Exercise
The Big Four: Building Your Recovery Foundation Exercise
For You: The Big Four Assessment
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Your Body's Report Card: Over the next three days, track your Big Four without judgment— just awareness. Questions to ask:Nutrition: Are you eating enough food for your body throughout the day, or are you skipping meals? Conversely, are you overeating due to stress? Either way, what type of foods and beverages are you choosing to fuel yourself with?Hydration: How are your hydration levels? How many ounces of fluid do you drink on a daily basis? How many of those ounces are? How often are you choosing sugary drinks, caffeine, or alcohol?Sleep: What does your sleep schedule look like? What time is your head hitting the pillow? How many hours a night? Is it uninterrupted? Do you have trouble falling asleep? How many times are you up in the night? Are you able to get back to sleep?Breath: If you were to sit still for a moment and notice your breathing pattern, what do you feel? Are you breathing deeply, or is your breath shallow? Does it reach down into your belly? Are you holding tension in your body? If so, where is it? How can you stretch, drop your shoulders, or move your body to release it?
Note energy levels, mood, and focus alongside your nutrition, hydration, sleep, and breathing patterns. What connections do you notice? - The One-Thing Strategy: Based on your tracking, choose just ONE of the Big Four to focus on improving for the next week. What’s the smallest change you could make that would have the biggest impact on your overwhelm?
Your Team: Modeling Basic Needs
- The Hydration Challenge Plus: Create a team hydration challenge but expand it beyond water. Track team energy and meeting effectiveness during the challenge week. The winner gets to choose the office playlist, select the next team lunch spot, or receive a wellness-focused prize (massage gift card, premium water bottle, etc.).
- Meeting Wellness Audit: Examine your meeting culture through a basic needs lens. Are you scheduling back-to-back meetings that prevent bathroom/water breaks? Running through lunch? Scheduling early-morning or late-evening calls that impact sleep? What one meeting practice could you change to better support your team’s physiological needs?
I’m Danielle B. Baldwin—coach, facilitator, keynote speaker, and proud firestarter.
I work with curious, courageous leaders who are ready to grow beyond what’s safe and into what’s next. Whether it’s in the boardroom, the backwoods, or the pages of my new book Sparking Greatness, I help people find clarity, ditch burnout, and lead with heart. My job? To make you feel seen, challenged, and just uncomfortable enough to change.