Life Hacks

The Six Tenets of Abundant Health

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We all want to be healthy.  When I was younger I arrogantly assumed that I would always be healthy.  And if I suddenly weren’t, I would get treatment or medication to return me to health.  But – and this is a sobering realisation – health is a bit like investing.  When you start investing, or saving, from your very first paycheck, with compound interest you can amass a tidy sum over your lifetime.  

The time to invest, and keep investing in your health, is when you’re young – before health issues manifest themselves.  The majority of health issues do not occur instantaneously, or in a vacuum.  They take years of neglect, abuse, and adherence to outdated science to develop. Many of us are now faced with the consequences of years of hedonism, or adherence to incorrect information, often perpetuated by entities with vested economic interests.  All is not lost though.  Because there are ways to reverse, or mitigate, some of our conditions.  There are ways to improve the quality of our lives right now, thereby ensuring a better future. In the last 10 months I have completely reversed Type 2 diabetes, and in the process improved my life immensely.

First we need to understand what health is.  For me it can be defined as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. It encompasses various aspects of our lives, including our physical condition, mental state, emotional well-being, social relationships, and overall quality of life. 

I believe there are six pillars which support our health.  For a long time, researchers compartmentalised all the various systems and aspects of ourselves.  The truth is, however, that all are connected.  The brain does not operate separately from the body. Scientists now understand and teach that all our systems are integrated; our mind, hormones, gut-biome (which just about runs the show), immune system, and our environment.  This makes what we put into and onto our bodies very important.  It also means that we must each take control and responsibility for our own health, as society, and by and large even the medical and pharmaceutical industries, are not equipped or invested in our health the way we are.

The 6 Tenets of Abundant Health:

  1. Nutrition:  I will talk about this a lot in future posts, but most of what we eat today is bad for us.  In every way.  Ultra-processed foods are changing our DNA, and not in a good way.  Furthermore, the old-fashioned approach to weight loss – calorie counting – may work in the short run, but our bodies will compensate and gain weight, while we get ridiculed and judged by society for being weak-willed and pathetic.  Fortunately there are plenty of solutions for a healthy and sustainable diet that will not only help manage our weight, but will positively impact all of the beautifully intricate systems in our bodies, thus protecting us from many of the common lifestyle diseases in our society, and transforming our quality of life.
  2. Physical Activity:  You don’t have to run marathons or lift weights 7 days per week, but you cannot be inactive and expect continued good health.  The benefits of exercise include muscle and bone strength, improved cardiovascular health, weight management (not necessarily weight loss), improved flexibility, reduced stress and anxiety, mood enhancement, improved cognitive function (we can think and reason better!), increased self-esteem, better sleep, reduced risk of chronic disease, and improved quality of life over a longer period of our lives.
  3. Quality Sleep:  This has been a game-changer for me.  I still have some changes to make, but I seem to have overcome my very bad obstructive sleep apnea.  I haven’t needed my C-Pap machine for about 9 months. I used to wake up every 3 hours to go to the bathroom, and now I can go for 5-6 hours without interruption.  I am extremely invested in learning more about sleep.
  1. Stress Management: Our bodies have mechanisms to help us with immediate stress, but these days we’re almost universally subjected to prolonged, unrelenting stress, and our bodies are just not equipped to deal with that.  Most of us can’t go and live in a seaside cabin or on a mountain top to get away from it all.  Therefore we have to learn and practice strategies and techniques to mitigate that stress.  Fortunately there are many, and I’m going to try them all!
  1. Exposure: This is a rather broad subject.  There are things we’re exposed to that harm us by disrupting essential processes in our bodies – chemicals, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, certain types of social media, political discord, family strife, plastics, excess blue light, pesticides, etc.  Conversely, there are certain things we need to be exposed to, but are not, since we are in a comfort crisis.  Natural light, fresh air, oxygen, positive reinforcement, a sense of community, nurturing relationships, and yes, things that challenge us physically and mentally.
  1. Mental Health & Motivation:  Evidence that our lifestyle choices have a direct outcome with regards to senility, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease can no longer be ignored.  Nobody had those conditions when I was growing up.  Now a significant number of my contemporaries are caring for parents thus afflicted.  Anxiety and depression are rife.  The rate of suicide among young people, especially men, is staggering (although this problem is not limited to the youth).  Not everyone has access to mental health services, and even if they do, the tendency is to prescribe expensive drugs, which are proven to not work over long periods. Many people who are neuro-divergent in some way just fall through the cracks, and end up with unfulfilled lives, leaving them feeling like a failure.  There are so many free resources out there these days to help us overcome some of the things that hold us back, to inspire and motivate us to build better lives, and be happier.

It is important to note that these pillars rely on one another.  Just eating a phenomenally healthy diet, but neglecting all other aspects, will only get us so far.  

I get it; there is so much conflicting information out there.  I’m going to be trying a lot of techniques – the ones that I deem safe, of course – and reporting back. I’m not starting entirely from zero in some cases, but I believe that I will be able to produce measurable improvements, or not.  I do believe that we have to start slowly, and add behaviours and habits over time – first to cement the behaviour or habit, but secondly to somewhat be able to attribute any improvement, or lack thereof, correctly.  Thirdly, and I know this from personal experience, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when we introduce too many new things at once.

I will keep you posted!
Life Hacks

Getting Started – Habits and Goals

I stopped making New Year’s resolutions more than a decade ago. I didn’t believe in them anymore. I mean, why should a certain day on the calendar transform me into a version of myself that may not have existed for a long time, or ever? I have a long and storied history of letting myself down. So no, I don’t do NY resolutions.

It was purely a coincidence that my motivation to effect positive changes in my life, i.e. get a job, got activated at the start of 2024. It was that, or become homeless (actually my parents would have taken me in, but that prospect causes me so much anxiety that it’s best avoided).

So here I was, on a smallholding, outside a little town on the Cape West Coast, with no car, no job, and very little money. I’d also not really worked for 18 months. So I decided that I needed to get work-fit. I needed a routine. I needed a strategy for managing stress. And I needed to wake up my brain.

Here’s what I did:

  • I set my alarm every morning to wake up at the same time.
  • I started sleeping with affirmations, rain sounds, subliminal messages, etc.
  • I started doing a daily session of EFT tapping.
  • I downloaded Duolingo and started learning French – I’m currently on a 160 day unbroken streak. I think I’ll do German next.

None of these had anything to do with actually getting a job. But it prepared me for working. That boosted my confidence, which affected how I approached my job search. Even when I was working in a high-pressure environment, I kept up with all of these, and more. Over time, I added daily steps, stretching, journaling, gratitude, affirmations, etc. Sometimes I’d discard a habit, or defer it, or modify it. Nothing is set in stone. These are all tools to help me improve my quality of life.

I’ve been sick for a few weeks, so I’ve abandoned most of these. Now I find myself overwhelmed by the prospect of resuming my regime. But that’s the wrong way to look at it. I don’t have to do it all right away. I can start with the basics again. As many times as it takes. Because I’m worth it.

I’m a big fan of Steven Bartlett, and found this video absolutely fascinating. It really is worth the hour of time it takes to listen to it to learn about goals, habits and the science behind them. Change doesn’t have to be hard, so why not set yourself up for success, and avoid the pitfalls of unrealistic and poorly designed goals? Find out how motivation works, and make it work for you! You’re worth it.
Life Hacks

My Story… So Far

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Allowing myself to be my authentic self was terrifying, yet liberating and rewarding. At the same time, it was, and continues to be, incredibly difficult. Why? Because (a), I’ve never had to do it before, (b) I had no idea how to do it, and (c) I had no idea who I actually was. The whole endeavour seemed very risky. I was going to have to be vulnerable. Exposed.

I started going to therapy around my fiftieth birthday. Leading up to this landmark birthday, my dad was exhorting me to hang onto my wicket. To just reach 50 (it’s a cricket thing). This was during a time that a number of well-known retired athletes, the same age as me, men who were supposedly fit and healthy, started dropping dead. I was neither fit, nor healthy. I was morbidly obese. I don’t know what my highest weight was, but it was around double my normal weight. Needless to say, I had very limited mobility, and almost no quality of life. I was on two medications for diabetes, as well as the anti-depressant Welbutrin.

I had a long history of ignoring my body and its needs, rather expending every ounce of energy on making sure that I was the best employee ever! Because people respected that. They praised me for that and it validated me. My lack of quality of life? Not a problem. I would work, go home and abandon myself in my current obsession – fantasy novels, Game of Thrones, romance books, puzzles, Sudoku, reaction videos on YouTube (yes, I was watching other people watch stuff – talk about checking out of your own life!). I had no social life and no interest in my environment. I seldom saw my family, because I was so exhausted, and the prospect of driving for an hour, spending time with them, and driving back was just too much.

Anyway, there I was at fifty, still in dubious possession of my wicket, amid the rubble and devastation of a life I felt I had completely wasted, failed at, and ruined. The voice in my head kept asking Now what? Against all odds I was still here. So, I found a therapist. The right therapist. Full disclosure, I’d been to therapy before. It never stuck. Probably because I didn’t want to do the work myself. I didn’t really want to face my demons. I wanted someone to fix me. And it just doesn’t work that way. I was lucky. I found the right person at the right time. Jonathan is great. He saved my life. I don’t think I’d ever cried as much as I did during the first six months of therapy.

Then the wolves came pandemic hit. Here in South Africa we were told that lock-down would last for three weeks. I was kind of looking forward to lounging around at home; it was after all my favourite thing to do. I absolutely did not expect the level of anxiety I experienced at the time. I completely lost my ability to concentrate and focus. Of course, the lock-down continued for months and I had to do a financial year end on my own from my couch. I was one of the first people back at work, but my whole team had been reassigned, so I continued to work on my own. The payroll administrator left the company, and payroll became part of my duties too, followed shortly by a round of retrenchments, where all the admin, and heartache, fell to me. I got prescribed an additional anti-depressant, and stronger diabetes drugs. But I wasn’t doing well. Then I had a very scary panic attack at work. My bosses were sympathetic but unable to offer any viable solutions. I struggled on, but I felt that I was slowly killing myself. My therapist mentioned that I may have to be hospitalised for occupational burnout and severe depression. I opted to leave the job I’d excelled at for 11 years and the company I’d worked at for 18 years. It was one of the bravest things I’d ever done.

People were shocked at my decision. What are you going to do? How will you find another job in these times? I told them that my first priority was to get well. I likened it to being in a deep hole. I had to get out of the hole first before I could start contemplating what lay beyond the horizon. For the first six months I just wound down. Let go. Detoxed. I wasn’t doing anything healthy yet, but I was learning to relax. Of course, I was still going to therapy and we made some real progress during that time. In one of our sessions I mentioned a friend I had lost contact with 8 years before. He encouraged me to reach out to her, which I did. I went for a visit – she lived about 2 hours away. During the visit, she persuaded me to move to her tiny town and start my own bookkeeping business. Six weeks later I left Cape Town and arrived on the West Coast with all my worldly goods. Another incredibly brave thing to do.

Thus began a period of growth and happiness. I should mention that my friend (L) and her significant other are very self-aware, evolved, and encouraging. I was still doing therapy via Zoom, but I was also learning more about myself by being around people who love me unconditionally. I spent time outside, and I was losing weight. I weaned myself off my anti-depressants, and by the end of November I went off all my other medications, including the diabetes drugs.

Unfortunately, I was still not taking enough responsibility for my life and outcomes to succeed in my business. By the end of November 2023 I had run out of money. That was the absolute lowest point ever. I felt like such a failure. I had to sell my car to survive. It took me the whole of December to get over the shock, pain and regret, but by January I was in a completely different mindset. The lowest point ever became a springboard to launch me into the next phase of my life. I started a whole host of healthy (both physical and mental) habits. I knew that I would have to leave to find another job in my field of expertise and I wanted to prepare myself in every possible way. I managed to attract a 3 month contract in a very prestigious hotel in Johannesburg. It was hard, for a lot of reasons, and I found myself getting stressed all over again. So I engaged a life coach. Best decision ever!

I’m back on the West Coast now, preparing for the next opportunity to present itself. But I want to share the habits, strategies, changes and inspiration that got me to this point in my life. I’ve overcome trauma, anxiety, binge-eating disorder, two failed marriages, infertility, inadequacy, self-doubt, depression, diabetes, IBS, obesity, disability, lack of self-esteem, obsessive behaviours, nicotine addiction, poor impulse control, resentment, rejection, people-pleasing, an inability to speak up for myself, victim mentality, self-pity, perfectionism, and the need for external validation. It hasn’t been easy. It sure as hell didn’t happen overnight. I still sometimes slip back into an old knee-jerk reaction, or a bout of fear and self-doubt, but I catch myself, and can course-correct. These are all learned skills. I’m not done, of course. There is so much more to learn and I find myself contemplating complete shifts in direction. Whatever I do, I will do it with intention and conviction. I’m worth it!