Welcome to Day 12 of the Wellbeing 9-a-Day blog! Yesterday, we considered the importance of maintaining a positive relationship with the nutrition that we put into our body, particularly the benefits of drinking water. In today’s blog, we are going to focus on the need to build a positive relationship with the one body that we have by maintaining a healthy self-care routine.
The Only Place We Have to Live
The quality of your experience of life starts with the way that you treat yourself. By taking time each day to look inwards and address your body’s needs, you get closer to living a more content existence.
Self-care is an essential component when looking after the one body that you have with you every step of the way. Proactively adding self-care practices into your daily life improves your overall health and wellbeing, lifts your mood, and ensures that you care for yourself every day.
When you take the time to care for yourself, you are better placed to enjoy the successes and better handle the challenges of life.
Self-care enhances your ability to manage tasks and place additional focus on your goals. It improves your physical health and hygiene and increases your ability to care for others.
Plus, it just feels great to take time for yourself and nurture your body.
Prevention is Better than Cure
My journey with The Wellbeing 9-a-Day Journal has seen me address several physical issues, including rehabbing physical injuries, improving acne, and curing fungal nail infections. For a long time, I did little to address these issues, heeding advice I have often now given to others when they have had a problem that was not immediately resolvable…
“Go to bed, get yourself a good night’s sleep, and hopefully it’ll resolve itself by morning.”
While this is good advice for some things, it is terrible advice for others. A good night’s sleep might calm some anxiety or give you time to find a new perspective, but it is not going to cure a fungal nail infection or magically make your spots disappear.
Five years ago, I slipped a disc in my back and endured a long road to recovery. Taking painkillers, icing my back, and stretching became daily necessities to stop the pain from leaving me bed bound. Each time I got to a point where I could move freely, I would forget my habits and my bad back would return with a vengeance.
The Wellbeing 9-a-Day Journal has reminded me to take care of myself so that these problems don’t reach the point of leaving me broken again.
It has taught me the value of preventing problems before they surface, and I now relish my daily stretch as a time to give my body the care is needs and deserves. With this, my new saying is…
“Prehabilitation over rehabilitation every day of the week.”
Call to Action
What is the one thing that you can do today to care for your body? The answer that first comes to mind is probably the thing that you need to be doing the most. You may want to address an existing issue or take some time to recharge those batteries. Take the time to care for your body today so that your body can take care of you tomorrow.
This blog was written as part of a 90-day blog writing fundraiser for Live Well with Cancer, a volunteer-led charity serving North Tyneside and the surrounding areas. If you enjoyed this blog, please show your appreciation by donating to my JustGiving page. Every penny raised from donations or sales of the journal will help deliver workshops, events and support groups that empower better health and wellbeing for those affected by cancer, including family, friends, carers, and healthcare workers.
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