Physical health gets a lot of press, we like to talk about physical health a lot, being fit, looking fit, that is a big part of social media nowadays. I believe a big part of physical health starts in your head, your mental health is just as important as the physical one. Works both ways of course, but still we like to talk and do more about the physical. I believe that people who are not balanced physically and/or mentally won’t be balanced in life, which can result in both physical and mental illness. I want to run a few things by you, as this has been on my mind a lot lately. Mental health is clouded by a blanket of shame, for all involved, and it has been for a very long time. I was thinking I could do my part and share my thoughts, to lift a little bit of that cloud. My personal experience with severe mental health, and why I want to make a difference is my mon. My mon suffered from chronic mental illness, I guess it all started in her late twenties early thirties, I couldn’t have been much older than 4 or 5. She had been strong and tough all her life, surviving the most horrendous experiences, never asking or getting any help, and than one day she couldn’t handle the stress any longer. I can’t say what happened prior to her mental breakdown but she never recovered really. Her illness was manageable the rest of her life, with at times of mental overload or stress she would relaps. I don’t want to go into any details, those are besides the point, but this is the reason why I want to speak up. It just happens, it could happen to all of us, if you think about it honestly you probably know somebody who is recovering from a burnout, or are showing symptoms of a burnout.
Take away being mentally health and the physical decline will follow, take away being physically healthy the mental decline will follow. It’s a fine line we are trying to balance, or should be trying to balance [not everybody is trying btw, I will talk to ya’ll in a later post]. My mom was one of the strongest people I have ever known, being that strong can really take more out of you than you have to spare. Resulting in physical or mental illness. And if you keep it up long enough, it becomes chronic. We all know we should rest our body, brain, and soul, we all know we should excessive, be outdoors and need to eat healthy, but still we don’t. Stress is wreaking havoc to us humans, we live in an almost permanent state of fight-or-flight, and that is killing us off slowly.
So what do you do…what do you do? I made my choice, I made it and never looked back.
My incentive is life, my mom died at 62 years old, I made a conscious decision that day I was going to do everything I could to make sure I live as long and as healthy as possible. It took me years to come to where I am now, and my philosophy I live by isn’t difficult at all; Move – constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity across broad time and modal domains [CrossFit], Eat – meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar [eat as clean as possible]. Sleep – I try to go to sleep earlier, not sleep in later [get as much good hours in as I can].
Keep [re-]finding and holding your balance as long as possible, get help if you need it, get a support group around you, talk about it, stay in motion toward your goals, every small step matters and adds up to big steps. For me one of my priorities in life is my health, I find it’s not difficult for me at all to move forward when my health is concerned.
ThnXo,
Wojis
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