Simple Wellness Practices To Improve Your Health & Mindset

While the concept of wellness isn’t new, it is something that has become a lot more common in recent years thanks to viral wellness trends, social media and influencers. And while there can be a lot of positives to this, there are also a lot of negatives.

Social media can often distort or misrepresent the idea of wellness, with unrealistic portrayals that can seem unsustainable or out of reach for normal people. Scroll through Instagram and it feels like you need an infrared sauna, an ice bath, a novelty skincare routine and a morning workout worthy of David Goggins just to move through your day.

We are bombarded with other people’s perfect routine or approach to wellness. This turns something that should be straightforward into something very complicated, very quickly.

But real wellness isn’t about perfection or performance.

It’s about taking small, intentional and consistent actions to improve our physical and mental wellness and build a strong mindset. The habits you fall back on not just when life feels off-track, but when it doesn’t.

The truth is, most people don’t need more complexity. They need simple routines and a few sustainable anchors.

Simple Daily Wellness Practices To Try

Taking a holistic approach to your health and well-being doesn’t have to involve waking up at 5:00am to dunk your face in iced spring water with lemon. There are some simple wellness practices that can actually make a difference to your daily life, such as:

Breathwork: Breathing With Intention

Breathing is something you’re already doing. But doing it with awareness? That’s where the shift happens.

Intentional breathing or breathwork, even for just a few minutes, can calm the nervous system, clear the brain fog and re-centre your entire body.

Try this: Inhale through the nose and count four seconds, hold for four, and then exhale slowly through the mouth for six. Do this three times and notice the changes.

Breathwork isn’t a wellness trend, it’s a physiological intervention. Conscious connected breathwork has been proven to regulate heart rate, improve mood and reduce symptoms of anxiety by stimulating the release of powerful hormones in the body, including dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin.

The best part? You can do it anywhere. No mat, no app, no performance. Just you and your breath.

Movement: Move Your Body

Movement and physical activity is something that is foundational to humans and comes with a whole lot of health benefits, both physical and mental.

To get these benefits, you don’t need a gym membership or a 12-week plan. You need movement that’s natural, feels good and that brings you back to yourself.

That could be a walk in silence. A run outside. A stretch on the living room floor. Ten minutes of yoga before the day begins. The aim isn’t intensity, it’s presence.

In fact, regular movement even, low-impact activities like walking, can improve focus, sleep and emotional regulation. One study found that walking just 30 minutes a day can significantly reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety

The trick is removing the “all or nothing” mindset. Movement doesn’t have to be complicated or involve complex routines. It can simply be a way back into the body.

Attention: Reduce Input, Reclaim Clarity

Most people don’t realise how much energy goes into managing the noise and chatter of our modern lives. The constant notifications, opinions, information and stimulation that we carry around with us.

Like with food, the information and media we consume can have a big impact on our mental health and wellness. You don’t have to give away your tv or throw away your phone and move off-grid.

Small acts of conscious disconnection create space for something quieter to emerge: clarity. Start by turning off non-essential notifications. Mute group chats. Take a walk without headphones. Give your mind the chance to not be filled.

Your attention and time is your most valuable currency. Protect it.

Meditation: Finding Stillness (Even Briefly)

Stillness doesn’t mean absence of thought. It means presence without distraction.

This could look like five minutes sitting with a cup of tea before checking your phone. Closing your eyes between meetings. Letting your thoughts settle before sleep.

Meditation helps but it doesn’t have to be formal. The goal is to find the pause. The reset. The decision to stop running and just be still for a moment.

A review of 47 studies found that even brief mindfulness practice can significantly reduces stress and improves emotional resilience

You don’t need to live like a buddhist monk (although you can if you want). It’s about creating pockets of stillness throughout your day, little moments that bring you back to yourself before the next thing pulls you out.

Diet: Nourish, Don’t Restrict

Wellness starts to feel like a punishment when diet and food becomes a checklist.

Food isn’t just fuel, most people have a strong emotional and physical connection to food. But in the world of wellness, eating is often reduced to control and restriction.

Instead of fixating on cutting things out, look at what you’re adding in. More water. More colourful food. More slow meals where you actually taste what you’re eating.

Research continues to show the link between diet and mental health. Nutrient-dense diets (rich in vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and lean protein) are associated with lower rates of depression and improved mood

Go back to the basics, foods that give you energy instead of taking it, meals that support your mind as well as your body.

Building Habits: Create One Daily Non-Negotiable

If everything is a priority, nothing is.

Pick one small action and treat it as non-negotiable every day. Not because you’re forcing discipline, but because you’re choosing commitment. That could be:

• Not checking your phone first thing

• A five-minute breathing session

• A morning walk without your phone

• Ten minutes of journaling

• Drinking a glass of water before your morning coffee

The goal is not the practice itself, it's who you become by choosing it. The key to building long and lasting habits is to build it into your identity. Become someone who shows up for themselves, even in the smallest ways.

You Don’t Need a Life Overhaul

The pressure to do more, fix more, optimise more can be exhausting. Sometimes, wellness becomes another way to self-reject. Another thing to chase instead of feel.

Wellness isn’t something you arrive at. It’s something you return to, over and over again

The truth is, most of what you need to feel better isn’t missing, it’s just buried under habit or distraction or simply lost in the noise around us.

The path forward isn’t always about doing more. Sometimes, it’s about doing less, with more presence.

Simple doesn’t mean ineffective, it means sustainable.

So, before you look for the next upgrade, try this: Breathe. Move. Rest. Eat well.

Disconnect for a moment. And trust that it’s enough to start.

If any of this resonates, why not start your wellness journey by trying a breathwork session for yourself—either in a 1:1 session, as a couple, or as part of my weekly group sessions. You can even start with a free trial. Come experience it for yourself.

www.resetwithrichie.com/groupbreathwork