The short answer is yes! Christian Mindfulness can improve your health! Hi, my name is Lacy Ngo. I am a registered dietitian who specialized in Christian mindfulness and nutrition. In fact, I lost 50 pounds and dramatically improved my mood, outlook on life, and health with the help of Christian Mindfulness. Keep reading to find out how Christian Mindfulness can help you as well…
Christian Mindfulness as a Way to Cope with Stress
You want the weight to be lifted off your shoulders, but you just don’t know how. We certainly don’t like the way stress and worry make us feel, but stress and worry can do more than just make us feel lousy. Stress can harm our health. Stress can increase the risk of chronic diseases and mood disorders and can promote weight gain and wreak havoc on our immune systems.
We can’t live a completely stress-free life, so, how do we fight against the negative effects of stress? Turns out that learning how to cope with stress is the key.
Christian Mindfulness is one of the best techniques I have found when it comes to coping with the stressors of life.
In the following sections, we will discuss:
- How stress impacts our health
- How mindfulness reduces feelings of stress
- How Christian Mindfulness can improve our health
How Does Stress Impact Our Health?
Stress Can Cause Poor Gut Health
Our gut and brain are directly connected by the vagus nerve; so, what happens in the brain can affect what is happening in the stomach. Think about when you are nervous. What is one of the first symptoms you experience? Is it butterflies in your stomach? Those butterflies occur because your brain is telling your stomach something is wrong and your stomach reacts. This is an instant reaction to an emotion your brain is experiencing.
Long-term, your gut can take a hit when your brain keeps telling your gut you are in distress. Chronic stress increases inflammation in your body, including your gut. This can cause a multitude of conditions like an increased risk of heart disease, mood disorders, autoimmune diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases (1)
Stress Can Promote Weight Gain
When we are in a state of chronic stress our bodies will have elevated cortisol levels. Elevated cortisol levels lead to an increase in appetite and according to research, can cause weight gain (2,3).
Remember that stress can increase chronic inflammation and harm the gut. Both of these scenarios also hinder weight loss goals and possibly promote weight gain.
Stress Increases Your Risk of Chronic Diseases
Based on what we have discussed above, you may be able to predict why stress increases your risk of chronic diseases. Poor gut health, excessive weight gain, and chronic inflammation can significantly increase your risk of all sorts of conditions like:
- Heart disease
- Mood disorders like depression and anxiety
- Autoimmune Diseases
- Some Cancers
- Seasonal Allergies and Asthma
- Frequent colds and flu
- Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease
- Joint pain
- Diabetes
So, in a nutshell, stress can cause poor gut health, increase inflammation, and cause weight gain. All of these conditions can increase your risk of chronic diseases.
How Does Christian Mindfulness Help Reduce Stress?
Fortunately, God has given us the tools to help us cope with stress. These tools have always been available to us. We just need to slow down to notice these stress-relieving gifts!
Slowing down is the key to mindfulness. Mindfulness is about being present in the moment. The past is done. The future hasn’t happened yet. All you have is the present. When we focus on the present AND focus on God around us in the present moment, something amazing happens…
Our worries seem to drift away.
Think about it. What do we spend most of our time worrying about? I’m willing to guess, that we spend most of our time worrying about something that has already happened or something that could happen in the future. If we stop letting the past and future consume us, we get to notice the beauty in God’s world in the present moment.
When we focus on listening to the whispers of God in the present moment, then we also tend to make better choices that will eventually positively affect our future.
From Stressed to Joyful
It was a busy afternoon for my family. I had just enough time to drop my child off at choir practice before I had to head to a meeting. But when I got to her practice, the teachers hadn’t arrived yet. I could feel my stress begin to rise. I kept glancing at my watch, to see just how late it was getting. Finally, I looked at my daughter. She was twirling in the big open choir room.
It was at that moment that I realized that looking at my watch didn’t help me get to my meeting any faster. At that moment, I couldn’t do anything but wait for my daughter’s teacher to arrive. Worry and stress weren’t going to get me to the meeting in time, so I stopped glancing at my watch and started twirling with my daughter.
I said a prayer, thanking God for that moment, and I was overcome with joy. I would have missed out on that joy if I hadn’t stopped to notice the gift that God had right in front of me.
This is the power of mindfulness.
Christian Mindfulness is So much More…
Christian Mindfulness is about stopping to smell the roses AND remembering who gave you the roses.
Faith-based mindfulness is about praying and being present with God everywhere you go. When you pray before you call a friend, eat a meal, go into a grocery store, or scroll social media, you are more likely to remember what God taught us- to love our neighbors as ourselves.
When we take the time to pray before…well… everything, we tend to make better choices. We also get to see God at work in our lives because we take the time to notice. I have experienced so many more amazing goose-bump-God-moments simply because I took the time to listen for God’s guidance and notice God at work.
Christian mindfulness is about resting in the knowledge that God is with you, guiding you, and helping you. You can give your worries to God because God will never abandon you. Praying before eating, talking, or entering a store, reminds you of these truths, which can bring you comfort.
How Christian Mindfulness Transformed My Life?
I want to share a little bit of my transformation story with you. My hope is that my story encourages you to add more Christian mindfulness into your own life. I challenge you to try it and watch what happens. You may just find yourself completely and utterly amazed!
Before I incorporated this Christian mindfulness way of living, I was struggling.
I naturally have a type A perfectionist, worrier personality, and my mind, body, and soul started feeling the effects of this way of living. Before changing my approach to living, I frequently caught colds and cases of the flu. I had asthma and severe allergies, and I was experiencing feelings of sadness I just couldn’t shake.
But then I started trying to listen to God and notice the gifts of God where ever I went. I noticed the flowers growing us through the sidewalks and the smiles on the faces of the people I loved.
When I went to the grocery store, I mindfully selected the food that came from God’s earth and took the time to truly appreciate these foods.
Because I am a dietitian, I had knowledge of what different foods could do for our bodies but before mindfulness I didn’t let that knowledge sink in, so to speak.
When I started pausing and praying before I made food choices and before I ate, I began to truly appreciate just how miraculous God’s gift of food was. God gave us substances that could promote a healthy gut, support the immune system, reduce the risk of chronic diseases and cancer, and could even reduce the risk of developing mood disorders. Miraculously, these amazing substances grow right out of the ground of God’s earth!
God has provided us with foods that don’t just help us survive but actually thrive!
Once I slowed down and listened to God when I made life choices and even food choices, joy spilled out of me.
My mood improved exponentially, and my seasonal allergies and asthma improved as well. (Did you know that certain foods can help improve asthma and seasonal allergy symptoms?).
Before I changed my approach to life, I would catch colds frequently. Now I rarely get colds. I even lost 50 pounds while still enjoying my food.
How is All of This Possible?
Christian mindfulness helped me:
- Reduce my stress levels
- Make more loving and positive choices
- Choose and crave foods from God’s earth that promote a healthy mind, body, and soul
All three of these completely transformed my health and outlook on life!
You can read my full story as well as learn the exact faith-based mindfulness strategies that produce the biggest healthy results in my book 18 Weeks to a Healthier, Happier, More Purposeful Life.
About 18 Weeks to a Healthier Happier More Purposeful Life
Perhaps you have struggled for years to feel happier, improve your health, or lose weight. You have tried countless diets, programs, and strategies, but all have fallen short. Something was always missing. You needed something more. To truly transform, you must address all of you-your mind, body, and spirit. This is the only way to experience drastic lasting change. This 18-week program address all of it! This program provides the exact steps that, based on scientific research, produce the most dramatic health and weight loss success.
What is included:
- The 18-week journey: This journey will provide small, simple challenges each week to produce the biggest impact on your health, mood, and life.
- The Mindful Journal: This journal helps you keep a record of what is really important when it comes to wellness and weight loss.
- Easy meal plan ideas that can be tweaked to your preferences and lifestyle.
- The exact steps that, based on scientific research, produce the most dramatic health and weight loss success.
About Lacy Ngo, MS, RDN
Lacy Ngo is nationally recognized as the top expert in faith-based mindfulness and evidence-based nutrition. Ngo is sharing her secret tips and tricks with readers on how to get into shape not only physically but mentally as well. Ngo has been featured on Eat This, Not That!, Byrdie, The Healthy, Fitbit.com, Parade, and many more…
Many people become discouraged when they follow a strict diet and don’t see results. Ngo experienced this frustration firsthand, even as a registered dietitian. “My life revolved around weight loss, yet my weight continued to go up and down,” she said. “Eventually I let go of my obsession and discovered a whole new approach to life and health. I nourished my body, soul, and mind with mood-enhancing food and behaviors, and I experienced miraculous results I never achieved before.”
