ourselves, with others and with nature. The method is based on 3 pillars including breathing, cold therapy & commitment.

It’s suggested that you can reap a stack of benefits by taking a cold shower each morning.

These might include:

Enhanced Recovery

Taking a cold shower is an excellent way to help with recovery after exercise or injury because it reduces inflammation, pain and muscle soreness. Feeling cold also makes blood vessels contract and numbs nerve endings – preventing swelling, bruising and pain – which is why ice packs are commonly used for injuries.

Boost Circulation & Alertness

Diet and exercise are the most important factors in good cardiovascular circulation, however cold showers have been shown to stimulate the blood flow in veins closest to your skin, leading to increased oxygen intake. Increased circulation leads to a higher oxygen requirement in the body and brain, which means you’ll start breathing deeply. Improved circulation means better heart health and mental performance. An oxygenated brain is an awake brain!

Increased Beauty

While taking a cold shower can be invigorating and refreshing, it also has many benefits for your skin and hair. The cold water will help your body produce more collagen, which is the protein that keeps your skin looking young and fresh. It also helps with the appearance of complexion by reducing inflammation, shrinking pores, and tightening the skin. The improved blood circulation from the cold water has even been said to help with acne if you have oily or acne-prone skin.

Hairdressers also recommend washing hair in cooler water to help protect the integrity and the appearance of hair cuticles. This is because it closes the hair cuticle, which makes hair look smoother and shinier.

Reduced Stress & Anxiety

Exposure to cold water imposes a small amount of stress on the body, which leads to a process called hardening. This means that your nervous system gradually gets used to handling moderate levels of stress and will react less each time you are exposed. It has also been proven that people who take cold showers produce increased levels of serotonin, which reduces stress and anxiety. This leads to improved mood by releasing feel-good endorphins!

Strengthened Willpower

A cold shower can help with strengthening willpower, improving focus and building discipline because it’s a challenge. It forces us to keep going despite the discomfort.
If you’re keen to give it a go, start out by having your normal shower first and incorporate the cold water in the last 30 seconds. Gradually progress from there by adding an additional 30 secs to each shower every week. You can thank us later!

Source: Wim Hof Method

A Morning Routine for an Energised Day!

A good morning routine can do wonders for your day. It can provide you with the energy and motivation you need to feel accomplished and ready for action. It helps boost your mood, you’ll feel less stressed and you’ll be more productive. If you’re looking for some inspiration on how to start your mornings right, then check our recommendations!

Do the Hardest Thing First

Create a sense of accomplishment by doing the hardest task first in the morning. The idea behind this is that it sets a precedent for how your day will go. You create momentum and a positive addiction that motivates you to continue being productive.

Get Some Sunshine

Before starting the day, make sure you get some sunlight! Sunlight is the best source of vitamin D, which is essential for bone health. It also helps regulate your circadian rhythm and mood, making it easier to wake up in the morning. Plus, sunlight helps reduce stress, strengthens your immune system and fights off symptoms from things like seasonal affective disorder which has a direct impact on your moods. So go outside for at least 15 minutes every day.

Move Your Body

Exercise is the best way to maintain a healthy lifestyle & movement is an essential part of life. It not only helps to improve your mood, sleep, and concentration – but also provides you with boosted energy levels for the rest of the day. It is important for everyone to exercise for at least 30 minutes a day. Some people prefer doing a light workout in the morning, while others go for a more intense session!

Nourish Your Body

What does it mean to nourish your body? It means eating in a healthy way that supports the needs of your body and mind in a way that allows them to grow and flourish. It means paying attention to how your food choices affect you physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.

Nourish your body with fresh, wholesome foods to ensure you are getting enough nutrients and vitamins. Try eliminating processed foods and refined sugars, rather choose food as close to its original state before it was processed or packaged. Be sure to start the day with a glass of water too!

Summer Goals

Summer’s here and you know you have some health and fitness goals you want to achieve. Before you go busting a gut at the gym, here are 7 tips to make sure you are set up to win.

TIP #1:

Make it fun!

If it doesn’t appeal to you, you’re not likely to be consistent. Do you like walking, running, maybe a quick 5-10 minute home workout? Do you want to dance along with a DVD or pull out a mat and hold some yoga poses? Find what you like, and do that. Include a friend to make it more interesting.

TIP #2:

Be intentional. Schedule.

Are you an early riser? Set your alarm, get up and start your day moving your body. Commit to the time of day that works best for you. It’s amazing how the start of the day sets you up mentally and increases those happy hormones for the day. Just figure when you’re most likely to follow through and commit to that.

TIP #3:

Set a goal.

If you don’t have something that you’re working towards you’ll very quickly get distracted and lose your inspiration. Is it a bikini for the summer? Is it a dress for an upcoming wedding? Maybe it’s health related and you know that losing some kgs are going to have a dramatic impact on your health. Take a pic of yourself how you used to look, or the goal you’re working towards and stick it on your fridge or vision board and keep it in your sight every day.

TIP #4:

Commit to walking more.

Choose walking over the car when that option is possible. Get out with the kids and walk to the parks, walk the dog. When you’re at the beach, take a stroll instead of just sun baking all day. Find ways to just move and be in the beautiful sunshine. Your body will love you for the Vitamin D too.

TIP #5:

Be consistent.

Consistency not only creates those positive habits, but also will reward you through lifelong results. Show up for yourself and just see how much better you feel for introducing exercise into your routine 3-4 times a week.

Tip #6

Remember, results take time.

Nothing long term will be achieved overnight. So be realistic. Feed your body the best fuel you can. Stay hydrated, practice gratitude & smile often.

Tip #7

No stress.

Take the pressure off yourself in being the next fitness model or IG highlight reel inspiration and do what is possible for you, and be what you know can be without the stress and strive.

Plastic Straws Suck!

We’ve created the most feel-good bowl ever!

Dedicated to creating positive change for our oceans, Raw Energy have created a limited time menu item to celebrate giving plastic straws the flick.

Introducing the new Blue Oasis Bowl! Submerge your spoon into this insta-worthy bowl or choose to enjoy sipping it as a smoothie.

What is the Blue Oasis bowl?

Made with blue spirulina, it has a vibrant colour and is packed with nutrients. And unlike green spirulina, it doesn’t have a fishy taste – winning!

Instead the flavour of the new Blue Oasis Bowl is a subtle, smooth, fresh, coconutty taste, all blended into a pleasingly refreshing, thick consistency.

The blue spirulina used is rich in protein, vitamins, minerals, carotenoids and antioxidants. The blue colour comes from the phycocyanin, a blue pigment derived from spirulina.

It’s recognised as a perfect detox superfood, which may aid in weight loss and boost energy. It also offers an array of many more health and digestion benefits.

The Blue Oasis is dairy and gluten free and is available for a limited time. Choose to enjoy it in a bowl topped with muesli and seasonal fruit for $15.50 or a smoothie for $11.50.

Further Support Sustainability

If you want to show just how eco you are, ask us to round up the price. Raw Energy will donate the difference to Clean Up Australia!

Clean Up Australia is an Australian not-for-profit environmental conservation organisation. They work to address the environmental issues of waste, water and climate change.

Did you know that 8.3 billion plastic straws pollute the world’s beaches, which is a pretty scary thought? Plastic straws seriously suck… but we know that some paper straws also suck!

Because fresh paper balls polluting your iced latte, or fresh juice is not cool, Raw Energy haven’t skimped on straw quality. We’re using paper straws made from 3 ply premium grade FSC® certified paper, sourced from managed plantations. They are carbon neutral and recyclable plus commercially and home compostable.

Raw Energy will help to save 70,000 straws every year from polluting our environment by cutting them from our cafes and we promise that this sustainable ship will keep steering!

The Blue Oasis Bowl and Smoothie are only available until March 18 or while stock lasts.

Find your closest Raw Energy Cafe here or take a look at all our menu offerings here.

Training your brain to experience more happy

This article was written by Stacey McBride-Wilson from The Healthy Happy Soul.

Training your brain to experience more happy

Happiness is without a doubt a choice. We don’t always get to choose the situations or circumstances we find ourselves in, but we do get to choose how we react. Sure that choice is more challenging to make than others sometimes, but it’s always possible and it’s always a choice worth making. After all, the quality of our choices determines the quality of our journey.

I just LOVE this quote from Dr Frank Crane. He absolutely nails it for me in saying that ‘People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be!‘

Perspective and attitude are powerful, almost like superpowers. They are truly the only things we have total control over in our life. How we perceive the experiences life throws our way ultimately determines how we receive them. Not only that, happiness is like a muscle; it gets stronger the more we use it. So the more we look for the good, the easier it becomes to experience happy and see the good going on around us.

But this isn’t just some fluffy airy-fairy feel good thought, this is actually a scientific process called neuroplasticity. Basically this is the latest cutting edge scientific findings that has proven we can retrain our brain from our instinctive reactions or choices (eg. yell when something upsets us, or eat an entire block of chocolate if it’s there) to more positive choices over time.

We have pathways in our brain and just like roads they get easier to travel the more we use them. Think about it as though your driving a regular route you take between two points for example from home to work. Often times you’re on autopilot. You make that journey without giving it too much thought. It’s instinctive.

But what if you discovered a new, easier, quicker, less congested way to get from point A to point B, you’d probably make an effort to learn the route and start taking that way instead right? Initially it’d take time to navigate and remember where to go, but over time if you continued to take that new route, it would become normal. You’d strengthen your knowledge of driving that path and it’d become so simple.

The same thing happens in our brains as we experience life. And just like you can make a choice to change the route you take from point A to point B, you can also make a choice to change how you respond to situations. The only difference when your brain is concerned is that you won’t get to the same destination. Instead, you get a whole new positive outcome, like more feelings of joy, contentment and peace.

So how do we practically transform our minds and choose happy? Remember it’s a process, not an event. As I shared earlier, happiness is like a muscle that gets stronger with use. The first step is to be aware of the principle of choosing happy, and then all you’ve got to do is work out your happy muscle each day. How? I’m so glad you asked….

WAKE UP HAPPY – One of my favourite ways is to decide each and every morning that today is a good day and you’re going to be in a good mood. Seriously, try it for yourself! You can do this practically by setting yourself a reminder on your phone or alarm so it’s the first thing you see in the morning. After a while, it’ll just become second-nature. Your new happy normal.
DRESS HAPPY – Life isn’t meant to be a funeral, it’s a celebration!! Party each day by dressing in some happy threads. Think bright. Think bold. Think clothes that make you happy to wear!
MOVE HAPPY – Exercise releases endorphins; they’re the happy feel good hormone. Just get your amazing body moving in some way today!

It’s that simple! So what you waiting for? Get out there and get your happy on today!

How to break the quick-fix cycle

This article was written by Stacey McBride-Wilson from The Healthy Happy Soul.

How to break the quick-fix cycle

You know the quick fix cycle I’m talking about. The cycle of feeling a little blergh about yourself and your health, so you launch into the best, newest, 30-day money back guarantee product/program/method with much gusto, hope and promises to yourself that this time will be different, only to find it all too hard to keep up after just a few weeks, so you throw in the towel which reinforces the feeling that you’re a failure, don’t have enough self-discipline, and why did I even try in the first place, only to recover and try it all again in a few months or so later when you feel a little blergh about yourself and your health so you launch into the best, newest…. Well, you get the idea…

This cycle and the quick fix mindset just breaks my heart. Why? Because I’ve seen people stuck in this cycle and short-change themselves time and time again by pursuing what they think they want NOW, at the cost of what they really want MOST.

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So often people chase what they think they want MOST, with a process that can only deliver for the NOW, by engaging in a soul-destroying cycle of calorie counting and flogging the body and feeling guilty for even thinking about chocolate. And I see people engage in that process again and again and again, year after year after year….

But it’s not meant to be like this! There is a way to break that cycle once and for all! It’s simple. If we want to enjoy true and long-lasting transformation for the body, then we first need a transformation for the mind. There’s a saying that goes something like this, ‘where the mind goes, the body follows.’

Making a change for your health is so much more than just needing to exercise more and eat better. If it was that easy we’d all be doing it! No it goes so much deeper than that.

It relates to WHY we want it and what’s stopping us.
It requires clearing out all our junky thinking.
It means repairing the disconnect in our thinking which subconsciously sabotages all our best efforts.

To experience long-lasting change, fitness freedom and an enjoyable journey we need to deal with the negative self-talk, poor self-worth, warped perceptions and unrealistic body images, once and for all. Think about how much rubbish thinking you’ve been exposed to over your lifetime; that’s a lot of junk to shut down and break through! (And sorry quick fix lovers – that’s going to take a little bit of time…)

It’s quite simple really, if we want a healthy body, we need to have a healthy mind. So what if your wellness journey wasn’t just about weight loss for the body, but you lost some of the heaviness in your mind as well? When you’re kicking goals on your Get Healthy Get Happy my question is this, do you want to be healthy, happy, fit and free, OR do you want to lose weight? Because these are two completely different things…

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If you’re ready to break the cycle of the quick fix and continue your health journey with consistency long after your Get Healthy Get Happy journey is done, here’s just a few ways to get you started:

Get accountable! Share with your friend, spouse, or mentor that you’re committing to a wellness journey and ask them to keep you accountable by checking in from time to time.
Expose yourself to health and fitness content with a journey based approach. The team at The Moderation Movement do this so well.
Engage with someone like a life coach or wellness coach to help create some new, healthier mindsets when it comes to your health.