I’ve been writing a monthly column for the Cleveland Jewish News since last year, and today I’d like to share one of the posts I wrote early on.

Wellness is like a pyramid with three pillars: eating patterns, activity patterns, and rest & relaxation patterns.

There’s tremendous synergy among these three pillars. You go for a great walk; you sleep better that night. You get a lousy night’s sleep; you circle the vending machines (or the fridge) all day. You eat too much; you don’t feel like moving. Everything is connected, so we can make small changes feel like a million bucks.

You don’t need to train for the Olympics. You just need to move. How much? A little bit more than before. If that means a 5-minute walk after breakfast instead of hanging out on the couch, then 5 minutes it is. If it means adding 10 minutes of stretching before your daily 2-mile run, then give it a try. Small changes, beginning wherever you are today.

This applies to food as well. Be honest and name one thing you’ve been thinking about. A small goal. Maybe you’re trying to kick that afternoon diet soda habit, like the one I used to have. Or you’d like to stop going through the fast-food drive-through on your way home. Or maybe you want to pack your own lunch on Mondays for a few weeks, and see how that goes. My own goal is to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables. Especially at breakfast time. It seems almost impossible to get the recommended 8-12 servings a day if you have to pack them all into lunch and dinner. But add breakfast time, and you’ve got a fighting chance. We don’t eat enough produce in general, and that goes double for breakfast. So I microwave a sweet potato for 5 minutes, let it sit 10 minutes longer, and then slice it open and add a heaping tablespoonful of peanut butter. That keeps me very satisfied for many hours.

If you already make plenty of opportunities to move, and you are proud to say that you already eat a colorful and nourishing diet, I recommend that you focus next on rest and relaxation. I consider this the unsung hero of pillars, perhaps the most important but least noticed. There are two sides to your nervous system, the gas and the brakes. You know that you need both to drive safely, but that doesn’t stop you from always pressing the gas pedal all the way to the ground all the time, even though you know you don’t get your best mileage with your engine racing. So how do you improve the tone in your brake pedal? With activities that calm your nervous system, like deep breathing, massage, prayer, yoga, meditation, hiking, fishing, sailing, pottery class, pedicures, classical music. You get the idea.

The goal here is to catch yourself enjoying yourself. Ask yourself “could I do this for six months?” If the answer is “certainly,” then give it a try. But if the answer is “I don’t think I could do this for even a few days,” then forget it and try something else.

Failure chips away at your self respect, and makes it that much harder to try again. I want you to feel the sweet sensation of success.