In the midst of our daily responsibilities, of taking care of patients and our household duties or obligations to our children and family – how are we actually taking care of ourselves? Are we making sure that we are getting exercise or a few quiet minutes to reflect? Or what about that book that you have been wanting to read? Wait – did you just have a birthday and realized how you haven’t lost those 5 or 30 pounds you were planning to lose at your last birthday? Well, it should get us thinking about how do we actually use our time? We all know about the distractions of social media and we all have been a victim to being available to everyone else’s needs now that we have cell phones. Is there ever downtime?

So, now that I have asked so many questions and made the situation more perplexing and likely more stressful. Let’s ask the real question – how are you showing up for yourself? For starters, health is important to each person’s well-being. Most of us realize this as we try to help improve the physical or mental health of our patients.  Most of the time we are trying to treat problems that have surfaced and now are out of hand. In other words, we are providing our patients with secondary or tertiary prevention. A lot of times, we become victim to the same with our busy lifestyles and questionable priorities. There is always help out there to accomplish your goals.

How do we start the process of analyzing how to make changes? It may just start with taking a few moments to sit with ourselves for a few minutes every morning and doing some breath work or using a mantra or word to meditate.  It may be sitting down and writing down what we can easily implement in our lifestyle – making small changes. One example is taking 10 minutes for a walk or getting on that stationary bike catching dust and slowly increasing that time to 20-30 minutes two to three times a week. Or it could be a short (15-20 minutes)  strength training workout you can have made up by a trainer that you could do 3-4 times a week. We know how important bone density is and how often we use “generalized weakness” in our geriatric patients. Having baseline good strength can improve recovery time from a surgery or illness. Or if it sounds too complicated to plan your workouts, hire someone to make your workouts for you or get a coach! We all need supportive networking and sometimes the need is just for accountability. Spending money on your health is not wasteful. Primary and secondary prevention is better than becoming bed-bound and having hospital expenses. Our actions also affect our loved ones – are we going to be able to play with our grandkids or be short of breath with activity? Are we going to to be able to go on the vacations and trips we planned or be dependent on others for care? We cannot predict and control all health outcomes, but we can certainly push away preventable diseases or delay them. Or we can control our blood pressure and diabetes better with routine activity and watchful intake. Most of our insurances offer us nutrition counseling and we all know most doctors are not experts in nutrition – so let’s use those resources. Or hire someone to help calculate your macronutrient and calorie needs to lose or control weight. The idea is to invest in your health as you hope your patients would do when they come to you with elevated blood pressure or uncontrolled diabetes, or these complications. 

Show up for yourself!