Monthly Self-Maintenance Checklist

Our monthly maintenance checklist is designed to bring you the best data-backed insights for maintaining optimal health. We recommend trying to complete as many items as possible from the list below each month to consistently feel your best.

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Nutrition

Drinking what you body tells you, listen to when you are thirsty or as a alternative option, drink up to 1 ounce of water per your body weight each day.

If you weigh 150lbs, drink up to 150 ounces per day.

Why - Drinking enough water each day is crucial for many reasons: to regulate body temperature, keep joints lubricated, prevent infections, deliver nutrients to cells, and keep organs functioning properly. Being well-hydrated also improves sleep quality, cognition, and mood.

How - Swish each sip of water you take in your mouth for 2-5 seconds before swallowing to combine with your saliva. Do not chug your water down, as this will lessen the amount that gets absorbed because lack of saliva.
Incorporate veggies into at least one meal every single day. Have at least half a plate full of veggies.

Why - Vegetables are a rich source of folate, a B vitamin that helps your body make new red blood cells. Folate is especially important for children's health and may also reduce the risk of cancer and depression. Vegetables are also great sources of essential minerals like: Copper.

How - Broccoli, Mushrooms, Kale, Turnips, Spinach, Asparagus, Green Beans, Cauliflower, Beets, Tomatoes, Onions, Eggplant, Broccoli Sprouts, Garlic, Bell Peppers, Cucumbers, Dark Leafy Greens, Cabbage.
Add healthy fats into your daily routine at least once if not more per meal.

Why - Dietary fats are essential to give your body energy and to support cell function. They also help protect your organs and help keep your body warm. Fats help your body absorb some nutrients and produce important hormones, too.

How - Fats like avocados, avocado oil, olives, olive oil, walnuts, walnut oil, salmon, cod liver oil, almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts, pumpkin seeds, pasture raised eggs, hemp seeds, chia seeds, coconut, coconut oil, anchovies, sardines.
Incorporate to your diet at least 2 times per week some phytonutrients.

Why - Many phytonutrients have antioxidant properties that help prevent damage to cells throughout the body. A number of phytonutrients have been shown to reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

How - Foods like red, orange and yellow vegetables and fruit (such as tomatoes, carrots, peppers, squash, sweet potatoes, peaches, mangos, melons, citrus fruits, and berries), dark green leafy vegetables (such as spinach, kale, bok choy, broccoli, Swiss chard, and romaine lettuce), garlic, onions, chives and leeks.
2-3 meals max within an 8 hour time frame, at least 3 times or more per week. No eating outside time window.

Meal window can be to eat 2-3 meals between 11am-7pm for example.

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Body

Exercise at least 3-5 times each week. Try to incorporate walking 30 min-1 hour, a high intensity interval training workout, endurance workout, or full-body toning workout into your weekly regimen.

Why - Regular physical activity can improve your muscle strength and boost your endurance. Exercise delivers oxygen and nutrients to your tissues and helps your cardiovascular system work more efficiently. And when your heart and lung health improve, you have more energy to tackle daily chores. Sleep, digestion, brain, energy, skin and improve. Exercise reduces chronic diseases and produces endorphins to make your feel good.

How - Try selecting one of the exercise activities whether walking or endurance training and do that for an entire week and alternate each week doing something different.
Go to bed at the same time every night and wake up the same time each morning. Get whatever amount of sleep you need to feel you best. Usual range is 6-9 hours. Test out which number of hours you need.

Why - Contrary to our quiet physical state, the brain is very active during sleep, carrying out many important functions. Sleep is essential to every process in the body, affecting our physical and mental functioning the next day, our ability to fight disease and develop immunity, and our metabolism and chronic disease risk.
Whenever you are standing or sitting, be mindful of your posture if you are correctly aligned. Check-in every 10-20 mins throughout the day to see if you are in a correct posture.

Why - Sitting and standing with proper alignment improves blood flow, helps keep your nerves and blood vessels healthy, and supports your muscles, ligaments, and tendons. People who make a habit of using correct posture are less likely to experience related back and neck pain.
Incorporate a mobility workout 1-2 times per week. You can split up and do an upper body workout and then a lower body workout if desired.

Why - Mobility training helps prevent muscles from becoming tight, immobile, and suffering from an all-round lack of movement, leading to potential injury. We can only get away with poor and limited mobility for a certain length of time before our body tells us we've had enough.
Mobility training can improve the range of motion of our joints and muscles. It can assist in improving our posture. Mobility training can alleviate 'everyday' aches and pains as well as improve our body awareness.
Incorporate a strengthening workout 1-2 times per week, if you desire more we recommend no more than 5 workouts in a given week.

Why - Strength training may enhance your quality of life and improve your ability to do everyday activities. Strength training can also protect your joints from injury. Building muscle also can contribute to better balance and may reduce your risk of falls for elderly. This can help you maintain independence as you age.

Benefits include improved Bone Health, Better Cardiovascular Health, Increased Energy Levels, Lower Abdominal Fat, Improved Mood, Better Flexibility and Mobility, Elevated Body Image, Enhanced Brain Health.

Lifestyle

Find one new hobby to try for the month and dedicate time to do it 1-3 times per week.

Why - Having hobbies can lower anxiety, lower your stress level, and help cope with depression. Hobbies help you form a life outside of work. You are just relaxing and doing something you enjoy without any of the pressures of the outside world. You don't have to do something as structured as you would at work or school.

Hobbies provide us with something fun, interesting and challenging to do in our leisure time and help give us a sense of purpose outside of work. The many benefits of partaking in hobbies include stress relief, as hobbies engage us in something we enjoy, meaning we will forget everyday stresses.
Find at least one new experience once per week. This could be a new restaurant, coffee shop, sporting event, concert, anything you haven’t done before try it out. Get outside your own comfort zone and try new things.

Why - Research shows that trying new things is very important to our well-being, so much so there is a dedicated term for the desire to have new experiences: neophilia. Neophilia is a predictor of longevity because it turns out that people who seek out novel experiences live healthier, happier lives.

Different experiences are what lead to different perspectives, perceptions, and prescriptions for the future. Your experiences are what allow you to think differently, and accordingly your experiences are vital to your ability to do all things creative. So savor your experiences, because experiences are all you have.
Once per week try to meet up in a public venue with your friends, family, or romantic partner. Discover a new local spot to enjoy. This could be a restaurant, park, or event.

Why - A Social Gathering will provide you with a chance to learn or refine your social thinking abilities so that you can enhance your interactions with others in all settings.
Social events develop social skills and empathy, the outward-oriented dimensions of emotional intelligence (EQ). The interactions or conversations elicited by events help people build relationships, understand different perspectives and engage other cultures.
At least once per week or more dedicate time to spend with your family, friends and romantic partner. Plan something to do together that will create a memory of the experience.

If you don’t have family, friends or romantic partner available to you, due to circumstances, try engaging in ways that you can whether it be over video calls for long distance or using websites or app to meet new friends or romantic partners.

Why - Relationships are a cornerstone of happiness and living a full life. This is because they come with a wide array of rewards. Relationships provide us with friends and family to share our lives with and people who can help us out in tough times. They tend to bring us plenty of laughs and as a result lots of joy.
Once per week give to someone in need by giving a helping hand, donating or supporting. Whether is giving food to a homeless person, donating to a good cause, supporting a local business, friend or family member with something important to them. The key is to give without any personal benefit to yourself, practicing Altruism.

Why - Whether you're donating money or time, giving promotes happiness, draws us closer to others, and strengthens empathy. These are vital for a wealthy life, which starts from the inside. After a certain point, more income doesn't increase well-being, but empathetically giving to others does.

Mindset

At least 1-3 times per week incorporate 10-30 min to meditate. The goal is to learn how to focus the mind back to center (usually center as a focus point like the breath), catching our mind every time it drifts off on thoughts. Keeping it a very simple practice that you can do anywhere at anytime.

Why - Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance that can benefit both your emotional well-being and your overall health. You can also use it to relax and cope with stress by refocusing your attention on something calming. Meditation can help you learn to stay centered and keep inner peace.
At least 1-3 times per week dedicate 10-15 minutes of time to concentrate on your breathing patterns and embedding it with proper breathing techniques. The goal is to reduce your breaths per minute to 6. That means slowing down your breathing on the inhale and exhale, while breathing deep and slowly into your lower lungs.

Why - Breath work helps put the brakes on an acute stress response and diverts the health problems associated with chronic stress. By eliciting the body's relaxation response, deep abdominal breathing helps reduce blood pressure.

Breath work improves oxygen capacity in the blood which leads to overall improved energy levels and stronger stamina. The amount of oxygen that we inhale through our breathing directly influences the amount of energy that is released into our cells.
Every day try to practice enjoying each experience you have, find ways to enjoy things you might find not enjoyable and create a new associations with it. See how enjoying the little things can improve your mood and energy.

Why - Enjoyment, understood as positive impression due to positive stimuli, or otherwise feeling of satisfaction, is an indispensable element of a balanced life. This is extremely important because being in harmony means feeling safe, feeling valued and a necessary part a group.

Appreciating the little things in life and focus your attention on what nurtures and sustains you in life. On everything that brings you even the smallest amount of pleasure. It also means practicing gratitude by noticing these everyday things that you take for granted so easily.
At least 1-2 times per week give gratitude to something or someone in your life. Aim for 10 things each time you do it. Tell yourself what and why you are grateful for each of those things. Practice at least 1-2 times per week voicing your gratitude to someone about what they did for you.

Why - In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.
Expressing gratitude tends to spread positive feelings. You feel good about something and your appreciation makes someone else feel good as well, which contributes to an emotional economy, a give and take of feelings which fosters a positive ethos of the entire group.
At least 1-2 times per week be open to a new idea, opinion or experience from yourself or someone else. Take in that information and process it to where you can be open to the possibility of agreeing/disagreeing or accompanying/not accompanying. Practice seeing things from that person’s perspective. Try to not pre-judge things without processing and collecting information enough to make an insightful decision. Be open to endless possibilities without putting up barriers or labels.

Why - By simply recognizing and respecting others' beliefs and practices you can build a more harmonious relationship with whoever you meet. Being open-minded can help us put our differences aside and cooperate to progress as individuals, and as a society.

Being close-minded could lead to unwanted thoughts and behaviors that in turn lead to arguments and eventually resentment. Do you see the rabbit hole that close-minded people dig themselves into? This is where compassion comes in. Having compassion during arguments where one or both people are closed off to the other’s goals, viewpoints and ideas is not an argument at all. It’s a power struggle. This is where one person fights to make the other person see things from a certain point of view, the “right” point of view, aka, their point of view.

Growth

Find once per week a problem or adversity in your life, and start planning ways to turn it into a positive learning opportunity for you. Research and analyze what can be done to overcome the situation. Then each day take steps to resolve it and turn the negative problem into a positive opportunity solution for you.

Why - Solving problems means making choices. Typically, effective problem-solving skills result in “happier, more confident, and more independent” individuals. When children tackle problems on their own, or in a group, they become resilient. They learn to look at challenges from a fresh perspective.

Problems can give rise to opportunities instead of setting you back and causing stress and worry. Problems exist at the level of the mind. The result allows a problem to overwhelm us, or in the case of successful people, become an opportunity to gain something.
Each week find a topic you haven’t had much knowledge on and dedicate the time to learn as much as you can about it from all angles. Discover how learning this topic can help you in other areas of your life improve and how this newly attained knowledge can be applied.

Why - Learning keeps your mind engaged and body active. It helps you get new and knowledge-based perspectives on the world around you. It helps you gain new experiences, trains your brain to handle a wide range of challenges, and keeps your neural pathways active. All these factors combine to keep you healthy.
Once per week try to do something that is out of your current routine and comfort zone. Start off with something subtle and increase as needed to more difficult things.

Why - It allows you to gain self-confidence. As you push out of you comfort zone and test yourself, you will see how mastering certain skills will increase your confidence. A positive sense of self-efficacy is associated with positive thoughts and aspirations, less stress and anxiety.
At least 1-2 times per week dedicate 20-30 minutes of uninterrupted work. That means no phone, people or distractions. Try completing a task, assignment or work for that duration without breaking focus.

Why - Strengthening your deep work muscle helps improve your concentration, helping you lock focus on a specific task, and stick at it for longer periods of time. You might begin only being able to focus deeply for 45 minutes, but regularly practicing and pushing deep work can help you scale this.
Each week set one goal to accomplish by the end of the week and set one long term goal (longer than a month to accomplish). Take steps each day to move closer to both those goals by completing necessary tasks needed to move forward. If unsure, ask the right questions and do research on how to possibly start moving forward. The more information you can collect the more insights you will have in what direction to go.

Why - Goals are what we wish to achieve; specific and measurable objectives. They can be focused on the short-term or the long-term, and can be personal or professional, but the common link is that goals are what we do.

Setting goals can help us move forward in life. Goals give us a roadmap to follow. Goals are a great way to hold ourselves accountable, even if we fail. Setting goals and working to achieving them helps us define what we truly want in life.

Financial

Each week plan to save up for something you can purchase at the end of the week and purchase in a month or longer. Begin planning what you can allocate towards your desired purchase. See areas you can save money, remove unused subscriptions or services, and reduce routine spending.

Why - Saving money helps cushion the blow of financial emergencies and unexpected expenses. Additionally, saving money can help you pay for large purchases, avoid debt, reduce your financial stress, and provide you with a greater sense of financial freedom.

It allows you to enjoy greater security in your life. If you have cash set aside for emergencies, you have a fallback should something unexpected happen. And, if you have savings set aside for discretionary expenses, you may be able to take risks or try new things.
Once per week dedicate time to researching new industries and sectors including stock market, real estate, startup companies and more of where you can invest your money so it can grow and compound over time. You don’t need to invest it, but practice doing your due diligence of why you would want to invest your money in the desired location you find.

Why - Investing is an effective way to put your money to work and potentially build wealth. Smart investing may allow your money to outpace inflation and increase in value. The greater growth potential of investing is primarily due to the power of compounding and the risk-return tradeoff.

Saving and investing are both important to consider in your future planning. Through saving money, your money is kept safe, and easy to access should you need it. By investing early over time, your money grows in value, benefiting from the magic of compounding.
Each month
1) track your net income
2) track your spending
3) adjust your spending to stay within budget or allocate for more
4) track which money is set for savings, investing, upcoming purchases
5) plan how to stay within budget and increase budget

Why - A budget helps create financial stability. By tracking expenses and following a plan, a budget makes it easier to pay bills on time, build an emergency fund, and save for major expenses such as a car or home. Overall, a budget puts a person on stronger financial footing for both the day-to-day and the long term.
Each month try to support a few local businesses by becoming a regular customer if they meet your quality standards. Also try to donate to a charity that you strongly believe in or find a new charity each month to donate.

Why - Local businesses care about and are invested in the well-being of your community and its future. Local businesses are more accountable to their local communities and donate more money to non-profits. Supporting local businesses is good for the environment because they often have a smaller carbon footprint than larger companies.

Charities help to improve the quality of life for others, build stronger communities, and support those who are in need. Additionally, charity can help to promote good values and inspire others to do good deeds.
Each month plan for a small vacation that you can do yourself or with family. Choose things that are light on your budget if needed. Try planning for a weekend or days off to take a break to recharge and relax.

Why - Studies have shown that taking time away from the job can have physical and mental health benefits. People who take vacations have lower stress, less risk of heart disease, a better outlook on life, and more motivation to achieve goals.