My hope is that this starts a discussion about where people should start. 

I created this hierarchy based on my own personal and professional experience with clients. 

I see so many people wasting time, energy, and money on incredibly well marketed health hacks that are the equivalent of trying putting out a 7 alarm fire with a single bucket of water. 

And it kills me to see people spending so much. Unfortunately, for so many of us, our health journeys are a lot of trial and error, but it shouldn’t be. Here’s my opinion of what makes the biggest impact on your health.

1.Change your genetics- jk, you can’t exactly, but you can change how they’re expressed to a degree with your health habits (below).

2.Learn how to breathe effectively. I put this 2nd because if you’re not breathing, well…you wouldn’t be reading this. But breathing isn’t binary; you can still be breathing, but dysfunctionally. That can have a disastrous effect on your nervous system (PMID: 33540222) and sleep (PMID: 33530621) most notably, but also on your digestion (PMID: 35842548), cognition (PMID: 28626434, PMID: 34934269), back health (PMID: 37827444), and functional movement (PMID: 24567853, PMID: 17916605). This has effects further down the rest of the hierarchy. 

3.Chronic stress is linked to higher rates of chronic disease:  “Chronic psychological stress is associated with a greater risk of depression, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, upper respiratory infections, and poorer wound healing” (PMID: 22474371). Regulating how much stress you take on and how you recover from it, including sleep and coping mechanisms, has a massive impact on your overall mental and physical health. 

4.Self-Perception dictates your mental health and physical health habits. This includes self-esteem, which drives self-confidence. High self-esteem indicates greater feelings of self-acceptance and self-respect, which has been shown to “predict increases in health and decreases in 10 health problems, including blood pressure, stroke, and diabetes” (PMID: 35357851). Especially on social media, you see a lot of influencers who seem to have “healthy” habits as they promote weight loss and exercise hacks- but later on they admit they didn’t feel confident in their bodies, which drove mental health and damaging habits.  

5. Nutrition: In my experience, food decisions are often driven by client’s stress and self-perception, which is why I put nutrition further down the list. If you tackle the other two, you usually improve nutrition. For example, long work hours and stress often impact whether a person has time to go grocery shopping or cook meals, which dictates how much restaurant food or processed food they consume, which often (in my experience) has a major impact on macro and micronutrient intake. Additionally, there’s ample research demonstrating the relationship between self-esteem and nutrition habits, especially through the development of disordered eating habits (PMID: 27038782).

6. Exercise: In my experience, the motivation and ability to exercise is often driven by the amount of stress someone has and how they perceive themselves. If they have a lot of stress, individuals usually de-prioritize exercise and say they don’t have time. If a person feels intimidated by going to the gym or into a fitness class, they won’t go. Therefore, working on those two factors and educating a person about why exercise is vitally important usually helps overcome any barriers to it. 

7. Everything else: This is where most people spend most of their time and money! You don’t need supplements if you improve your diet. You don’t need an infrared sauna if you improve your sleep quality and eat more Vitamin E for your skin. HOWEVER- some of the things in this category are also used for things that have a higher impact. For example, although I put ice baths in this category, they were essential for improving my self-perception and continue to be one of my primary stress regulation tools. So, when you use things in this category, first make sure that the other areas are taken care of or that they are used for more impactful purposes. 

What do you think? Agree or disagree? I’d love to know!