This blog post is all about what natural living is and what it means. Natural living is what Earthy Vibes is all about, to help you improve your health and well being in harmony with the earth.
In this post I will therefore explain what natural living is, what the benefits are and share practical tips about how you can start to live a more natural lifestyle!
Before I jump to the explanation I want to be clear about that natural living can look different from person to person. There is no official definition or rule book for natural living. This means that you can implement what resonates and feels good to you and leave the rest. I am here to inspire you, help you to get started and you can take and leave what you want!
Lets dive in!
What is Natural Living?
What is natural living exactly and what does it mean to live naturally? If you thought it meant living in the middle of nowhere, eating roots & berries, catching fish with your bare hands and never taking a shower, you are mistaken. Even if you could live like that and call it natural living, it doesn’t have to be that extreme!
Natural living means living in harmony with the earth and making conscious choices to use natural, toxic-free and organic products. It’s about living connected to nature and following the earth’s natural rhythms to truly feel connected to life, improve your health and live sustainably.
Living in harmony with the earth means that you make lifestyle choices that leave no to little negative impact on the earth. One of these choices is to use natural, toxic free and organic products.
This applies to your food, self-care products, beauty products, clothes, home products and actually everything you use in your daily life! To live connected to nature means that you spend time in it and live with the seasons, embracing the changes and the possibilities they bring, instead of going against it.
Natural living can bring a sense of peace, connection and freedom.
Firstly, it feels good to live a lifestyle that is healthy for ourselves, the earth and all life on earth.
Secondly, it brings a sense of peace and connection to spend time in nature and intentionally connecting yourself to the earth. Lastly, you feel free by living a life free of unnecessary waste, toxins, restrictive social norms, stress and worries otherwise weighing you down.
The Basics of Natural Living
There are some main principles that most people who live a natural lifestyle strive towards. These are things you are working towards when you start living naturally (meaning you do not have to do all of this now at once).
- Use the natural alternative.
Choose a natural option instead of a synthetic or processed one. This applies to everything you use in your daily life. For example: food, medicine, soaps and shampoos, perfume, beauty products, kitchenware and cleaning products.
✧ Read: Natural oral care for healthy and beautiful teeth - Connect with nature.
Go outside, soak up the sun, dance in the rain, let the wind blow through your hair. Spending time in nature has many health benefits to both body and soul. Being in nature will not only connect you to the earth, but also to yourself! - Do/make it yourself.
Sometimes the best and most natural products you can get are the ones you make yourself. Whether it is growing your own food or making your own natural beauty and cleaning products. You use the things that nature is giving you to get yourself what you need.✧ Read: How to Make Natural Lip Balm – Natural Lip Balm Recipe
- Eat fresh, local and organic food.
Keep it healthy and natural! This means buying fresh food instead of processed food which can contain many preservatives and additives. It also means choosing organic and local when possible because it is the better option for both you and the earth. If you can’t buy everything organic, you can use EWG’s Dirty dozen as a guide, which shows you which produces are sprayed with the most pesticides and therefore better to get organic.
- Live with the seasons of the earth.
Live with the seasons and embrace the changes each one brings. Take time to notice your surroundings and everything that is happening in nature. There is so much beauty and magic to be experienced, but our stressed and fast paced world makes us blind for it. So slow down, open your eyes and be amazed by all the possibilities each season has to offer! Also, eating seasonally has a positive impact on the environment.
✧ Read: How to live with the Seasons
- Protect the earth.
With natural living one goal is to protect the beautiful earth and all life on it. Many of us are living on this planet and unconsciously using its resources to the limit. By taking responsibility for our own life, making conscious choices and treating the earth’s resources with respect, we can make this world a better place for everyone.
✧ Read: 15 Easy Eco-friendly Gift Wrapping Ideas
- Reduce your plastic waste.
The world treats plastic irresponsibly. Most of produced plastic ends up in the ocean, harming wildlife and polluting the earth. A great thing you can do is reduce your plastic waste as much as possible and recycle the rest.
✧ Read: 27 Ways to Reduce your Plastic Waste [Starter Guide!] - Use natural materials that are biodegradable.
Use and buy things made of sustainable material that also is biodegradable. That way your things will not pollute the earth when you decide you no longer want them or when you are long gone. Instead of buying things in synthetics and plastic, you can choose to buy things made of sustainable bamboo, wood, organic cotton, linen, organic wool or another natural and sustainable material.
Why live naturally?
Now that you know what natural living is, you probably wonder why you should live more naturally! So lets get into the whys and benefits of natural living.
There are so many reasons to start to live more naturally! Personally I live a natural lifestyle to improve my health and well being so I can live my life to the fullest while also feeling amazing. Another reason of mine is to protect the earth from its ongoing destruction. But it does not have to stop there! There are loads of other benefits that you may not even have thought about.
To have a why for a certain lifestyle or goal in your life is crucial. It makes you able to come back to it by remembering WHY you are doing this when things get hard or you get lazy. Here is a list of benefits that could help you decide your ”why”.
The Benefits of Natural Living
- Better Health (for all of us)
This is a big one! Natural living will not only benefit your own health but also the health of all life on earth. By going natural on self hygiene products, beauty products, kitchenware, cleaning supplies, food & drinks, medicine, birth control and other things you use, you will greatly reduce your daily chemical cocktail! Not only will you reduce chemical exposure yourself, but you’re actively reducing polluting your environment as well. - Better Well-being
A healthier body will lead to better well-being and a happier mind! Living a natural lifestyle and being connected with nature will make you feel more peaceful, grounded and also lower your stress levels. These positive states of being will lead to a more relaxed mind which in turn will increase your happiness!
✧ Read: How to become Happier by Practicing Gratitude - Improved Appearance
By living naturally your will improve your health. But not only will you feel good on the inside, it will shine through on the outside too! By reducing toxic chemicals and prioritizing your health, your hair gets shinier, your nails get stronger, your skin clears up and you’ll start to glow! Conventional soaps and shampoos from the supermarket are quite harsh and contain harmful chemicals. By switching to natural products you are going to be much kinder to your skin and hair. Your body will be grateful and you’ll become a natural beauty!
✧ Read: The Best Natural Shampoo & Conditioner - Feeling Connected and Present.
Spending time outside in nature helps you slow down and become present. Life literally flies by! And being out in nature really has the power to take you right back to the present moment. Look around you and notice the beauty, hear the quiet whispering of the wind or birds singing in the trees. Nature works healing on our bodies and souls. It also gives us the opportunity to get out of our busy minds and connect with ourselves and our surroundings. - Contributing to a Better World
Not only will natural living improve your own health, but also the health of the earth. By switching to natural alternatives you are doing yourself and the earth an incredible favor by not poisoning your environment with toxic chemicals. The earth is so beautiful and life on it is remarkable. It is so important to protect it from the destruction that is currently going on. All the eco-friendly choices you make will help, and you will inspire others to do the same when they see you happy and thriving. - Less Stress and a Simpler Life
Connecting with nature makes you slow down and feel calm. Going natural will make you realize that you don’t need a lot of stuff to feel happy as well! Getting rid of unnecessary things and clutter in your home means less chaos in your mind, which in turn leads to less stress. Having less clutter around you and creating space for the really important things in your life will make your life simpler and more fulfilling. - Saving money.
Unexpected reason? Not so much! Not spending money on unnecessary material things means more money in your bank account. Another way natural living will help you save money is by investing in good quality reusable products so you never have to buy the disposable ones again (razors, menstrual products, straws etc!).
You can also save money by making your own products from scratch. This way you will save money by not having to buy 10 different cleaning agents (totally unnecessary), be 100% sure that it is toxic free and also reduce your plastic waste.
✧ Read: 25 Ways to Save Energy at Home
5 Ways to start Living more Naturally
Now that you know what natural living means and you know why you would want to live more naturally, I have a list of a few practical things you can do to start to live a more natural lifestyle today!
- Start to think about what you eat.
Be more mindful of what you eat. Start to eat more healthy and whole foods like vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, quality animal products, seeds & nuts. Preferably organic and grass fed. That also means ditching overly processed foods such as instant meals, fast food and potato chips etc. Overly processed foods are full of preservatives and additives to improve taste (often in sugar free or fat free alternatives) and we want to avoid those.
If you really crave something sweet, choose to make something yourself! Golden Milk and Kombucha are two healthy beverages if you crave something sweet or sparkly to drink! - Start reading labels.
This goes for food, self care products and actually everything. Remember that the front of the package is just marketing. The word ”natural” is so easy to just slap on there to get people to buy the product. But the truth is found at the back of the product. Do you actually know what the ingredients on the ingredient list are? Or are there loads of letters and chemical names which you don’t have a clue about what they are and what they do? If you find such a name, google it and look what it is and why it is used in the product. That way you find out if what you buy is truly natural or if it secretly contains toxic chemicals anyways.✧ Read: Why Organic & Natural Makeup is Better for You & the Earth
- Start to rethink what you buy.
Ask yourself this question when you buy something: Is this really necessary or is it just a product that marketing makes me believe I need? If you’re not sure, don’t buy it (you can always buy it later if you change your mind). Another great tip is to buy less and invest in quality instead! You may pay more for quality in advance but it will last much longer than cheap and low quality products, which will also lead to less waste. You can also start to consider buying used instead of new! It is both cheaper and more environmentally friendly than buying everything new. - Connect to nature everyday.
Go outside and connect with nature everyday. Even if it is just for 15 minutes! Going somewhere where trees and plants are growing to spend some time there already gives you the healing benefits nature has to offer.
You don’t have to buy a house in the middle of the forest all of the sudden now that you’ve chosen to live more naturally. Simply just get out into nature more and connect!
✧ Read: 10 Ways To Connect With The Earth
- Switch to reusable products.
Quit disposables and start to use reusable products! By doing so you will both save money and save the planet by reducing waste. A great place to start is with personal hygiene products. You can switch out your disposable razors to a safety razor, your pads and tampons to period underwear or a menstrual cup, and cotton rounds to washable cotton rounds. Start to look where you create a lot of waste and look for a reusable alternative there!
Final thoughts on Natural Living
So there you have it! Now you know what natural living is, what the benefits are and how you can start to live more naturally.
Remember that creating a natural lifestyle is a journey! You don’t have to make all the changes in a day. In fact, by making small changes over time and sticking to them will make it more likely for you to succeed. There is no need to overwhelm yourself by doing everything at once, when you can make it a pleasant journey instead.
Natural living really brings me contentment, knowing I live the best way possible for myself and the earth. Also it just feels right to live with the seasons and celebrating the different seasons of life. It makes me feel grateful, present and alive!
If you want even more practical tips for living a more natural lifestyle, Get the FREE Natural Living guide below!
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