The specifics of how to maintain wellness for your body are varied and highly debated. Is it being a certain weight? Having all of your labs come back great every time you see the doctor? Do you have to work out to attend to your wellness? Does whether you eat meat or not have anything to do with it?
I’m don’t have the magic recipe for your particular body to maintain wellness. You do, though. You might not know you do, but you do.
This is one of the really irritating things about us coaches. We believe in you. I’m not the expert in you. You are. That’s actually exactly what wellness is all about. Listening to yourself to find your answers, not someone else’s.
There are two primary areas of Body Wellness: the stuff you put in your body, and the stuff you do with your body.
What you put in your body is food and drink, medications, supplements, drugs and alcohol. What you do with your body is any movement or exercise, what you do at work all day, sex, hygiene, and any stressors you put on your body, or lack thereof.
Food and Drink
We have to pay attention to how you feel when you eat things. How do you feel when you eat half a sandwich at midnight then go straight to bed? Maybe you don’t know because you haven’t tried not having that sandwich so we have to experiment a little to have compare and contrasts.
Do you drink enough water? I suggest you track it just incase you don’t know as much as you think. I thought I was perfectly hydrated when some labs came up off at my doctor’s. She had to tell me 3 times to hydrate properly before I listened, and figured out how dehydrated I was. Do you drink a lot of caffeine? Do you also have anxiety? Because the two don’t usually mix well.
We’ll keep coming back to what makes you feel the best. Once we figure that out, we create a plan that is simple enough that you will actually follow it. Then we see if you do or not. If not, what’s up? We make adjustments. You tell me what’s happening. You tell me what works and what doesn’t.
Medications and Supplements
Short story: Take the medications you are prescribed as prescribed. If you have an issue with one of them talk to your doctor. When adding supplements do it one at a time so you can track how they affect you, and keep your doctor in the loop.
Drugs and Alcohol
If you take drugs and they are interfering with your Body Wellness, we might want to reconsider some of your lifestyle choices. As for alcohol, I know how great a nice craft beer or glass of wine can be at night, and that can get out of hand pretty fast. Be honest with yourself as to how you really feel. That may or may not mean making some changes.
Workplace and Physical Stress
Are you on your feet all day? Do you sit all day? How does your body feel? If your job creates physical stress for you, we need to get creative. If we can change something about your workplace, great. If not, then we figure out how to counter the stress outside of work.
Exercise
It’s a simple formula: if it hurts stop doing it, if you don’t enjoy it in some fashion find something else. Body awareness will keep you safe and help you identify what will get you the results you’re looking for and how to work around any resistance you’ve been struggling with.
Hygiene
Not bathing regularly is a key sign of depression. Generally speaking, a lot of people find the time that showers take to be irritating, but they enjoy the feeling of clean so they do it anyways. If you notice that you resist hygiene, we need to investigate a little deeper. Small things like washing your face every day can become delightful parts of a selfcare routine.
Sex
For most this is an enjoyable part of life. For many others it is complicated by stress, anxiety, self-esteem, and trauma. Listen to yourself and have the sex life you are comfortable with. We can address any concerns you have with intimacy and create a plan to get you where you want to be without sacrificing you.
As you can see, wellness for the body requires awareness, trust in your own instincts and the wherewithal to do your thing even if it’s different from everybody else. And it clearly involves attention to the other 3 areas of wellness: Mind, Soul, and Space. Having a coach to walk this path with you can help clarify your goals so that you can identify what moves you toward or away from them.
For more about the 3 areas of wellness check out my blogs What Does Wellness Actually Mean?, Wellness for Your Mind, Wellness for Your Soul, and Wellness for Your Space.