Taking Control of Your Health
What does it mean to live a “healthy” lifestyle? You have to sleep 8 hours a night, only eat “clean” foods (whatever that means), get at least 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity, don’t drink alcohol, pet five dogs a day, and eliminate all stress from your life. Does thinking about having to do all those things actually create more stress for you? Probably so. That’s because It’s unrealistic to think you have to adhere to some special health code of conduct in order to feel good about the way you treat your body.
Find what works best for YOU and stick with it.
Start small. Pick one or two things you want to be part of your daily and weekly routine. No one can do that for you. We are all responsible for ourselves. Yes, get some input from people who you see living a life you’d like to have for yourself, but don’t try to copy that exactly and apply it to your own life. And please, please, please DO NOT let social media influence you to adopt habits that just don’t fit your lifestyle. Figure out what YOU want for yourself. You will be ahead of the curve if you adopt a few key habits. Get quality sleep most nights, make protein a priority in your diet, don’t over indulge on processed foods, lift heavy weights, do some form of cardio that gets your heart rate up. Sounds similar to something that was mentioned earlier, right? But not quite as scary. Why is that? Because there don’t have to be strict rules around those habits and everyone is allowed to create habits that work best for them even if that means being different from someone else.
Setting a routine is key.
There are pretty much limitless options to choose from when deciding what you want to do to stay active. Lift weights at the gym, play volleyball every Thursday afternoon with friends, join a running club, find yoga videos on the internet, go hiking, have dedicated time to play with your dog every day, take a walk through the neighborhood on your lunch break, meditate in the mornings. Getting in a routine isn’t always easy. But it is so worth it once you settle into a set of habits that give you energy, settle your mind, make you feel strong, and give you the confidence to wake up the next day and do it all over again.
A huge part of your health is staying injury free.
Let’s take some time to talk about how to manage injuries. Honestly, a lot of injuries will work themselves out. If you are able to listen to your body and act on what it’s telling you, there’s a good chance you can manage it on your own. But that first part is so important. Did you catch it? Here it is again - if you are able to listen to your body and act on what it’s telling you…In any challenge, problem, obstacle, issue, whatever, the first step has to be recognition. If you don’t know what’s wrong, how can you find a solution? And that doesn’t mean you have to be a doctor and be able to formally diagnose an injury down to the most minute detail. Common sense is your best friend. You know yourself better than anyone else in the world. Sure, you can talk to friends, workout partners, teammates about an injury you’re dealing with and ask them if they’ve dealt with it in the past. But ultimately, everyone is different, and what worked for your friend may not work for you.
Being wise about when to seek out professional medical help can save you from a lot of frustration.
If you’re training for a race, where you’re at in your training also plays a role in deciding how to seek care. If it’s early in a training block and you have a few months of hard training ahead of you, it’s probably best to get checked out sooner rather than later so you don’t continue to get more hurt and can get back to working out hard so you can be prepared for your race. If your race is a week away and you begin to have a new irritation in your knee that hurts some when you run but doesn’t make you change a workout, then maybe you just tough it out and make sure that soon after the race, you set up an appointment to see what’s going on. I’ve had a few patients who have done just that - they have a state meet coming up, a big game, an important race they’ve been training for for a long time, and they decide that they’ll risk potentially getting more hurt because this event is so important to them. It’s a personal decision where each person has to weigh the pros and cons and then decide what they want to do. There’s nothing wrong with taking a risk if you’re okay with knowing you’ll have to deal with the consequences afterwards. But you can only do that so many times before your body eventually is unable to keep up with what you’re asking it to do. Be nice to your body. You only have one.
The time to invest in your health is now.
Investing in your health is exactly that - an investment. Sometimes you can invest more. Sometimes you can only invest a little. And that’s okay. The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is consistency. There will be times in your life when you just can’t dedicate as much time towards certain aspects of your health as you’d like. You’re in grad school and writing your fifth paper in three weeks. You just had a baby and are waking up every 2 hours to a crying infant. You moved to a new city to start a new job and are trying to keep up with the workload your boss handed down to you. You can’t always do a lot. But you can probably do a little. And even when you feel like you’re not doing enough, there’s a good chance you’re still doing just fine.
You get to choose your hard.
Life can be hard. We can acknowledge that and still opt for a life that we’re proud of and enjoy. Strength training is hard. And not being able to play with your kids is hard. Cooking healthy meals is hard. And managing diabetes due to poor eating habits is hard. Making time to exercise is hard. And making time for yet another doctor appointment is hard. Putting effort into researching local healthcare clinics is hard. And dealing with chronic pain is hard. Choose your hard. Choose the hard that is hard now but will be worth it in the long run.
Written by Dr. Hunter Pickens
