Monday, March 8, 2010

One Day at a Time

Last week I was having a bit of neck pain. You know that kind when your neck is so stiff that you can’t actually turn to the left or right? It started last Thursday morning and when I had an unexpected cancellation I used the free time to see Deborah (the best massage therapist at UCSF as far as I am concerned). Deborah said the pain was caused by an extreme tightness in my neck, chest and upper back. She informed me that my scalenes and my sternocleidomastoid (fancy words for the neck) were unbelievably tight and then she proceeded to dig with what felt like an axe into my upper body. She worked on my neck in a way that made me feel like I might die, but when she was done and for many days since (it is now Sunday night) I have been pain free. She was so knowledgeable about everything having to do with the body. She said I was having pain because of the way I am holding up my head and how little I have been stretching my neck.
After the pain subsided I was more than thrilled with the massage. But the thing that really had me reeling was how much we can know and yet how much there is still left to learn. How can I fit stretches of the neck into my already packed daily routine?
I love learning new things about my body or about health in general. I mean I really love it. I scan newspapers for the health section. I goggle blogs constantly to find out what other people are talking about. I ask questions and I am not afraid to not know something. However even with all that determination it can get really frustrating when there is one more thing that I am supposed to focus on with my own body. I mean, come on. If I followed all of the instructions of all the things I want or am supposed to do in order to be healthy, I would have no time to work or write this article because I would spend my days doing tai chi, yoga, learning to cook with middle eastern spices, cultivating gardens, enjoying tea with friends, reading, taking vitamins, meditating, stretching every single part of my body especially my neck, strengthening every single part of my body, going for long walks, swimming, petting dogs, writing thank you cards and helping the elderly cross the street. Sounds like my perfect retirement. Fortunately and unfortunately depending on whom you talk to, most of us are not retired yet and therefore cannot possibly think about all of our health needs every single day.
I was musing on this idea last week when one of my clients gave me a Berkeley wellness handout titled “365 tips for better health”. I figured I could read one every morning and that would be the thing I would think about that particular day. This works in theory until I woke up on Friday and read self-care #309: “Think twice before buying an iguana.” Not much of health goal for the day. That’s when I put two and two together.
We all need to make our own daily list of tips for better health. I want everyone to make a list of all the things you have been trying to do for your health. I will start you off with some of mine.

• Drink water
• Exercise
• Take the stairs
• Meditate
• Stretch
• Eat vegetables
• Eat healthy fats like omegas
• Say please and thank you
• Deep breathing
• Volunteer
• Learn something new

You get the idea. Now, focus on each thing on your list one at a time, one day at a time. Tomorrow I am going to think about drinking water all day long. That doesn’t mean that I will want to throw all my other healthy things out the window. I’m not going to skip work, watch Jerry Springer and eat Cheetos all day with the deluded idea that because I am drinking water I am the messiah of health. Do all the things you would normally do in your healthy day. You can still make it to that stretch class or walk at lunch or take your vitamins or whatever, but just pay extra attention to drinking more water. On your vitamin day, maybe you can focus on trying to get all your vitamins from your food. On exercise day, you could try an exercise you’ve never done before. This way instead of becoming overwhelmed of all the things you feel like you need to work on to be healthy, you can just take it one thing at a time. Today I am going to work on stretching out my neck and in order to do that better, I am going to turn off the computer.

Be Good to your Body, it’s where you Live m

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