Welcome to Little Acts of Wellness! It is a mini-series I am currently running for those who wish to improve their well-being but find time or motivation a little hard to come by. It is for exploring and sharing those little things that can cause large shifts towards health and enjoyment of life. To receive the next installments for free, join my mailing list by entering your details on the right. The intro to the series is posted below.
Share your own ideas with everyone by writing in the comment section at the end. Thanks!
Little Acts of Wellness: Intro.
To start us off I have a question for you: how often does lack of time or other commitments get in the way of you caring for your health and well-being? Or how often can you not quite gather enough motivation for the effort it takes to improve your well-being? If you answered “I always find the time and energy for implementing everything I come across to improve my well-being”, then this series is probably not for you! For the rest of us mere mortals, especially those of us too busy or with little energy or motivation for taking on something big, I think it might be useful!
Not having enough time or energy is not only a common excuse, it is also commonly true! When you think of all the things it is good to do to improve your well-being, such as eating healthily, exercising, relaxation, nurturing healthy relationships, spiritual practices or meditation, and so on, of course we start running out of time and energy! The danger here is that you might end up doing nothing instead, and that doing nothing might become the habit. So what is the solution?
Little Acts of Wellness!
It is much better to do something, and get in the habit of doing something, than to do nothing. If you design your wellness techniques to be doable even when you have little time, or even no extra time at all, then you can still get into the habit of doing something, and when you have more time these things can be expanded. Even if you never have any extra time, you are still doing something to improve your state of being!
So to give some examples, you could design a short exercise routine that includes a couple of stretches and then a brief exercise (like jogging on the spot, star jumps or squats) that only takes 2 or 3 minutes, you could make a recipe for fresh vegetable soup or a salad that only takes a couple of minutes to prepare and which would be a major improvement on a microwave meal, or you could use the heartmath technique I gave last month that only takes a minute and helps relaxation and emotional balance, and so on. There are some things that can help without requiring any extra time at all: you can do breathing awareness / relaxation exercises while sat at your desk working or while on the bus, you could move your bowl of fruit to be next to your favourite armchair while keeping sugary snacks somewhere much less convenient (for example still on the shelves in the shop!). There are many more ways, and you might be doing some yourself already.
So what little acts of wellness you already do, and what might fit well in your life?
Free free to leave a comment underneath and share your ideas with others. If you haven’t already, join my mailing list on the right to receive the next installments where I share with you ideas for all of the different elements of well-being.
Best wishes,
Mark Jack
Hi, I loved reading this because it acknowledges the value of little things we do. Little acts of wellness I’ve done in the past few years: having at least one proper cooked meal with vegetables and salad every day, choosing an apple or a banana instead of snacks. I try to have a jog now and then, but it is proving to be very challenging to start doing it more often. I’ve gone on cycle rides every so often. I’d like to build in some type of short exercise in my day…
Hi Sophie, thanks for your comment and for sharing.
Well done with getting into the habit of fruit instead of snacks! It can be a challenge considering the biological draw us Homo sapiens have for high calorie foods!
I find being late for the bus is a good way to get jogging! A better idea though might be deciding just to jog to somewhere very close and back once a day. If it only takes a few minutes in total including putting your shoes on then that might help get over the resistance to doing it more often. You might well find that you jog further too sometimes…
Best wishes,
Mark
I find it hard to motivate myself to live more healthy. I would much rather have 30 extra minutes in bed than get up and do stretches. I find with myself, that if I want to get into a healthier routine, to keep at it everyday and not stop over the weekend or on bank holidays. Admittedly I have been slacking with my exercise the past two weeks. But one way of making sure I get fresh fruit in my diet is to swop my cereal or toast for breakfast with fresh fruit salad and seeds and a glass of water. This definitely has had a positive effect on my life.
I completely understand the extra 30 minutes in bed! Good sleep is actually a vital part of wellness so depending on how much sleep you have been getting maybe sometimes you need it?
So you find for yourself that the routine has to be daily regardless of the day for you to get into the habit?
The fresh fruit salad and seeds is a great idea of a healthy choice that doesn’t take much extra time. It reminds me of what I did a fair bit last year before winter kicked in and it got too cold – having a raw soup for breakfast. Basically I would soak some seeds and nuts overnight and in the morning put fresh water with them and some salad such as cucumbers, radishes or sweet peppers, and blend it all until it was smooth. It is also pretty quick to make and highly nutritious. In fact now we mention it I will write myself a note to soak some nuts and seeds for tomorrow!
That is another thing that can help a lot with living more healthily – having people you are in touch with to share ideas and motivation with!
Thank you!
Mark