The Connection Between Health and Joy

A foundational key to your happiness is your health.

When we don't feel good physically, we don't feel good mentally. When we are fighting a cold, dealing with an injury, or suffering from a bad night's sleep, we overall just don't feel that good or joyful.

A great metaphor for the relationship between health and happiness is the idea of a "stable table". Every sturdy table has four strong legs that are equally important and when just one leg is uneven (or missing), the table becomes wobbly (or collapses).

Just like an actual table, if the legs of our "health table" are wobbly then our happiness and joy are compromised. The four legs for our healthy "stable table" of wellness are:

• Diet

• Movement

• Sleep

• Connection

When all four of these are in harmony, your table is stable and you have a solid foundation for wellness and joy in your everyday life. When even one of these is wobbly or missing, our joy is undoubtedly compromised as we just don't feel that good.

If you are looking to increase your joy, I recommend you start with evaluating your table. Which of your legs needs more attention? What small habits could you implement to improve your stability and wellness?

I know it's easier said than done. We all know we need a requisite number of hours of sleep, daily exercise, a balanced diet and meaningful connections; this is not headline news. Knowing what we should be doing and actually doing it are very different things.

However, I hope that realizing it isn't just your health that is affected, but also your JOY, will help inspire you to make the small tweaks to your life that can stabilize your table. Small changes can have BIG impacts.

I hope that each of us can take a few moments as we head into this new week to prioritize our wellness in some small ways and see how that increases our joy.