What I have learned?

I have learned so much throughout my journey in the Health and Wellness program and I have changed my life several times during the course of that journey. My motto for life is “Life is a Journey to Discovery” and my life has changed a lot during my school journey. The things that are the easiest for me to stay with are the changes I have made around diet, nutrition and food preparation. I try and prepare most of my meals from scratch and do not use many convenience foods other than some frozen fruits and vegetables. My diet is constantly changing and I have tried many different types of food styles such as vegetarianism, gluten-free, dairy-free and have incorporated some of them into my current food life-style. Vegetarianism didn’t work for me because my husband refuses to give up meat and it was just too hard to try and prepare two separate meals. When I went gluten-free I also found that it was too restrictive as well as too expensive and some of the ingredients were things that I try to avoid like soy. I do not eat much bread and pasta anyway. I found that I do much better on a no milk diet, although I can eat cheese with not much problem. My diet is always evolving as my knowledge of nutrition increases. I do admit that I could do better at eating more fruit. I try to have a fruit smoothie once a day which helps to get some more fruit and use frozen unsweetened fruit because it is always available. I found that keeping a food diary helps me be more aware of what I am eating and where I might be deficient. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to change their diet, to be sure that they get what they need.

The area that I have the hardest time with is incorporating regular exercise into my life. I had a knee replacement a few years ago which severely limits the type of exercise that I can do and I get bored easily. My favorite form of exercise is walking outdoors. I used to be able to do 3 miles a day, but find it hard to do 1 mile now. I try and walk for at least 30 minutes a day and have no trouble when the weather is good and I can walk outdoors, but find it hard in the winter when it is snowy or cold. We had some great walking paths in our town, but most of them were severely damaged in the floods we had in September. I am hoping that they will get them mostly accessible by this Spring. I love them because several of them are in nature areas where I can commune with the animals. I would love to use the walking and communing technique that the Professor mentioned in our last seminar.

As far as techniques that I would recommend to other people, one that I really like is journaling. I love to write and for me it is helps to get things on paper because it helps me clarify my feeling and the emotions that I am going through. In an article I found entitled “The Health Benefits of Journaling”, the scientific benefits of journaling are discussed (Purcell, 2006).

These benefits include:

• Clarifying your thoughts and feelings. Taking a few minutes to jot down your thoughts and emotions will quickly help you get in touch with them.
• Help you get to know yourself better. Writing routinely will help you get to know what makes you feel the way you do and become clearer about situations and people who are toxic.
• Reduce stress. Writing about anger, sadness and painful emotions helps you feel release some of the intensity of the emotions and feel calmer.
• Solve problems more effectively. Writing unlocks your creatively, which engages your right-brain and gives you another prospective on them.
• Resolve disagreements with others. Writing about misunderstandings helps clarify your feelings thus releasing some of the emotions so that you are better able to understand the other person;s point of view (Purcell, 2006).

In addition to all the benefits previously mentioned, journaling helps you look back and see patterns, trends, improvement and growth over time. Reading your journal enables you to look back at past problems and see how you have resolved them (Purcell, 2006).

Another technique that has worked for me is deep breathing. It was nice just to take the time to relax and become more mindful of my body.  Focusing on my breathing helps me. In fact, I found that when I have trouble falling asleep that just focusing on paying attention to breathing in and out relaxes me so much that before I know it I am asleep. It works most times for me, although I found that when I had a cold recently that focusing on my breathing stressed me out because it was such a chore.

Reference:

Purcell, M. (2006). The Health Benefits of Journaling. Psych Central. Retrieved from http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/the-health-benefits-of-journaling/