Prioritising Your Health and Wellbeing: 5 Things You Need to Do
There’s a building sense of pressure that many of us are experiencing at the moment.
The sense of instability and uncertainty that is promoted through the news cycles, and having a creeping sense that even if we are managing to keep the show on the road ourselves, we are surrounded by more and more people who are truly struggling to make ends meet.
All that is going on around us, we can internalise and experience as a sense of tension and unease.
Indeed, why even should we feel experience a sense of wellbeing against this backdrop of stress and worry? It seems like a reasonable question to ask.
The answer is that our improving health and wellbeing is imperative right now precisely because of all the difficulty that surrounds us.
The most valuable asset we can possibly have in hard times is the physical and mental resilience that health and wellbeing provide.
With the increasing prevalence of lifestyle-related diseases, mental health challenges, and the overall stress of modern life, we need to focus on strategies that prioritise and enhance health and wellbeing now more than ever.
If we break this task down into its different dimensions we can discover how a step-by-step, holistic approach can yield transformative results.
The Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts
Improving health and wellbeing is not just a personal goal; it is a social responsibility.
Healthy, energised people are resourced to provide more support to the vulnerable, they are more productive and can make extra contributions towards shared goals.
Wellbeing requires us to view ourselves as an integrated whole - not just a mind that gets carted around by the body it happens to be attached to.
Each of us is a miraculous, multifaceted organism that consists of millions of finely tuned relationships that are constantly in flux.
This dynamic interdependence means that if we neglect one aspect of our health and wellbeing it can lead to imbalances that, over time, undermine our overall quality of life.
The Body Keeps the Score
The cornerstone of improving health and wellbeing is paying more attention to the body. The lure of Netflix, doom scrolling and scurrying down internet rabbit holes presents a very real problem for health and wellbeing.
We get disassociated from our bodies and our bodies' many needs:
The need to breathe properly
The need for movement and exertion
The need for hydration and nutrition
The need to be in touch with the sensory pleasure of being in existence.
For example, when was the last time you shut your eyes and let yourself really enjoy the feeling of the breeze fluttering over your skin?
Paying attention to our bodies is about being more physically active, yes, but it is also about so much more than that.
It is about experiencing the surge of peace and satisfaction that permeates us after we’ve exerted ourselves.
The feeling of agency and accomplishment that we enjoy when we didn’t feel like going for a run / a swim / a bike ride but we did it anyway.
The way that when we are more physically active, our self-perception shifts towards seeing ourselves as in command of our lives rather than being helplessly pushed around by events that just happen to us, subjected to all the anxiety and stress that this sense of helplessness promotes.
Regular exercise is not just about weight loss, heart health, and avoiding nasty, chronic disease. It is about feeling better about who we are and feeling happier to be alive, thanks to the endorphins it releases.
Incorporating regular exercise into daily routines is essential for improving health and wellbeing.
Choose an activity you enjoy. Start with just a little bit. Do it with music or a podcast. Do it with a friend. However you do it, just do it!
But don’t set yourself up for failure by trying to go from nought to ninety in a week. Work your way up slowly over time to a minimum of 150 minutes a week spent doing something that gets you a little out of breath and gets your heart pumping.
Keeping Fed and Watered
There is a clear link between not drinking enough water and anxiety, irritability, feeling tired and feeling low.
Dehydration obstructs our brain's serotonin production, an important neurotransmitter for mood.
How much is enough? Obviously it depends on the person, the weather, exertion and so on, but a good rule of thumb is 4.5 pints a day for women and 6.5 for men.
Just think if there was a pill that dealt with all those symptoms. So many of us would take it, but how many of us drink even half that amount of water each day?
Multiple studies have found a correlation between eating sugar and impaired brain function — and even a worsening of symptoms of mood disorders, such as depression. Studies show deficiencies in vitamins, minerals, and essential nutrients have similar knock-on effects on mental wellbeing as well as the body's optimal functioning and immunity.
In fact, a study by Mind discovered that when people cut inflammatory foods out of their diet, things like processed meat, sugar, white carbs and fried stuff, replacing it with nuts, fruit, pulses veg, brown carbs, healthy fish and meat, (and plenty of water) symptoms of even serious mental illness went into reverse.
When we go to the doctor reporting low mood, it is sadly not in their medical training to ask us how we eat and stay hydrated, so many of us remain unaware of what powerful levers to our health and wellbeing these simple interventions are.
Mental Health Matters
When we take better care of our physical health our mental health tends to see spontaneous improvement.
There are additional things we can do to promote mood, and reduce stress and anxiety, too. Extra measures are often necessary if we experienced developmental trauma in early life due to loss, neglect or physical or psychological abuse.
Developmental trauma frequently results in individuals having higher levels of body and brain inflammation, which can affect health and mood.
Sticking closely to an anti-inflammatory diet can be especially helpful for those of us who fit into this band.
Another very effective anti-inflammatory, mental health promoting measure is taking a 3 minute cold shower each morning (to build this habit you start with 10 seconds a day and double it each week) topped up with the occasional 3 minute ice bath.
Mindfulness strengthens our ability to avoid rumination and have a broader perspective on situations that upset us, and connecting to nature by mindfully tuning into each of our senses in a green setting like a garden, park, woods, riverside or beach is especially therapeutic.
Expressing our emotional experience by writing it out, or entering into a therapeutic relationship with a counsellor or psychotherapist are also powerful ways to support our mental health if this is something we have struggled with.
You can find a qualified, experienced person to work with by looking at the BACP or the UKCP registers online.
We are All Connected
Research into Social contagion theory shows that our moods, habits and behaviours travel across social networks for up to three degrees of separation. So when we take action to invest in our health and wellbeing it has a ripple effect, not just benefiting us but positively impacting people we know, and in turn, benefiting people that our contacts are connected to as well.
We are all connected and we all affect each other for better or worse.
And because we evolved to be a highly social, interdependent species, we truly need each other and need to actively cultivate and grow those bonds that hold us together.
The research literature shows that having supportive relationships is the biggest determinant of health for a typical human being, so investing in relationships is a priority.
Engaging in social activities, maintaining relationships with family and friends, and participating in community events can reduce feelings of loneliness and isolation and promote that sense of belonging, which is so crucial for improving overall wellbeing.
Learning how to be a good listener is one of the most important skills we can acquire to bridge the gap between ourselves and others. We sum up 6 methods in our article: How to Become a Better Listener: 6 Things you Need To Know
Another equally important skill is being able to maintain healthy boundaries. Take a read of our article: How to Set Healthy Boundaries.
A Call to Action for Improving Health and Wellbeing
The pursuit of improving health and wellbeing is a multifaceted endeavor that requires a holistic approach.
Physical fitness, proper nutrition, mental health awareness and social connections all play integral roles in achieving overall wellbeing.
The exact steps we can take, that work for us as individuals, are for us to discover by recognising the interconnectedness of these aspects and having a curious, experimental attitude of how we integrate them into our lives.
By understanding the supreme importance of these various strategies and incorporating them into our daily lives, to form habits over time, we can collectively move toward a healthier, happier, and more fulfilling future.
We do it for ourselves and others so we can lead stronger, happier lives.