IS BALANCE IN LIFE REALLY POSSIBLE? (Installment 3)

TAB’S BLOG:  IS BALANCE IN LIFE REALLY POSSIBLE?

Installment 3

October 20, 2014

Balance?  Really?  Can it be done?  I don’t think it can be accomplished 100% of the time.  I know that it is not possible in my life because circumstances that I have no control over often occur.  But I keep striving for it because it is truly where you feel the best body, soul, and spirit and have a chance at healthy aging.

I went to a conference this past weekend that taught “healthy aging” not “anti-aging” medicine.  I like that phrase – “healthy aging”.  It puts a positive spin on life and health and gives us all hope.  We each have the potential to age in a healthy manner.  I look around at elderly people who are unable to function mentally and physically and do not want that for myself or anyone else.  But, we can’t just hope it doesn’t happen!

I heard Joyce Myers on TV last week.  She asked the question:  Are you a gambler or investor in your health?  Are you trying to improve your health now by making caring for yourself a priority?  Are you eating right (most of the time!), exercising, drinking your water, sleeping, having fun with family and friends?  Are you caring for and maintaining your body so that in the future it will work better and last longer?  Or, are you doing whatever you want to your body with the hopes that you won’t get sick and impaired in the future as you age?

It’s kind of like a car.  If you do your required maintenance, the car will probably never break down on you and last a long time.  But, if you don’t maintain it, the car will not be reliable and get you where you need to go without breaking down.  Our bodies are like that – you have to take care of it and maintain it because you only get one; and, once it’s worn out, you don’t get to trade it in!

I definitely think investing makes more sense than gambling when it comes to your health and life!  I have gambled with my health off and on for many years and am trying to change my path.  The great thing about the human body is that, if you give it what it needs, it can heal and repair itself (for the most part) and change the future.

One part of balance and caring for you is being grateful.  I have recommended it over and over again but I do it one more time:  keep a gratitude journal.  Every single day write down AT LEAST one thing for which you are grateful.  Focusing on the positive keeps your mind and emotions and spirit focused on the positive.  It’s part of caring for and maintaining healthy aging for your soul and spirit.

I’ve been keeping a gratitude journal for years.  Because of keeping this journal, I’ve discovered that, when something negative occurs, I quickly catch myself and stop dwelling on the negative and start thinking about all the things that I have to be grateful for.  This change in focus keeps my spirits up and helps keep me from falling into a depression.

Life is hard and stressful for most people.  I hear so many stories of tragedy and difficulty every day when I see my patients.  Sometimes I wonder how we survive.  However, I know for a fact because I’ve been experiencing it that keeping a gratitude journal and focusing on the positive helps you get through the day and still feel good and not depressed.

“Some people grumble that roses have thorns: I am grateful that thorns have roses.”

--Alphonse Karr, A Tour Round My Garden

Sincerely,

Tabetha L. Smith, FNP-C, Gratitude Enthusiast on My Journey of Health Aging

Disclaimer: We make no claim of providing superior services, nor do we guarantee any specific outcomes from the services we provide. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration.  The information, opinions & products on this site are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Is Balance in Life Really Possible? (Installment 2)

TAB’S BLOG:  IS BALANCE IN LIFE REALLY POSSIBLE?

Installment 2

To continue on balance in life:  I have definitely discovered (the hard way!) that, in life & health, there truly is no quick fix or instant gratification that produces lifelong results.  If you or I want to be healthy, body, soul, & spirit, it will cost us.  It will cost us time, effort, money, and possibly pain & heartache as we face our stuff and deal with it.

We must face and get rid of all of our excuses for not doing what we know will bring us long term Optimal Health.  Every day I hear excuse after excuse for why people can’t be healthy.  “It cost too much.”  “I don’t have enough time.”  “I can’t take that many vitamins.”  “Nobody will help me.”  “My husband doesn’t support me.”  “I’m too tired.”  I personally have used them all except the husband one! J

On my balance journey, I’ve realized the truth:  people make time for what they want to have time for and they have money for what they want to have money for.  When a patient is sitting beside me saying that being healthy costs too much while drinking their Starbucks Latte, flashing their professional manicure/pedicure, using their iPhone and iPad, talking about their recent shopping trip, I find it hard to believe they don’t have enough money. 

The above may sound harsh but it’s a truth I’ve had to deal with myself.  I’ve had to put myself on a budget in order to head towards Optimal Health.  Financial problems are one of the biggest stressors in people’s lives.  I love my luxuries (all of the above are luxuries by the way!), but I’ve had to make a choice not to partake in a Starbucks Latte daily and instead pay a personal chef to cook 7 meals a week for me because I need to spend my time elsewhere right now. 

Daily choices on how we spend our time and money dramatically affect our long term health.  When everything in your life is out of balance, it can be overwhelming just to even think about making a change much less doing it!  But you have to start somewhere.  I started with carving out time in my schedule to daily have a quiet time and to exercise routinely.  That decision meant that I had to get up 30-60 minutes early (4 AM!) in order to accomplish it.  I then started keeping a daily gratitude journal.  Then I put myself on a strict budget that I monitor routinely.  I constantly battle with eating healthy and avoiding stress eating but I keep fighting that fight! And my journey continues!

I’ve been studying business principles recently and learned about Parkinson’s Law.  Parkinson’s Law observes that “work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”  The speaker was talking about how there was no “balance” between family and work.  Family is always first and takes precedence.  He stated that you must schedule your time with family first and not compromise that schedule, and then your work will naturally expand or shrink to fit into whatever time you have left. 

I think this “law” applies in life as well.  What are your priorities in life?  Are these priorities firmly and uncompromisingly fixed into your schedule?  There is one sure fact in health and that is that if you don’t take care of yourself, no one else will.  So, is taking care of your health one of your firmly fixed schedule priorities?  If you set your personal health as one of your schedule priorities, everything else will be forced to fall into line.

I encourage you to take a hard look at your life and schedule and what you are spending your time on.  Figure out your first step towards balance and take it.  Not easy but doable.

“Right now you are one choice away from a new beginning.”

Oprah Winfrey

Sincerely,

Tabetha Smith, FNP-C

Your Fellow Sojourner on the “Daily Choices Matter” Journey

Is Balance in Life Really Possible?

TABS BLOG: IS BALANCE IN LIFE REALLY POSSIBLE? 

Installment 1

So, as I’ve been trying to figure out my life over the past months, I’ve been pondering “balance” in life.  My work/life balance has been way out of whack for several years now and it has led to some negative consequences in my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual life.  I’m finally starting to get my life realigned; and, in the next few blogs, I’ll be sharing the things I’ve learned that have helped me.

Unless you’ve been to one of our seminars in the past year, you may not have heard our bottom line mission statement at Insight and Restore.  We are here to partner with you to help you reach Optimal Health where your health span equals your life span.  We are not here to do all the work for you; we are here to help and guide you.  But most of the work is up to you just as most of it is up to me for my own health!

Life Span:  The length of time from birth until death, including some years at the end of life which may have some level of disability that reduces the quality of life.

Health Span:  The length of time from birth until you become disabled.  Ideally, you want to be functional & independent and able to enjoy life until the day you die.

True Death = Life Span – Health Span

Optimal Health:  Health Span = Life Span

Our mission is to help you reach your personal level of Optimal Health where your Health Span is the same as you Life Span.  As part of accomplishing this huge goal of reaching Optimal Health, each of us has to work on our body, soul, and spirit and try to bring balance in each area.

In order to reach Optimal Health for yourself, you have to permanently change your daily lifestyle choices and your paradigm of health.  Over the past 50 years, our health care system has devalued what health and health care should really be for you and be worth for you.  The system and our culture have created a “get fixed quick” attitude that costs you very little. 

Here’s the current health care culture and belief system.  You gain weight and your cholesterol goes up.  You go to your health care provider; and, for your “huge” co-pay of less than $30 for most plans (and some of the current subsidized plans have a co-pay of $5!), you get a 5-15 minute visit for your “quick fix” which is to be prescribed a drug to treat your symptom.  If you are lucky, the health care provider might say lose weight and exercise but give no details on how because he/she has no time.  You might also get referred to a “medical weight loss” program that also includes a drug treatment as well as a diet plan that includes shakes that you could never continue forever (i.e. no real lifestyle change).  So, in the end, your treatment cost you very little (low cost) in time or money or in effort.  The “health care” that you received seemed to be easy and quick but possible worth very little (low value).  However, in the end, are you actually healthier or is your symptom just relieved?

Here’s what has to shift in all of our thinking about health care and about our own health or else we will never accomplish permanent lifestyle change that leads to Optimal Health. You must change the thought processes behind your paradigm of health:

• There is NO real “quick fix” if you want to increase your health span.
• There is NO “instant gratification” on the pathway to Optimal Health.
• Being Optimally Healthy in this culture will cost you a lot in time, money, and effort.
• You must make daily choices that lead you away from premature death and aging and towards Optimal Health. 

I too have to choose to not buy a Starbuck’s Vanilla Latte and choose to buy some fresh vegetables instead.  I too have to choose to go to bed early so that I can get enough sleep to optimally function the next day.  I too have to get up early and exercise because I know that, if I wait till the end of the day, it probably won’t happen.  I too have to spend a lot of money on vitamin and herb supplements because I’d rather take a hundred a day instead of even one prescription drug.  And the list goes on of the DAILY choices I have to make in order to pursue my personal goal of Optimal Health.

Well, that’s the first installment in my blog series on balance.  Changing our thoughts on the value of health is the first step we all have to make.  Be encouraged, it is doable and you are not alone.  There are lots of compatriots (including me!) out there choosing this path as well.  YOU CAN DO IT!

Sincerely,

Tabetha Smith, FNP-C

Compatriot on the Journey to Optimal Health

Disclaimer: We make no claim of providing superior services, nor do we guarantee any specific outcomes from the services we provide. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration.  The information, opinions & products on this site are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.