How Thoughts Shape Your Health and Healing -January often signals new beginnings. You make resolutions to do more, to change more. Yet this time can be something different altogether. It can be a pause. A season that invites you to reflect on what health truly means, beyond gym routines or meal plans.
Good health goes far beyond the number of steps you take, the pounds you carry, or the tightness of your body. It influences how you think, how you connect, and how you navigate life’s ups and downs. Winter, with its quiet pace and long nights, can be a time to see your health as a deeper practice—one of body, mind, spirit, and community.
What Rural Nebraska Revealed
The small jet touched down on a grass airstrip in central Nebraska. I was traveling with doctors who brought medical care to towns hours from any hospital, creating a documentary series about their work in remote areas. What I discovered was more than just a story about access to medicine.
Patients here healed faster—same conditions, same injuries—different outcomes. The doctors kept noticing it.
The question was why?
The answer lay in how these people lived.
They were surrounded by love—family members visiting daily, neighbors dropping off food, and a community showing up with care. They carried physical resilience—years of tending farms, lifting, walking, and enduring the demands of daily labor. And most of all, they had purpose—farms to manage, stores to open, and families to support. Their health was tied to their livelihood, which gave them a determination that medicine alone could not provide.
What those doctors experienced with their patients, and I saw for myself, was that health is multidimensional.
An Expanded Definition of Health
Today, we often equate health with weight, numbers, or logged minutes. However, those Nebraskans experienced something bigger: health defined by how they thought, moved, connected, and what gave their days meaning.
Healthy Thoughts
The mind is not separate from the body. Negative self-talk and chronic stress weigh on our immune system, while hope and optimism open space for healing. To think healthy thoughts is not to deny life’s challenges. You choose perspectives that sustain growth.
Healthy Bodies
Movement is essential for a healthy life, and it does not need to be limited to scheduled workouts. Carrying groceries, working in a garden, or walking with a friend are all ways the body builds strength through everyday activities. When movement happens naturally in daily life, it feels less like a chore and more like a gift.
Healthy Relationships
We are wired to heal through connection. A kind word, a shared meal, or a hand held in silence can lift the spirit in ways that medicine cannot. Relationships remind us that we are never meant to face illness or life alone.
Healthy Purpose
When we anchor our well-being to what matters most—raising children, creating, serving, or traveling with intention—health becomes more than a discipline. It becomes devotion.
Living This in January
So, what does this look like at the beginning of a new year?
Last winter, a friend of mine wrote one sentence every morning: “I am capable of meeting today with clarity.” She kept a small notebook by her coffee maker. Some days she believed it; some days she did not. Over time, that single thought became the foundation she returned to when anxiety arose.
You might do the same—jot down one thought that lifts your spirits to shift your perspective. Let movement become a natural part of your day. Make time for connection at the table or on the phone. Remind yourself why your health matters, especially when motivation feels out of reach.
A Practice, Not a Project
Health is more than a January resolution. It is a lifelong practice that goes through every season.
Like the Nebraskans I once met, you can see health as more than just your physical wellbeing. Remember, it includes how you think, how you live, and who stands beside you.
This month, consider where you might widen your view of health. One thought that uplifts, one act that strengthens, one connection that sustains. Over time, these small choices form the foundation of a balanced, vibrant life.
This article includes an excerpt from my debut book, “Take a Shot at Happiness: How to Write, Direct & Produce the Life You Want,” which reached Amazon’s #1 Bestseller list in the Creativity Self-Help category and was an Eric Hoffer Literary Award Finalist. It was voted “Best Personal Development Book of the Year 2024” and received the “2025 Leader of the Year” award from this magazine. The book has won thirteen prestigious awards, including the Silver Nautilus Book Award and multiple category honors from the NYC Big Book Awards, National Indie Excellence Awards, Best Book Award, and the Independent Press Award. It was also featured in Times Square, New York.
“Health is more than physical strength. It is the alignment of your thoughts, your actions, and the people who walk beside you.”
— Maria Baltazzi
You can find more intentional practices in my book or by downloading my Take a Shot at Happiness app.
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