Posts Tagged ‘better health’
Almost Healthy
The splitting headache is no longer splitting, and her vital signs have returned to normal. Cyndie seems back to reasonably functional. She helped with horse chores and has taken Asher for a couple of walks in addition to a trip to the Post Office as Santa’s little helper. Goodies are in the mail, and the neighbors will find a bag of holiday cheer has been dropped at their doors.
At this stage of holiday preparations, it’s hard to tell that Cyndie was off her game at all.
In support of all her Elf-ish energy, I have been mining the far reaches of our Apple Music offerings to find appropriate holiday sounds. The first few notes of an Andy Williams Christmas album instantly transported me to a big old farmhouse on the border of Edina and Eden Prairie, MN, and the 5-year-old me arose from within my depths with visions of leaded tinsel being draped across branches from outstretched arms of a person standing on a folding ladder above me.
The result of that surge of nostalgia left me feeling lonesome for the clamor and banter of my siblings buzzing around me.
The branches of that family tree have sixty years of growth that have spread us out beyond the conveniences of frequent contact.
That 5-year-old me would only have his father around for 17 more years. I will always remember the time he almost convinced me that he had heard something on the roof in the minutes just before I showed my face one Christmas morning. I was old enough to know better, but I’d never experienced my dad putting on such a believable act before and was gobsmacked by it.
I like to think he was rewarded by the innocent astonishment that must have shown on my face.
Much less astonishment came over me when I stumbled upon news of a school shooting recently in Wisconsin. That innocence is long gone.
Looking at our trees, I was grateful they don’t need to know such things happen. Same with the horses. Then, I realized how attuned trees and horses are to the universe, which means they probably sense each and every atrocity through the connectedness of all things.
They keep calm and carry on their existence, and so should we. I’ll pretend we are almost healthy.
And now I miss the innocence of my 5-year-old self more than ever.
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Near You
This morning, I took my temperature again, just like I have every day for the last week. A clear pattern has developed that gives me confidence I will recognize if/when a change starts to occur.
Even without the threat of infection from the current pandemic, I regularly notice odd aches, pains, or unexplained weird sensations that have me noting a possibility of illness visiting my body. Almost always, nothing comes of it. Headache? Maybe I didn’t drink enough water. Throat feels scratchy? There’s probably an allergen in the air.
A day later, I’ve usually forgotten about the previous days’ malady that caught my attention.
Of course, now my first impression when something feels amiss is that I am getting the COVID-19. Although, in that regard, I’m equally inclined to suspect that I’ve already been exposed and haven’t developed any symptoms.
Wouldn’t it be great if officials could get their act together and widely release the increasingly tantalizing simple blood test to check for COVID-19 antibodies that will clarify who is able to get back to life as normal? I’d be one of the first in line after they give us all permission to go out together again.
There is another way I am trying to contribute to a greater understanding of this pandemic. In the US, it is possible to provide your health status to a team at Boston Children’s Hospital to help them map the COVID-19 outbreak. The brilliance of their project is that it doesn’t simply focus on who has been tested, it seeks to collect information from everyone by way of user-submitted reports to fill out the picture of both who is sick and who is still healthy.
COVID Near You is a sister tool of Flu Near You already in use to help communities track cases of seasonal flu.
How are you feeling?
Go to covidnearyou.org and answer that question. Contribute to the map of everyone, both ill and well.
I can’t think of any easier step to take toward contributing to a better world for all, except maybe pausing wherever you are to conjure up some love for the rest of the world.
What the heck, might as well do both.
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Start Fresh
So, we start a new year today. What do you say we make it a better one than all the years before! Make healthy decisions, be compassionate, practice patience, love more and more. Take best care of yourself, which will then inherently be a positive healthy influence on those around you.
When individuals take steps to make the world a better place, it tends to make the world a better place.
Peace and love, my dear readers! Visualize peace and love.
Isn’t “Happy New Year” just the best of salutations?
Let’s make it so.
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Think Sticktoitiveness
Stick-to-it-iveness.
If there is one simple key to self-improvement that could serve us well no matter what aspect of our lives we wish to address, I would select —whatever action toward better health you choose: repeat it every day.
Repeat it every day. Don’t stop. If you miss a day, don’t give up. Pick up the next day and the day after that. For a week. Then a month. Six months. A year. No reason to stop now. Keep doing that healthy thing every single day.
Look at the inverse. What do humans do that make themselves suffer negative consequences?
Smoke cigarettes? They smoke every day.
Eat poorly? Day after day.
Not get enough exercise? Harbor negative thoughts and feelings? Don’t get enough sleep? Neglect friends and family? Neglect themselves!
Most of the afflictions we heap upon ourselves grow into problems because of unhealthy choices enacted repeatedly, day after day, over an extended period of time. It’s illogical to think an easy remedy would erase the results in a fraction of the time it took to travel a great distance away from good health.
Turn around. Go the other way. Take a step toward optimal health and then do it again the next day. And then three hundred sixty-five more days after that.
Because. Progress accumulates.
I took the first steps to interrupt my slowly intensifying depression in 1993. As can happen in many situations, things got a little worse after the initial diagnosis and early treatments, but eventually progress settled in and incremental improvement began to develop. Slowly.
Sometimes, in waves. I can almost measure progress by decades. This year, I am noticing new levels of relief that reveal I am continuing to improve, even decades removed from the day doctors released me from medication and therapy treatments. A year ago, I didn’t notice that my mental health was anything less than prime.
It is only by experiencing this unprecedented level of healthy mindset lately that I’ve gained a sense that it wasn’t as good as this before.
Every day, I do something that helps. I also DON’T do things that harm. I don’t do negative self-talk like I used to. I make an effort every day to not do that. I do get exercise, I eat healthy, I smile, I pay better attention to energy, I send love, I sleep well, I write a daily blog. Doing these things regularly and over time, continues to provide accumulating improvements to my mental health.
This year, I am noticing improvements that weren’t so apparent last year.
It really does pay to stick to it.
I invite you to stop doing something today that isn’t healthy for you in the long-term. Replace that with one thing that is healthy that you can do every day. Do it for more days than you ever thought possible. Then do it for a few more years after that.
Here’s to the ongoing journey toward optimal health.
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Relative Something 