Health
Your health is a balancing act Tips for improving individual health By BARRY H. SAMUEL
W
e are a society that overworks, overeats, overspends, is sleep deprived and all too often neglects its individual health. As such, we are a society that would appear misguided. It’s an elementary case of living life to extremes and losing a sense of control. In western culture, we are habitually consumed with this “treadmill lifestyle”. That is, chronically and even mindlessly at times, getting through each day just to try to keep up to survive. Most of us can relate to living this kind of survivalist experience — that sense of doing those things that need to get done to cope. Some on the other hand are as yet not as aware of this pattern of living. Inherent with this lifestyle is the perceived need to live excessively and acquire things, including material wants we don’t really need. This validates and rationalizes our out-of-balance behaviour. Inwardly, we yearn for those rich experiences that provide joy and fulfillment beyond the daily grind of it all. On a socio-political level, most of us are willing to acknowledge the crude reality of our healthcare system being primarily about managing sicknesses
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and disease. This creates the need for us to act ahead. On this basis, it is clear we need to act in order to spare ourselves. As we collectively overstretch in our lives, the concept of life balance has come into view now more than ever. In my working practice of the past two decades, I have seen one universal trend to this end. That is, classically, as a new season begins there is a re-awakening toward internal development and behavioural change. The appetite for healthy change is once again ignited with opportunity to gain self-awareness through personal introspection, planning and of course, action! Lifestyle Behaviour Change The responsible reality for sustainable life change is that it requires discipline in the form of consistency (time) and perseverance. The usual quick-fix is not good practice or habit and typically leads to a subsequent fall. In order to provide inspiration and leadership for others, we must begin intrinsically. The solution is to identify those small changes to
everyday living that will help enrich our experiences and add this sense of vitality. Paramount is to recognize first that without basic health, using a more balanced approach it becomes difficult to provide for others, or, even for ourselves to the fullest. Once we begin to spiral downhill, the mere thought of getting back up seems too daunting to want to work toward individual empowerment. Societal norms have it that we are conditioned to living a path of career, family, taking vacation twice a year and to celebrating special moments with friends and loved ones. Yet, nowadays, even this notion is a struggle for most to fit in among a frenetic life that can seem overwhelming and multi-directional at times. The dilemma becomes, as parent, friend or coworker: “how can I justify putting myself to focus on ‘me first’ without seeming narcissistic?” And, let’s not forget the element of conscious guilt that pervades by manifesting barriers to carving out time for yourself. It would seem in our popular culture the notion of putting yourself first is considered to be selfish and not acceptable.
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