There is something very energizing when I see flowers start to bloom at the start of spring. It reminds me that life is a continuum…and it is during the periods of rest (winter) that we heal and repair to be able to put forth something ever more beautiful (spring).
I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions. I really never saw the purpose…it just seemed a ritualistic form of reverse psychology to me. As soon as I made that list it was my green light to start breaking them, and I’m pretty sure I am not alone. In January fitness centers are hopping and the produce section at the grocery store is being cleaned out. Come the end of February the surge is over.
Let me be clear on this…not everyone is motivated the same way. Some people thrive on making detailed lists and accomplishing the list. I wish I was one of them…but yeah, not even close. For those with a similar mindset to mine, there are certain thing we should just avoid resolving.
Last week, at 11pm, I was listening intently to be sure my daughter fell back asleep. She just randomly threw up, right out of a dead sleep, all over Pinky (her favorite stuffed bear…yes, pink), her blankets and herself. It’s was freezing…so the last thing I wanted to be doing was crawling out of my warm bed for anything…much less puke. But, as a loving mommy, I cleaned her, the carpet and the bed up; threw all the nastiness in the laundry; rocked her for a couple of minutes; laid her down and watched her for a couple more minutes and scurried back to bed. I happened to look at the clock when I left and came back to the room. It was 10:39 when I went in there and 10:51 when I came back. I was surprised, because I was sure it was much later than that. But it started me thinking about time and the apparent chronic shortage of it.
Okay, it’s confession time. I am completely off my game. My husband is out-of-town for 2 weeks and my routine has been totally thrown off.
“Resiliency is accepting your new reality, even if it is less good than the one you had before.” – Elizabeth Edwards
As many of you know, my full time job is in the Air Force as a nurse. We have all kinds of training that is required every year; one of them being “Wingman” Training. The military lifestyle definitely has a higher than normal stress level and rates of depression, suicide and divorce are higher than our civilian counterparts. We take a half day to focus on our co-workers and discuss the importance of recognizing signs of distress and helping each other out. One of our topics was on resiliency. The question was, what is it about you that makes you resilient? I can honestly say I had just come back from a week of vacation, had a ton of work to catch up on and really didn’t put any thought into it at the time. However, later that week I found myself thinking about it.
We here at TruPrevention can think of a host of reasons people should live a healthy lifestyle. So, we have complied a long list of benefits. However, we don’t want to overwhelm everyone with an ongoing list…so we’re going to send it out in a series. Oh, and just to show you that it is not some random list, we have put links to each reason, so you can read up on the “why” and “how” this is fits into the big picture of Health. To start, here is a list of 20 physical (and a couple mental) reasons to live a healthy lifestyle. Enjoy!!!
When I pull out the Yoga mat, I can pretty much guarantee what will happen next. My daughter will come around the corner and say “I want to do Yoga mommy” and proceed to go into the cutest downward facing dog I have ever seen…right in the middle of my mat. So, I attempt to do some semblance of a routine around her climbing around me, through me and over me. It doesn’t matter that I don’t get through a routine…what matters to me is that my kids are seeing that I place an emphasis on taking care of myself. And, I’m proud to say they get it. They love to show me how they can flip, roll, jump, race, do push-ups, yoga moves…you name it. If they see me or my husband doing it, they want to try it. In the end it is a win-win, we get family time, they burn off energy, I get a workout (albeit a light one) and they learn that being active is not only a priority in our house, but fun too!
Starting family workouts doesn’t (and shouldn’t) have to be super organized or structured. It should be a little spontaneous and entertaining. Here are some ideas below to get you started on family fun.
My family and I are on a mini vacation camping in Corpus Christi (thank goodness the pop-up came with ac!). We decided to take the kiddos to see the USS Lexington, a WWII aircraft carrier nicknamed the “Blue Ghost” because the Japanese Navy reported it had sunk the ship…on four separate occasions. Talk about resilient!
Everytime I hear the words, “As long as it is in moderation”, I cringe. I think when I decided it was just a crappy word was when I saw Corn Association sponsored commercial, touting that high fructose corn syrup in “moderation” was fine to incorporate into a diet. Seriously!?! At that moment I struck the word from my mental dictionary, forever banning it from rolling off my tongue. But, for the sake of this post I’ll use it in effort to create lots of discussion and maybe start a movement to ban the word from the dictionary (okay, that might be a little over the top…but you get my point).
My husband and I decided that is was time to get rid of the hodgepodge of various plates and bowls that were chipped, held together by super glue, or just the last one of the bunch left. We found a set we liked and brought it home. When I opened the box I was shocked by the size of the bowl. I pulled out our old bowl, put them side by side and saw this…
