A few years back I released a number of short videos each
Wednesday morning: The Wellbeing Wednesday series. I started these off at the
time with the short story about me in my teens. Throughout my teens, I was
fairly active and very much into my Judo, I got injured a few times, dislocated
shoulders etc, but I got over it. Although I would eat healthy home cooked
meals, I would quite often snack on the junk food; I would have the fizzy
drinks, chocolate, crisps etc and very rarely drink water. If I got a headache
or quite often a full migraine (which I would get lots of) etc, that was ‘’fine’’,
I would just take another pain killer and get on with it.
My sleep wasn’t great, and for many reasons I wasn’t entirely
happy. But in this way, I muddled on, I don’t want to bore you with all the
details here, but it wasn’t until I was about 25 that I really started to rethink
things about my health. Just before this I made the change from banking to
retail and had begun a short-lived career in a popular clothes shop. Up until
this point I had been working surrounded by people who to be honest were quite
unfriendly towards each other. They were gossipy about each other and rude and
would often say hurtful things about other people, so not at all supportive. I’m sure you have all had experience of how these environments can affect your mood or emotions. Needless to say, alongside migraines,
I was feeling an incredible amount of emotional stress. It wasn’t long before I
began to realise that something needed change and quickly.
I wasn’t on social media at the time as it wasn’t as big then,
and not really having a clue where to begin, I started by reading back through
old college notes and assignments from my Health and Social Care course. I
began to read more books, and write journals. Although I began to feel better, I
still dreaded going into work and still had migraines though. After a couple of
months, I felt compelled to attend a craft fair, I have absolutely no idea why,
I’m not in the least bit talented or interested in that area. I’m not a craft person,
but whilst browsing, I met a group of people from a private health clinic and
began we talking. Things started to make more sense to me and a few days later
I embarked on a different journey, this time towards health. I entered a
completely different career and began working in private vitalistic healthcare. I changed my lifestyle, began to learn new ways to be healthy and grow
and even began to look at how I could help others with their health. I began to
feel happier still, healthy and experience less and less symptoms. I was no
longer surrounded by negativity and people gossiping and putting each other
down. I had found people who wanted to help, wanted others to succeed. I had
found my health, my life and my tribe. It wasn’t completely plain sailing, don’t
get me wrong on that, I had to make a lot of changes, cut a lot out of my life
that was not helping me grow. I had to push out of a few comfort zones and feel
the pain of change.
One book I read years ago was Who Moved My Cheese. This is a great book for anyone going through change of any
description. Its not too intense and until recently I still had this book and
would read it often when approaching change. We would often give it to our team
members to read as well.
Even back then we were in a world where we were surrounded by
short cuts; microwave meals, junk food, diet pills, TV and the beginnings of social
media. We don’t have to make our own entertainment. It is now all there for us
on demand. This is like anything good and bad, but it’s the on-demand part that
is concerning. Health isn’t can’t be on demand, you can’t quick fix it, you can’t
take the magic pill and it all go away, it is an ongoing process. I know now that
if I don’t keep in check with my habits, I begin to slowly slip back, I start
getting headaches and migraines again, my stress levels go up and I soon become
ill.
I realised after a while that to be healthy requires a lot
of effort, you need to reduce the bad habits and focus on those which are going
to improve and maintain your health. You need to feel the pain of change that
will take you from that state of survive to thrive.
Back to the present: We have had 7 weeks of lock down, and if like me you have
also had the added rollercoaster that is home schooling your children alongside
other commitments. I started my first blog with an introduction to the 7 Habits
of Health and a scorecard. What if you were to take time out now and look back
on this, to check in on your progress. Where do you still need to work on? Do you
need help with any of them? It can be painful. It can be challenging, but
although we are social distancing we can still help in many ways.
What one thing can you do today to grow and nurture your
body, and then again tomorrow and the day after...?
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