Get off your arse! and move!

We live in times that are causing more disease and chronic illness than 60 years ago.  Funny enough our eating habits, exercise, sleep patterns and ability to sit still are also extremely different and not in a good way.

Now, normally I am the last to enter the world of chatting about health due to my many issues over my 54 years.  However, in some ways, my experiences are being repeated by the people I love so I thought I would share my knowledge and what I am doing now to fight the ageing process and focus on having a happy healthy life.  The changes I have been making are now helping me through possibly the most difficult time of my life  – multiple losses of people I love.

So how am I coping…

The biggest problem in our modern lifestyles is STRESS often this is the cause or the reason we do not look after ourselves.  My life has been a up and down see-saw of being pretty good until my mid 20s then being bad, being bad, being bad intervention (Liver problems) being good, being good, being good, being bad, being bad, being bad, (Broken Leg) being sad, being sad, being sad, buying my dream property, being good, being good, being good, being bad, being bad, feeling super stressed making a massive bad call with my business decisions, sudden drop of revenue, sale of my dream home I worked so hard for, doing jobs I hated to try and get back the income I lost, being bad, being bad (Brain Tumor), being sad (x100), being good, loss of loved ones being good, being good…

OK, the paragraph above paints a very grim picture and that is the point I am making.  The thing is for most of this time I have been pretty happy because I have a beautiful family and that’s all that mattered (I thought), I had some great times and outwardly my life seemed pretty good.  I built some very successful businesses and made a very good income and these skills I am proud of and still have today.

Reality check. The ‘being bad’ above refers to STRESS and looking after my health, it refers to bad diet, many sleepless nights caused by very bad habits, and most recently my lack of exercise.

So at 54, I am making a massive change, I making stress my mortal enemy (Funny enough it is for all of us).  I am getting through the loss of my loved ones by eating better (not perfectly yet), daily meditation, daily exercise (for me right now the big one) and making sure I do the things needed to give myself the best chance of having a great nights sleep.  Bed at 8:30 no technology (includes TV) after 7pm.

There is nothing wrong with making money, you just need to make sure you are looking after yourself.  I see many marriage breakups that should not be happening today, obese people (like myself) are far too common, where we try every diet under the sun and hit plateaus and try the latest fad.  The reality is 95% of this time it is because of STRESS!  Breaking up is not the solution to your marriage issues, caring for each other and working on stress is, eating well but not losing weight? changing your diet and stressing about it will not help, working on decreasing the stress will.

There are many things we need to change to work on our health, some could be small adjustments but for most of us, our evening and night-time habits need a major overall.

What has been a MASSIVE help to me was a small investment in the Calmapp.  Not only does it help me meditate 10 minutes a day but the masterclass section has a great tutorial from Dr Rangan Chatterjee on the four pillars of health.  The Dr explains things very well and can give you the simple tips to help improve your lifestyle and health.  If you are like me then, yes maybe some big changes are in the wind.

So the message right now for myself is to get off my arse and move.  That means taking many breaks from my PC and moving around the house, doing some housework, ensuring I maximise the walking opportunities by doing simple things like parking in the farthest carpark when picking up groceries and walking up my stairs 3-4 times in one go, several times a day, going for a walk for about 30 minutes a day. The 10,000 steps rule is a good guide, so use it. As well as this I meditate, go to bed early, watch very little TV or Netflix, avoid technology, try to eat well most of the time (added bonus here of saving money), get outside when the sun is out to charge your batteries and a number of other things you will find mentioned on the app.

Please take care of yourself

Arohanui
Tony C

BTW I am not paid to promote the Calm app.  I am just so happy I found it.