The Small Things That Actually Changed My Health

A few years ago, I was not well. Not in a dramatic, obvious way. I was functioning. I was running a business, showing up for my family, getting things done. But underneath all of it I was running on empty in a way that I had normalized so completely that I had stopped recognizing it as a problem. My cortisol had crashed. My hormones were off. I was tired in a way that no amount of sleep seemed to fix, and I had been quietly ignoring the signals my body was sending for long enough that it finally stopped letting me.

Working with a functional medicine doctor changed everything. Not because he gave me a magic protocol, but because he helped me see that what I was experiencing was not just stress or a hard season or the inevitable cost of building something. It was my body telling me that the way I was living was not sustainable, and that if I did not start paying attention, things were going to get worse before they got better.

What followed was not a dramatic overhaul. It was a series of small changes, made slowly and consistently over time, that together shifted how I feel in my body more than anything else I have ever done. None of them are revolutionary. Most of them are things you have probably heard before. But there is a difference between knowing something and actually doing it, and I want to share what doing it has looked like for me.

Switching from coffee to matcha

This was the change I was most resistant to and the one that made the most immediate difference. I still love coffee. But coffee was spiking my cortisol every morning at exactly the time my body was already trying to regulate it, and for someone whose cortisol was already compromised, that was the last thing I needed.

Matcha gave me steady, calm energy without the spike and crash. The L-theanine in it does something that coffee never did for me, a kind of focused calm that felt completely different from the jittery alertness I had mistaken for productivity for years. Lower cortisol, better energy, no 3pm collapse. If you have been thinking about making the switch, I would encourage you to just try it for two weeks and see how you feel.

Strength training

I have been strength training since college, so this was not a new habit for me. What changed was my relationship with it. For a long time I was focused on lifting heavy and pushing hard, the gym bro version of strength training, and I was not listening to my body at all. I was also sleeping only a few hours a night, running on adrenaline, and treating exercise as another thing to conquer rather than something that was supposed to make me feel good.

When my health fell apart, I had to rethink all of it. I have scoliosis, which means there are exercises I simply do not do. No barbell squats, nothing that compresses my spine. I stopped doing certain movements just because I thought I was supposed to and started asking a different question entirely: does this make me feel good? That reframe changed everything. I move in ways that support my body now rather than fight it, and I feel stronger and better than I did when I was pushing harder. Listening to your body is not a weakness. It is the smartest thing you can do.

Daily walks

A daily walk sounds too simple to matter and it matters more than almost anything else I do. For me it means getting outside with Kona and Amelia and walking at the beach, which does something for my nervous system that I cannot fully explain but have stopped questioning. The combination of movement, fresh air, and being near the water resets me in a way that no indoor workout ever has.

I also got a walking pad for my office and my home study, which has been a genuine game changer, especially for my scoliosis. Being able to walk slowly while I work keeps my body moving through long desk days and has made a noticeable difference in how my back feels. If you work from home or spend long hours sitting, I cannot recommend it enough. Movement does not have to be a separate event. It can just be woven into how you live.

Food as medicine

I want to be honest here: I am pretty rigid about what I eat, and I am not apologetic about it. That rigidity did not come from a diet or a program. It came from educating myself about what is actually in our food, and once you know, you cannot unknow it. Whole foods taste good to me now. Real food, grown properly, prepared simply. Processed food tastes like what it is, and I mean that literally. Once your palate adjusts, there is no going back.

More protein than most people think they need, less sugar than most people realize they are eating, and as much as possible from real sources including our own garden. Growing what you eat changes your relationship with food in a way that is hard to articulate but easy to feel.

Clean beauty

The brands I have landed on after a lot of trial and error: Osea for skincare, Primally Pure for deodorant and body care, Cocokind for accessible everyday basics, and Kosas and Ilia for makeup. These are not compromise products. They perform, they feel good, and I trust what is in them. That last part matters more to me than anything else.

I did not throw everything out at once. I replaced things as they ran out, starting with the products I used most and moving from there. Once you make the switch you do not miss the old versions. What you do notice is that you feel better about what you are doing for yourself every single day, which turns out to matter more than I expected.

The non-toxic home

I wrote about this in depth in a previous post, so I will not repeat all of it here. But it belongs in this list because it was part of the same awakening. Once I started looking at what I was putting in my body and on my skin, I started looking at what was in my home. The paint on my walls. The cleaning products under my sink. The candles I was burning every evening. The furniture we were sleeping and living on.

The home piece is where my personal journey and my professional work converged completely. As a WELL Accredited Professional, I had the knowledge. What the cortisol crash gave me was the urgency. You cannot spend a year learning how your environment affects your hormones and your nervous system and then go back to not thinking about it. I could not, anyway. And I am glad.

What I want you to take from this

None of these changes were dramatic on their own. The matcha switch took two weeks to adjust to. The strength training took time and honesty about what my body actually needed. The food changes happened gradually, one habit at a time. The clean beauty swap took a year to complete properly. But together, over time, they have added up to something that feels like a completely different relationship with my own health.

I am not a doctor and I am not telling you what to do. I am telling you what worked for me, after a season of not being well, in the hope that some of it might be useful to you. Your body is telling you things. It is worth slowing down enough to listen.

Start with one thing. The walk, the matcha, the ingredient label on your moisturizer. Pick the one that feels most doable right now and just start there. That is how all of this began for me, one small thing at a time, and it changed everything.

-Han