Summary of Balance Your Restoration with Zero:
Restoration is an important component of overall health and well-being, as it helps the body manage stress and increase resilience. It involves a “peak” of short-term stress followed by a “valley” of recovery, with activities such as yoga, meditation, and hormetic stressors like HIIT workouts or fasting. Zero, a health app, provides features such as the Loop, Habit Tracker, and Fasting Timer to help users assess and track their progress in building healthy Restoration habits. Pairing Restoration with healthy nutrition, activity, and sleep can lead to transformative changes in well-being.
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Feeling stressed and overwhelmed is not uncommon in today’s fast-paced world. And while there are various tools that can help you manage stress — such as meditation, breathing exercises, and yoga — there’s one that’s often overlooked: Restoration. In fact, Restoration is arguably the most neglected component of the Four Pillars of Health, which includes Nutrition, Activity, and Sleep. But without it, you’re more susceptible to weight gain, illness, and accelerated aging.
Nicole Grant, a registered dietitian and health coach who specializes in nutrition for metabolic health, explains that Restoration helps your body get better at managing stress. It’s a tool that can lower blood pressure, cortisol levels, waist circumference, and BMI — all significant factors for your health and lifespan.
Restoration is not just about relaxation and calmness. Your body needs a balance of both stress and recovery to build resilience. This can be achieved by incorporating a “peak” of short-term stress followed by a “valley” of recovery. This means adding a hormetic stressor like a HIIT workout, ice bath, infrared sauna, or a longer fast to your routine can help stress-proof your body against bigger stressors in the future.
The actual inoculation happens during the recovery phase, where your body builds back even stronger. The key is learning to balance both the stress and the recovery elements of Restoration.
To start building healthy Restoration habits, you need to find out what works for you individually. Here are a few suggestions:
1. Move your body outdoors
2. Listen to music to unwind
3. Practice deep breathing
4. Try journaling or meditation
And this is where Zero comes in. Zero is an app that can help guide you on your Restoration journey. It has a wealth of articles and videos, as well as three important features that will help you assess your big-picture progress.
1. The Loop: This feature allows you to visualize your journey and celebrate your wins across days, weeks, months, and years. As you log your healthy Restoration habits, like having a journaling session or taking a meditation break, you’ll see the Loop fill up with Restoration’s corresponding color, orange.
2. The Habit Tracker: This feature helps you build actionable, data-driven Restoration habits. Simply tap on the “+” icon in the upper right corner of the Today tab, and watch your smart choices tell a compelling story of progress over time.
3. The Fasting Timer: This feature helps track your fasts, receive custom Fasting Tips based on your unique metrics, and access Personalized Fasting Zones, which detail your body’s inner workings throughout a fast. Fasting is also considered a hormetic stressor that can aid with your Restoration practice.
Pairing Restoration with the other Pillars of Health like Nutrition, Activity, and Sleep can lead to transformative changes in your overall well-being.
Healthy Nutrition habits can be built by adding a colorful variety of fruits and vegetables to your plate, opting for healthier oils like avocado or olive oil, and choosing organic options for protein like wild fish or legumes.
Healthy Activity habits can be achieved by engaging in different types, durations, and intensities of exercise that you enjoy, such as home-based activities like yoga and foam rolling, or walking through nature.
Lastly, healthy Sleep habits can be achieved by practicing mindful meditation and breathwork before bed, putting away electronics 60-90 minutes before bedtime, and preserving adequate melatonin levels.
Incorporating Restoration in your daily routine can help you manage stress, build resilience, and increase your overall well-being. And now, with Zero as your guide, you can build healthy Restoration habits and achieve lasting transformative change.
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