Adding kindness and care to our daily health habits.
Now more than ever, it is mandatory that we take extra care of ourselves, and in doing so, we can help others. We all hear the importance of exercise and eating right to stay healthy. But that can be hard, and sometimes we don’t want to listen to the experts, or we hope for an easy answer.
It reminds me of the time when my eye doctor, the late and great Dr. Sally Bodenhammer, told me there could be issues with my eye health if I didn’t add more healthy foods into my diet. I asked her if there was anything I could take for it—a pill perhaps to prevent deterioration? She said very clearly, “No.” I still hear her words every time I go to the grocery store (or now as I order groceries on an app for curbside pickup), telling me to “eat more leafy greens!”
I had to focus on my overall health, including nutrition, if I wanted my eyes to focus for the long haul. There was no easy answer, no miracle pill that would make me skip the real work to take care of myself. These good healthy habits take time, repetition, focus, and determination.
In some ways, it’s just like the pandemic. The healthy habits of keeping distance caused us to unlearn almost everything we have done on a daily basis for our entire lives: hugs, handshakes, being close to friends, and sharing. Even going to work or school, shopping, and eating out have required major adjustments. In order to reduce risk, we had to choose to learn new habits — like the habit of wearing masks.
And what’s scary is that our actions could directly affect the health of others. But we have the ability to turn that around as we fight this virus. It’s difficult since most health issues only impact the person affected. Our bad health habits haven’t impacted others until now. Yes, spreading germs is nothing new, but this is nothing like we’ve ever seen. Now we must adapt to these new habits because our actions extend beyond just ourselves, like it or not. Being selfish is no longer an option.
“Take care of yourself and you will take care of others.”
We must keep ourselves healthy. Others around us are depending on it, and so are we. It’s made us realize how interconnected we are and how our actions affect the big picture of life.
Healthy habits mean eating right, getting exercise, and taking your vitamins, but of course, it’s much more than that. There are mental habits that have to change. Caring and kindness become like vitamins that we must take on a daily basis. Like weights at the gym, we must use them to get strong and in shape mentally and physically.
Vitamin Breathe: Take a moment to take a deep breath. Find the importance of calmness and have grace as we work through this. Practice very deep breaths often. Breathe in strength, hope,and the good.
Vitamin Care: Caring is the only way we’ll convince people to take action to help their friends, neighbors, and strangers. There is science and there are facts, but unless we care about others, the science is merely science. Caring puts it into action.
Vitamin Kindness: Take several servings of this daily. You’ll find it multiplies faster than any virus. And a little goes a long way, so try it and spread it widely.
Take care of yourself and you will take care of others.
#StayHealthyJCMO #SpaceOut #StayBack6Ft #MaskUPwiththeMayor #Breathe #Care #BeKind #JCMO
