Uncategorised

The information on what constitutes ‘good’ health can be cumbersome and complicated. Even more so when you break down health into physical and mental, and everything in between. For these reasons, we have done the hard work for you and put together 3 strategies endorsed by experts that will help improve your overall health, and therefore improve your physical and mental wellbeing.

Sleep                               

If you feel like the importance of getting enough sleep is constantly drilled into you, it is because it is one of the most vital pillars of good health. Despite this, roughly two thirds of us suffer from sleep problems, which means many of us are not getting the amount of sleep our bodies need.

Sleep plays an essential role in your bodies anatomic processes which are responsible for many things such as your physical health, hormone regulation and mood regulation. All three of these things make up big parts of your overall health and can be severely impacted by not getting enough shut eye.

Getting enough sleep can be difficult. This is why it is so important to do everything in your power to help you get good, consistent and high-quality sleep.

Some helpful strategies include:

• going to bed and waking up at the same time every day
• not consuming caffeine approximately 9 hours before you go to bed
• having a warm shower or bath right before bed, cutting out ‘screen time’ an hour before bed
• avoiding naps during the day, especially later in the day

Diet & Alcohol

If you think about sleep as recharging your bodies batteries, then your diet and alcohol consumption are the fuel that powers those batteries during the day. The quality of fuel you put into your body very much determines the quality of output you will get.

There are plenty of expert opinions on what the ‘best’ diets are, and we don’t pretend to be one of these experts, however we have done some research and tried to summarise some general tips that can help guide you in the right direction.

For starters, balance is key when it comes to a good overall diet. A mixture of proteins, carbohydrates and fats are all essential to overall health. Including fresh vegetables and fruit into this make-up will help you go a long way to improving both your physical and mental health.

For specific and expert dietary recommendations, visit sites such as https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/balanced-diet and have a read about what the government experts recommend for each age group.

Alcohol, although commonplace in our society can be very harmful to your goals of good physical and mental health.

It is important to recognise your relationship with alcohol and identify if your consumption habits fit within what is recommended. Official recommendations can be found  at https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/how-alcohol-affects-your-health and https://drinkwise.org.au/.

It is also important to consider whether alcohol consumption aligns with your goals. If your goals are to lose weight and be healthier it might be worthwhile considering if consuming alcohol is something that you wish to do at all. This is okay and finding support around you that acknowledges this can go a long way to instilling positive habits.

Fitness & Exercise

Continuing on from the battery analogy, if sleep recharges your batteries, and your diet helps fuel them, then exercise is the oil that helps make all of these things work as smoothly as possible.

Having an active lifestyle can help make things such as getting adequate sleep and sticking to a healthier diet much easier. Exercise can also help with brain activity and even release endorphins that can help with positive moods. The benefits are agreed upon by many experts in the field.

What puts many people off is the thought exercise must be strenuous and difficult. This is a myth. 30 minutes of exercise a day can be plenty to help your body and mind. And this exercise doesn’t have to be hard. A brisk walk, cycle, or swim, or even activities such as Yoga and Pilates are all great ways to reach your exercise quota. It isn’t important what you do, it is important that you do something and that you enjoy doing it.

A relatively simple way to start setting and reaching excise targets is to buy a pedometer or download an app on your smart phone that counts your steps. Reaching a target of 10,000 steps a day will go a long way to helping you form importantly positive habits in improving your attitude towards exercise.

For more information on setting and reaching a step target, look at these websites https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/tips-for-getting-active and https://www.10000steps.org.au/.

Overall, working towards a more positive and healthy lifestyle doesn’t have to be difficult. Small changes can go a long way to helping improve ones physical and mental health. We strongly recommend you consult a health care professional if you have any medical concerns, both physically or mentally. We also strongly recommend that you consider the support systems you have in place to make these changes. Strong support from family, friends, loved ones, or any other group will go a long way in ensuring the success of your lifestyle changes!

1) Get enough sleep

Getting enough sleep is crucial to your physical and mental health. There are many professional studies that link the lack of sleep quantity and quality to risk factors involved with physical and mental health issues.

Despite many professionals agreeing that an adult should be getting on average 7-9 hours sleep per night, a large percentage of adults often get less than 7.

Knowing its importance, there are some tips you can use to give yourself the best possible chance of hitting that magic mark of sleep per night.

To start with, set an alarm for 30 minutes before you want to go to bed. It is crazy how often time slips away and people forget to actually got to bed on time so they can get enough sleep.

Secondly, put your phone away an hour before you want to go to bed. Looking at your phone screen is proven to make sleep more difficult.

Start with these two things and work towards getting your sleep back on track!

2) Include some exercise into your daily routine

People can often roll their eyes at the seemingly persistent advice on how important exercise is for physical and mental health.

In fact, getting your body to simply move is one of the best things you can implement for good self-care.

Exercising doesn’t have to be difficult; it doesn’t even have to break a sweat. Something as simple as going for 30 minutes’ walk each day will do wonders to help with both your physical and mental health.

And if you haven’t tried it, you will be shocked how quickly 30 minutes disappears when walking with a podcast or your favourite music playing!

3) Eat some fresh nutritious food

We aren’t about demonising people’s food choices and habits, we strongly believe a healthy relationship with food includes the occasional pizza, donut, and chocolate biscuit.

In saying this it is also just as important to recognise the impact fresh nutrient dense foods can have on your overall health.

If fruit is your thing, incorporate some fresh fruit. If veggies are your thing, eat some fresh veggies. Whatever you are into, try and include as many fresh versions of them as possible.

There are also so many services out there to help if cooking isn’t your thing. A simple google search will provide you with plenty of delivery options that can give you ready-made meals that just need to be heated, or even ones that simply deliver the exact ingredients with instructions.

Whatever it is, do what you want to do, don’t do it just because someone has told you that eating kale is good for you!

4) Stay socially connected

 Now we completely appreciate this is more difficult for some than others, but the impact that having a good support network can have is immeasurable.

Make time to catch up with friends and family where you can really invest yourself into finding out what is going on in their lives.

Humans are social creatures and staying connected will do wonders for your mental wellbeing.

And the good news? Even if you don’t have any close friends or family right now, there are plenty of options to still stay connected both in person and online.

Think about maybe joining a local social club of something you are interested in. It could be anything from lawn bowls to knitting, if you have an interest there is almost guaranteed to be a group of people who come together for that interest.

There are also plenty of options online as well – google is your new friend matchmaker!

5) Meditate and stretch

Taking the time to slow down and realign yourself with your body and your surroundings can do wonders for your mental and physical health.

There are loads of tutorials on YouTube that can walk you through simple stretching and meditation routines.

Or if you fancy a more socially connected space, try different types of yoga or specific meditation classes to get you started.

However you do it, you will thank yourself for taking the time to slow down from the distractions of the outside world.

6) Limit your screen time

Another thing almost all experts agree on is that spending as much time on our phones/computers/laptops as we do could be detrimental to our physical and mental health.

In our ‘always on’ world where we are constantly reachable and seemingly never disconnected from our devices it can be hard to limit the time we spend absorbed in the online world.

But doing so will help you disconnect and give you the opportunity to spend time engaging with yourself and things you love doing.

7) Drink Water

Now, it is no secret water is essential to living, but drinking adequate amounts of water can have immensely positive benefits for both your physical and mental health and wellbeing.

You would be astonished how much more energetic, motivated and productive you can feel just from drinking enough water.

Many experts say that you should aim for about 2 litres a day.

Our best suggestion is to just start somewhere! Buy a new re-usable drink bottle and set a goal to drink 2 or 3 of them a day and see how you go.

8) Journal/self reflect

Journaling is an often great way to help people gain clarity and ownerships over their thoughts. In the stressful times we live in, it can be all too easy to get caught up in one’s emotions and overwhelmed by everything going through your head.

Something as simple as taking the time 2 or 3 times a week to sit down with no distractions and reflect on yourself and your experiences over the past couple of days can go a long way in benefitting ones mental health and wellbeing.

9) Practice saying no

For a lot of people this can be one of the toughest things to put into practice. People often are hesitant to say no in the workplace, in relationships, in friendships, all with the concern they will be letting people down.

The issue is this can come at the cost of your own health and wellbeing.

Saying no is something everyone should be comfortable with. It doesn’t have to be blunt, and can be worded in nicer, more gentler ways, but the act of putting yourself first will go a long way.

Start practicing by saying no to the little things in situations you are most comfortable in, for example with close friends or your family. Build up your confidence to eventually be comfortable with the idea of saying no.

10) Get some sun

Vitamin D is great because it has numerous health benefits and it’s also free!

Trying to get some fresh air and sunshine every day will not only help benefit you through increased Vitamin D levels, but it will also help set up habits of getting you up outside and moving every day.

With all things, start off slow and simply try and feel the sun on your skin every day (which can be tricky in the middle of a Melbourne winter, we know) and try to incorporate it more and more each day.

With all things self-care and wellbeing related, they will always be different for each individual. Hopefully these tips can give you some advice on changes you can make to incorporate more self-care habits into your routines!

I might be stating the obvious here but stress is something everyone experiences. The funny thing about it though is that it never seems to impact two different people in the same way. I personally know people who cope extremely well with stress and some who don’t cope as well. Interestingly, people who fall on either side of the fence still never seem to react the same way. We all know someone who gets stressed and the tears start coming or, rather, gets worked up and angry. Neither is better or worse. It is just my observation on how, like all emotions, stress impacts everyone differently.

I would say that I am lucky enough to fall naturally into the group of people who deal with stress reasonably well. But the reason for me writing this isn’t to gloat about being naturally productive through stressful situations, it is to explain that, like anything in life, it takes work and practice to become better at it. Years of University, which included assignment after assignment, coupled with exam after exam, have given me plenty of opportunities to practice being better at dealing with stress, and, more importantly, using it to be productive.

I don’t think I am an expert on the topic by any means, but it is something I have consciously worked at over the years and I feel like these tips could potentially help people, regardless of what side of the ‘stress’ fence they sit on.

Tip 1)  To-do lists are invaluable

Often for me, when I get stressed it is a result of having an enormous amount of things to do, but more specifically, not knowing exactly what or where to start.

I’m sure everyone knows the feeling, an overwhelming sense of so much to do, but they can’t actually picture any one specific thing that needs to be done.

This is where writing out an effective to do list can help.

I have 2 different to do lists. One that I write when I am feeling stressed and just need to get everything from my head onto paper. And one that I write close to every day.

Writing down everything that needs to be done on a list helps clear my head so much. Sometimes it helps completely destress myself as I realise there isn’t as much to do as I thought. Sometimes, it also does the opposite, but at least it’s not swirling around in my head anymore and I can start figuring out where to start.

The second list is an every day one which helps turn my stress into actually being productive. At night, before I start my next day I spend 5 to 10 minutes writing down everything I need to get done the next day. When I started doing this it helped so much in reducing the stress I would have at the end of the day about not getting enough done.

By writing these lists, I know exactly what I need to get done the next day and if I finish it all early, I know I have the freedom to do other things I enjoy without feeling guilty and then stressed about not doing enough for the day.

Tip 2) Talk it out

Now I know this one seems simple, but in my experience talking about why I am stressed is the last thing I want to do when I am stressed. Stress for me is this all-encompassing, weird kind of thing that takes over and shuts down all logic across my head space. All of the sudden things that I know I am quite capable of doing, seem tougher than climbing Mount Everest.

With this feeling in mind, before I began practicing this, spending 30 minutes talking it out with a friend definitely seemed like I was wasting valuable time.

But being disciplined to take the time out to discuss what was on my mind and why it was stressing me out began to help me understand it better. This better understanding of why I was stressed has so often led to me then be more productive in actually getting what I need to do, done.

Talking it out though was tough to begin with. It’s like with anything, sometimes the hardest thing to do is talk about why you are feeling a certain way.

But with lots of practice it’s one of my go to strategies in using stress as a tool to better understand what is going on with me and my life at that point and actually being more productive afterwards.

Tip 3) Do something, anything else.

I understand this one may seem a bit counter-intuitive but for me it works wonders. This strategy is actually quite a recent thing I am still working on and learning. As I have mentioned, when I am stressed and have a to do list longer than my arm, it seems more stressful to think about not getting started on ticking off those tasks.

However, sometimes for me I can just feel when I do that I compromise quality in what I am doing.

But then, what do I do with this burning fire that stress produces for me? For me it is a good opportunity to go be productive in another way.

For example, if I am stressed because I have 100 things to do for Uni and work, but getting started on them in the headspace I am in will compromise the quality and I don’t see the point.

So instead I use the energy that stress brings in doing something else I have been meaning to do, something completely different. Sometimes that is work on renovations I have going on in the backyard. Sometimes it is simply going for a walk and knowing that I am being productive in getting my daily steps up and being active for the day that does the trick.

It will be different for everyone, but the important part is recognising that more often than not, the world won’t end if your to do list sits there for another hour, or two, or twelve.

In summary, I know everyone deals with stress differently, just as they deal with everything else in the world differently. For me, I was and am lucky that stress is something that I feel naturally more comfortable with. In saying this though, dealing with stress, and turning it into a tool I can use to be more productive is something I have worked hard on over the years.

Hopefully, these tips that helped me get to the point I am at today can help you too!