I’m 49 in a couple of weeks and my body is a mess. Why? Because I have neglected myself.
I’ve been caught up in running my business, prioritising everything else and feeling like I just didn’t have time for self care. Some worsening aches and pains and a pep talk from my partner later, and things are changing.
I’ve been experiencing aches and pains all over my body particularly in my neck and joints. Vitamin D has helped, in addition to the iron supplements I’ve been taking for months as I’m anaemic due having fibroids. I’ve not been sleeping particularly well. The combination of pain and tiredness are the perfect excuse to take no exercise.
I know these are just excuses but they sound and feel so real, right?! And they perfectly feed my habit to over-work and my lack of discipline.
But at some point, something has to change. I’ve always maintained at least an average level of fitness in my life. Since being a child when I did gymnastics 5 days a week (my poor parents were either driving me to and from training sessions or to and from competitions), I’ve always done some form of exercise. At school it was anything required of me: athletics, hockey, netball etc. At University it was the gym – sometimes twice a day. Then came yoga and I did my yoga teacher training in India. Then running. I think I got up to about 7k once or twice a week. More recently I took to swimming. I could always swim (thanks to my very patient Dad and Crook Log swimming pool) and had lessons at school but I had never mastered front crawl until a couple of years ago when I took some swimming lessons. For the past 9 years I’ve always had a bicycle. I’m a fairweather cyclist, mainly up and down the sea front where I live in Brighton. Add to this the occasional walk on the South Downs and I’ve always done OK.
So what’s changed and why am I here?
The pain and lethargy has been worsening and I knew I needed to break the cycle. On Sunday morning, after an unusually good night’s sleep, I decided to go for a run. The thought arose and felt right. I didn’t pressure myself. It was just a feeling I had and I kept a clear mind and followed it through.
Whilst running my first 5k in about 2 years along the sea front to Hove Lagoon and back, I decided I’d go for a sea swim afterwards. I used to do this and I loved it. But like so many of my ‘fads’ it lasted a few months. Anyway, after my first 5k run in too long (it was painful on the hips) and some yoga stretches on the Lawns, I went for a dip in the sea. And, you guessed it. It was fabulous.
On Monday, after work, I went for another swim and meditated when I went to bed. I slept well so on Tuesday, I cycled to and from the office and went for another swim followed by a little meditation on the beach. I’d had a great day which I attribute to the previous day’s exercise and sleeping well. I decided I’d like to swim every day for 7 days. And if I did that, extend the 7 days to 30 days. Then I started wondering how this would affect my physical and mental health and well being. And this is when I decided to start documenting my progress: initially for myself but sharing might benefit others. So here I am: exercising, writing and sharing. A whole new adventure. Let’s see how things of the mind, body and spirit develop from here…. I think it’s going to be fun 🙂
Salting My Body Out 