Me Time - Pillar 4 of the New 5-a-day

We are all wrapped up in the busy-ness of modern life - whether you are working all hours to make ends meet, or rushing to collect the kids from nursery, looking after elderly parents or trying to make the next spin class, or zumba class, or just trying to make the bus home.  More likely, in this day and age, you are trying do all of the above.  It can often feel like the world is expecting us to be everything to everyone, all at once.

With every new request, the blood pressure rises, cortisol - the stress hormone - rushing through your veins just like you are rushing through the corridors to make it to your latest parents' evening.  A little bit of cortisol - a little bit of stress - can be a good thing: fitness gains are achieved, basically, by putting our bodies through short-term stress to make us stronger or fitter; we can achieve great things when the adrenaline kicks in and we enter that temporary fight-or-flight state where our minds and bodies can perform more than we ever thought possible.

But let's pull out two key words from that last sentence:

·       short-term

·       temporary

For sure, a little bit of stress can help drive us forward.  The problems come when that stress stops being short-term, when it stops being temporary.  With no release valve to reduce the pressure, we risk spiraling into a state of chronic stress, where cortisol levels remain high, blood pressure never has the chance to reduce, where everything piles on top of everything else, and we start to feel that there is no end, no way out.

And what happens next?

There are both short-term and long-term implications.  In both cases, the downward spiral kicks in.

In the short term, you know fully-well what happens next:  you snap at someone; you start shooting from the hip, making decisions and taking actions that you would never do if you were not caught up in the stress and the immediacy; you say things you would never normally say.  Every quick decision, every harsh word, every regrettable comment launches its own new vicious circle that compounds the stress and the cycle continues.

At the same time, in the long term, all this stress is doing a job on both your physical and mental health: high blood pressure, increased inflammation, distraction, poor concentration, increased anxiety, lower quality sleep as your mind never stops racing.  These have all been shown to have significant detrimental impacts on both life-span and health-span.

And all because we do not make the time to allow the stress levels to drop; because we do not take a moment for ourselves, a moment away from the action to just be.  I am not discounting the very real truth about how busy so many people are; I am not saying we have plenty of time to kick-back and relax.  But I am saying we all have "agency" - the ability to make decisions, and to choose how we see the world.

We have the agency to say - this moment is for me.

It may be 10 seconds looking at the photo of a loved one, or practicing a deep-breathing exercise before rushing into the next meeting; it may be a minute to calm out bodies and our minds; it may be 5 minutes to put on your favorite song and dance around like your life depends on it; it may be 10 minutes to sit quietly with a book before bedtime.  Let's be clear - it may also be an hour in the swimming pool, or a day hiking in the hills, or a weekend at a gaming convention or re-enacting the Battle of Naseby!

However long it is, we have the ability to say - this is my time and it is for me.  And taking some "Me Time" is the fourth pillar of the New 5-a-Day; it allows us a moment to reset; it reminds us that we, too, are important and deserve this; and it gives us something that is ours. It is for us, and that is important.  Further, from a long-term health perspective, taking some time to allow cortisol levels, stress levels, and blood pressure to drop is key to enabling us to lead out best lives, to improve our health-spans and life-spans and get the most out of time and our relationships.

In this blog we are going to look at some of the activities you may be choosing for how you spend your Me Time, from breathing exercises and self-talk for those short, grabbed moments on the run, to full-blown hobbies that give us a feeling of calm, of achievement, of pride.

We hope you find something and give it a try!