Improving your health amongst all the noise
Many people seek to improve their health, their diet and exercise habits. As mental health awareness increases, people also seek to improve their emotional wellbeing through various tactics and interventions.
As a result food, workout and increasingly emotional health habits are being frequently discussed. In office canteens, at the water cooler or in the coffee shop. Essentially, this is great - people share what they’re doing, recommend things to peers and discuss best practice. We help each other evolve and share the love.
However, I’ve also seen these types of conversations also veer off to be less helpful.
On some occasions, it’s only a matter of time before a group of people discussing health advice will come to some specific thing and debate its worthiness.
That something could be...
White rice is basically sugar so you know you always swap it for the brown version
Eating just breakfast and dinner is the way to go, skip lunch and you’ll feel great
Meditation helps me combat anxiety, you should give it a try
It’s best to have a protein smoothie in the morning and get loads of protein first thing
You really should be taking Vitamin D supplements, I read everyone should be doing this
I’ve stopped drinking coffee in the afternoon, maybe that will help with your headaches?
I’m using Huel now, it’s been the best way to lose weight
Two date nights a week I’m sure is equal to a happy marriage
So many different claims. Different people with different goals. Different preferences. Different information sources. Different forms of confusion.
Stepping out of the detail
If you find yourself caught up in one of these conversations and feeling like you’re not doing something right or are a bit overwhelmed by all that you can do, then let me put your mind at ease.
All of this information needs to go through your personal prioritisation filter. The one that works out what’s best for you now and thus what useful and potentially very good interventions, you park and don’t worry about.
Here’s why...
Less is more
It’s best to focus on just 1-2 habit changes at a time. Ideally focussed over a month. This results in sustainable longer-term change and keeps the focus.
For example, if you’re already trying to get yourself to exercise three times a week, don’t worry about white rice or protein shakes or lunch fasting for now. Just get the exercise habit consistent and going. Use all of your habit-changing willpower energy there.
Relevance to you
You want to make those one or two habits or health choices the most impactful health changes TO YOU at this point in time and to have consciously evaluated them from that standpoint before you commit.
This means you’ve not just tried to do something because it was top of mind, or your friend is doing it, or you saw it on Instagram and someone ‘cool’ is doing it. Intermittent fasting might be trendy, but for you right now, you know that getting some more green foods in your diet is the best thing.
Remember, you are the only person with the complete holistic knowledge of your own current situation to be able to do this evaluation. A good curious professional can help you, but you want someone else to be questioning wide enough to get the whole picture of your life to make the right assessments.
Always think like a holistic system
Holistic wellbeing means looking at physical and emotional health.
A system means that the separate parts of the system produce a different result than all the parts combined together. There are complex and interdependent relationships in the system.
Your body and mind system is unique. Your health history and previous change track record all play into things.
For example, someone that’s had a history of eating disorders ideally needs to stay away from any restrictive i.e. cutting out of food groups. Whilst someone else who’s been drinking Coke every day with a tendency towards addictive personality traits may well be best suited to cut refined sugar cold turkey.
The question is how much do you understand your own personal system and the relationships that exist between the different parts? Think holistically and always with your system in mind.
Say no to overwhelm
There are always a huge number of things you can do to optimise your health. There are 1000’s of articles and books you could fill your time with. It’s really important not to get overwhelmed with all that you can do or with conversations that make you feel you’re not doing enough.
If there are lots of ‘shoulds’ running around in your head, do this…
Write out an exhaustive list of you would ideally like to do - a health goals avalanche you might call it.
Then whittle this list down to 1-2 most powerful for the next week or two. Or re-write the items as a ranked list.
Then skim off the top 1-2 and put the rest on the back-burner.
Another option is to ask yourself a simple question:
If ONE of these habits I had changed permanently as of tomorrow, what would be the best one?
DIY health improvement
I hope this has been helpful in that now you have your own, self-aware, truly intuitive, health optimisation process to discard all the crowdsourced suggestions and let those group conversations and social media posts pass you by without too much concern.