What Would Happen If I Actually Did All These Things for a Week?
What if the transformation we crave doesn’t require a complete life overhaul, but a gentle shift in the way we begin the day?
What Would Happen If
That’s the question I’ve been asking myself lately.
Not with pressure, or shame, or another list of things to fix. But with curiosity.
What would happen if I added just one walk indoors each morning, ten or fifteen minutes around the house or the block, shoes optional, heart open?
Walking, after all, is one of the most accessible and profoundly therapeutic acts available to the human body. Harvard Health reminds us that even modest walking boosts cardiovascular health, lifts mood, and supports metabolism. It’s not about mileage. It’s about rhythm. Forward movement. As Dr. Thomas Frieden, former director of the CDC, once said, “Walking is the closest thing we have to a wonder drug.”
This morning walk becomes a walking meditation. A chance to come into relationship with my body. A time to wake up my systems: circulatory, lymphatic, muscular, digestive. To get everything flowing. It’s movement in service of detoxing, awareness, and renewal. It’s not for performance. It’s for presence.
Then, what if I followed it with thirty minutes of stretching, slow and deliberate movements that awaken the vagus nerve, elongate breath, and invite calm? Dr. Arielle Schwartz, a leading expert in somatic trauma recovery, writes, “We regulate our nervous system not through force, but through rhythm, grace, and permission.” Stretching isn’t just for flexibility. It’s an embodied yes to life. A way to say I’m listening, not just to the world, but to myself.
And then, I sit down to write.
Maybe it’s messy. Maybe it’s just morning pages, dumping out the lingering stress, the unanswered questions, the worries that settled overnight. Or maybe it’s a small but clear movement forward on a larger writing project. The point isn’t to be brilliant. The point is to show up. Unmasked. Unfettered by obligation or perfectionism. To write not from Ego, but as a steward of the work. To let the work guide me, not the outcome.
Writing like this, first thing in the day, is less about word count and more about honesty. Julia Cameron calls morning pages a “spiritual windshield wiper.” A way to clear out the noise so we can hear what’s underneath.
Now, imagine adding tapping three times a day, just three to five minutes each time.
Tapping, or Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), might seem strange at first. But it's deeply effective. In fact, a 2012 study published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease showed that tapping significantly reduces cortisol levels and improves psychological symptoms of anxiety and depression. As EFT founder Gary Craig said, “The cause of all negative emotion is a disruption in the body’s energy system.” Tapping helps bring us back into flow.
What would it feel like to gently press the pads of my fingers to my chest, my face, my sides, and acknowledge what I’m feeling without judgment or running?
To add in a teaspoon of Lion’s Mane mushroom powder with my morning drink, a well-documented neuro-adaptogen known to stimulate nerve growth factor and support memory and clarity. Int J Mol Sci calls it a “promising neurotrophic agent.” It's a quiet ally for the aging brain.
And then, what if I finally drank the water I always say I will? What if 120 ounces of water flowed through me each day, clearing the cobwebs from my mind, nourishing my cells, flushing out yesterday’s emotional sediment?
Hydration isn’t just about thirst. As Dr. Barry Popkin explains, hydration is directly linked to brain function, fatigue, and even mood regulation. Especially in a dry, high-heat desert environment, water is not optional. It’s survival. It's presence. It's clarity.
Add minerals. Add magnesium. Not just for muscles, but for the nervous system. As nutritionist Carolyn Dean says, “Magnesium is the spark of life. Every cell in the body requires it to function.”
So I wonder…
What would happen if, for just one week, I treated my body as if it were already whole and worthy of care?
If I let the morning walk be a meditation in motion. If I let stretching be a language. If I let tapping be prayer. If I let water be devotion. If I let supplements be support, not control. If I let writing be a clearing space, a kind of self-led remembering.
If I didn’t wait for the crisis or the breakdown to make a change.
Maybe I wouldn’t become a new person. Maybe I wouldn’t even feel drastically different.
But maybe I’d feel just clear enough to stay present for what matters.
Maybe I’d sleep more soundly. Wake more gently. Choose better words. Take a deeper breath before reacting.
Maybe I’d finally feel like I belong in this body.
Maybe that’s all I’ve been asking for.
“The desire is not just for health or productivity, but for homecoming.”
— Brenda Littleton