Herald Living: Wellness made simple

The New Health Rules: Simple Changes To Achieve Whole-Body Wellness, however, solved that problem instantly. Small enough to fit in your handbag, and filled with 175 genuinely useful and achievable tips, each no longer than a couple of brief paragraphs and accompanied by gorgeous images, this is a book you can dip in and out of.

The authors are Dr Frank Lipman, a pioneer of integrative and functional medicine and founder of New York's Eleven Eleven Wellness Centre, and dancer, editor, writer and yogi Danielle Claro. They promise The New Health Rules will "bring you the secrets of feeling your absolute best, while keeping you inspired, engaged and awake - we won't talk your ear off or bog you down with unnecessary detail" - and they're not kidding.

Separated into five categories - Eating, Moving, Boosting, Healing and Living - just reading it makes me feel better. Here are seven of my favourite tips; hopefully they'll inspire you too...

Just Say No (Thanks)

Many of us are packed to the gills with obligations and activities, largely out of habit. We say yes to things we could probably politely refuse and end up exhausted. As an experiment, try cutting your load of optional commitments in half. See what happens when your schedule isn't jam-packed. With a little air in between, your concentration, productivity, and efficiency are likely to improve. You'll also probably feel happier and more satisfied.

Switch the Lens

Many of us are conditioned to worry and complain. Fretting sometimes feels like a tax we have to pay to remain relatively safe and sound - and our bodies play along, converting stress into pain. "Think positive" may sound hollow, but the health benefits of looking on the bright side are massive. If you're reading this book, you probably have all the basics: shelter, food, water, a community of people who care about you. So next time you find yourself indulging in the habit of negative thinking ("I hate this traffic", "I'll never get out of this job", "Why can't I meet someone already?"), reframe your thinking - find a silver lining or focus on something you're grateful for. When you switch the lens and heal your mind of negativity, it actually helps heal your body of exhaustion, aches, and pains.

Wander Barefoot

Kick off your shoes and walk on grass, earth, or sand whenever you have the chance. Not only will this boost your immune system by exposing you to unfamiliar microbes, but it will also give you a little charge - literally. Believe it or not, just as we get vitamin D from the sun and oxygen from the air, we get electrons from the earth, which have calming and healing benefits for the whole body.

Music Can Work Like Meditation

Think of the way you feel when you're sitting on a beach. Your body's rhythms - including the duration of a breath and the speed of your heartbeat - conform to the pulse of the waves. In everyday life, the noise around us (traffic and construction and leaf blowers and barking dogs) affects the vibrating atoms in our cells. Soothing music slows down our internal rhythms and stimulates the parasympathetic system, our built-in calmer (just like meditation). If you're just learning to meditate and you're struggling with the silence, relaxing with your favorite mellow music is a more accessible option.

Be Unproductive

Sometimes the organ that needs the most care and restoration is the brain. If you're a very driven person who has no patience for an unproductive day, what you might really need is... an unproductive day. No to-do list. No phone. No computer. It's akin to giving your muscles a day off from weight training to rebuild and come back stronger. If a whole day seems nuts, make it a couple of hours and do something that seems like a complete waste of time. Take an easy walk on flat ground, sit on the lawn with a book, or people-watch in a cafe.

Get Ready for Bed an Hour Earlier

Maybe this means sacrificing a ritual you love - plopping down on the couch with a juicy TV show after the dishes are done and/or the kids are in bed. But give it a go. Take a bath, do a relaxing yoga pose, or, if you're not tired at all, sit in a comfy chair with a book. If you're totally beat, climb into bed with said book. One of the reasons we all accept feeling crummy is that we know we don't get enough sleep. So see what happens when you do. Your mind is likely to be clearer and sharper, your mood will be better, and you'll have more patience and energy and joy.

Clutter is the Junk Food of the Home

Clearing it out ungunks the gears and gets energy moving again. Your soul and brain feel better and function more smoothly in a place that's been purged of extraneous objects. So throw out junk; find a person (or an organization) to donate useful items to in an ongoing way; set up a system for organizing keepsakes; and - most important - buy less stuff.

Extracted from The New Health Rules by Frank Lipman, M.D. & Danielle Claro (Artisan, £14.99). Photographs by Gentl & Hyers

TRIED AND TESTED

Laura Wurzal samples ready-meals for Fast Dieters

WHAT IS IT?

The Fast Diet Kitchen makes soups and main meals suitable for people following the Fast Diet - aka the mega-popular 5:2 diet - where you eat normally for five days and then 'fast' for two, consuming just 500 calories for women and 600 for men. Fast Diet Kitchen's very low-calorie meals are designed for Fast Dieters' fast days. After ordering from their website, meals are delivered to your door, and can be stored for up to six months before being heated in the microwave or on the hob.

WHAT'S IT LIKE?

There are 22 options; 11 soups and 11 mains, a mix of casseroles, curries, risotto, couscous and chilli-based dishes. The wide choice means I didn't get bored and looked forward to all of them. My favourite soups were the Butternut Squash & Sweet Potato (so creamy), Garden Pea & Mint (loved the contrast of sweet peas and tangy mint), Scotch Broth (with a generous amount of chunky beef, vegetables and pearl barley) and the Hearty 3 Bean Soup. My top mains were the Beef & Ale Casserole, Aromatic Chicken Curry and Vegetable Casserole. With generous amounts of meat and a wide variety of veg, all were filling, tasty and easy to prepare - and the handy pouches, which you can pop in the microwave, were ideal for taking to work. Knowing the calorie-counting has been done for you makes sticking to your fast days so much simpler.

Three, six and 12-week plans available, starting from £36 (£6 per day). Special offers often advertised on their Facebook page www.facebook.com/fastdietkitchen