Mental Health Awareness Week is an annual UK wide campaign to tackle stigma and help people understand and prioritise mental health. Running from 13th-19th May, this year’s theme is ‘Movement: moving more for our mental health’.
The dedicated week allows us to raise awareness about the importance of exercise and movement and its association to our mental health. Moving more can increase your energy, reduce stress and anxiety, and boost your self-esteem.
Regular physical activity is known to improve mental health, quality of life, and wellbeing. It also helps prevent and treat heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and breast and colon cancer, and more. Despite these benefits being well established, over a third of UK adults do not meet the recommended amount of activity.
If you’d like to improve your mental health by moving more, here are some tips to help you get started. For further information, click here.
Here at BBB, we also have some amazing Health & Wellbeing Partners whose expertise can help with movement and exercise, with each specialising in their niche…
Hooke Fitness- move your body & optimise your health/longevity
Mirella Fitness – PT- move your body and nutritional plans
Hagan & Papin – PT
Faye Reason- Energy Worker & Healer – move your energy
Register for BBB Membership here to connect to any of these incredible Partners.
Many women opt for hours of cardio in their fitness routines and neglect the power of weightlifting. I was always a cardio bunny, spending hours pounding the streets around my hometown. I loved it…it gave me an escape. But I never achieved the type of body I wanted. I also enjoyed workouts with weights, classes at the gym, home workouts via VHS, but it wasn’t anything serious. By serious, I mean, lifting real weight!
Like many women, I was all about the ‘burn’, and that was only felt through smashing myself with lots of endurance! Hours pounding the streets or the treadmill. It wasn’t until I got serious about the weights that I realised how addictive building strength could be. And how easy it can be to change my body and maintain the results.
There are many misconceptions about women and weightlifting, particularly when it comes to women’s physical appearance. Not only can lifting weights help women achieve their fitness goals, but the health benefits (both mental and physical) are huge. Here are just a few…
Increased muscle mass – not only does it make you look leaner, but it raises your BMR (calories your body burns at rest). This means you’ll need to eat more to maintain your muscles, win win!
Increases strength – from the age of 30, women begin to atrophy (lose muscle) so it really is important to strength train so you can continue to carry shopping, sit on the toilet, climb stairs or even mountains as you go into old age!
It’s fun – weight lifting itself is a fun and effective form of exercise. Using your newfound strength to do things you couldn’t previously do, like a chin up!
Confidence – knowing your own strength (and knowing how easy it is to get stronger) is a huge confidence booster, not to mention going into the gym and feeling like you are a warrior woman! Forget the cardio for achieving a toned body… weights are where it’s at!
You can shape and sculpt your body – weight training gives you the ability to focus on certain muscle groups and attain the physique you desire. Some of my favourite exercises for women focus on achieving perky glutes!
Bone health – women’s bones are at risk of osteoporosis as we age. Lifting weights increases bone density, particularly around menopause, and helps keep bones healthy.
As well as the many benefits above, weightlifting also helped me to build a better relationship with food. I now love food, without having a guilty relationship with it. I no longer restrict myself or use it as punishment. Instead, it nurtures my body and fuels my workouts.
As a Personal Trainer, I have really enjoyed helping so many women learn to lift safely and effectively, and ultimately find a love for lifting weights too!
So, if you’re tired of working out endlessly, living a miserable life by restricting foods and calories, and still not seeing the results you want, then perhaps it’s time to look at how weights could make you feel amazing!
It’s common for people to let their fitness routines slip during the holiday season, with all the additional stress, social obligations, and tempting treats that come with it. However, it’s important to remember that maintaining a good level of physical fitness can have numerous benefits for both physical and mental health. Here are some tips for an active January and beyond…
Set achievable goals: it’s important to be realistic about what you can achieve in terms of your fitness routine. Consider setting achievable goals such as walking for 30 minutes a day or doing a short home workout twice a week.
Stay active: even if you can’t make it to the gym, there are plenty of ways to stay active. Consider going for a walk or a hike, participating in a fun outdoor activity or doing a workout at home using bodyweight exercises or home gym equipment.
Incorporate physical activity into your plans. For example, you could go for a walk or bike ride with family or friends, or plan an active outing such as skiing or snowboarding.
Don’t overdo it: it’s important to listen to your body and not push yourself too hard. If you’re feeling particularly stressed or tired, it’s okay to take a break and rest.
Make healthy lifestyle choices: in addition to staying active, it’s important to make healthy lifestyle choices to support your overall fitness and well-being. This can include eating a balanced diet, getting enough sleep, and managing stress through techniques such as relaxation or mindfulness.
Stay motivated: it can be easy to lose motivation in the cold and dreary winter months. To stay motivated, try to find activities that you enjoy, set small, achievable goals, and track your progress. You could also consider enlisting the help of a friend or family member to hold you accountable and provide support.
Remember, the most important thing is to find an approach to fitness that works for you and that you can maintain over the long term. It’s more than okay to have a few indulgences, but by prioritising your health and well-being, you’ll be able to enjoy those treats while still maintaining your fitness.
So here are a few fitness products, innovative and traditional that can help you in 2023
Tech
Myzone is an accurate fitness tracker and online social platform that rewards effort for all physical activity, helping more people around the world to feel good about exercise.
Exercising doesn’t need to be expensive! Body weight exercises such as press ups, pull-ups and squats are the quickest and easiest exercises to perform. You don’t need a gym just the floor you are standing on.
Low Cost Option £200 – £500
A pair of trainers, TRX and some adjustable dumbbells
Mid-Range Option £2000
Electromagnetic weights are the products for 2023 and Vitruvian is leading the way. On one compact platform, you can perform all the weight exercises you need to.
It’s a real gym, generating resistance from 0-440lb (200kg) of digital weight. How? The platform uses artificial intelligence to adjust the weight to you in real-time, giving you the optimal workout.
EMS. EMS stands for Electric Muscle Stimulation and it has been widely used in physiotherapy for decades with great results. Its rapidly expanding use as a Whole Body Training method provides the perfect combination of highly effective strength and cardio training.
The user puts on a suit (shorts and vest) and works alongside a personal trainer for a short 20-minute workout. The suit enhances the workout by stimulating the muscles. Boutique studios are opening up in the UK but it is a product that can also be used at home.
Falling into a less-than-ideal routine while working from home is unsurprisingly easy, especially over the winter. Long, dark mornings do very little to inspire early rising, pre-work jogging or green smoothie breakfasts while cool afternoons call for pantry raids and frothy coffees. The eradication of our commutes keeps us at our desks longer, eroding quality family time and racking up our Zoom time.
Cultivating a healthy lifestyle when you work from home is incredibly rewarding and by setting achievable goals, you can bring more fulfilment and productivity to each day. The key is to make and keep promises to yourself that helps to build self-trust, thus self-respect and a sense of pride in your day.
Here are a few tips for elevating your WFH schedule, prioritising a holistic attitude to your health and your productivity.
Keep Tabs on Your Overtime
It’s easy to work longer hours when there’s no rush to get home. Before the pandemic, leaving the office in the evening signalled the beginning of the race to hit that gym class, get back home, prepare dinner, squeeze in some wind-down time and get a full 8 hours of sleep. These days, we’re working smarter and using the time we save from our sofa-to-desk commute to tackle some life admin, get our endorphin fixes and pre-heat the oven. However, try not to fall into the trap of working overtime just because you can. If, like me, your dining table doubles as your desk, it’s important to keep tabs on the hours you spend there. If your choice of evening activities is a toss-up between binging a new series on Netflix or clearing your work inbox, why not try something new? Removing yourself from these patterns can help to curb the urge to burn the midnight oil.
Commit to Your Commute Time
Once you’ve put healthy boundaries in place around the time you spend at your desk, it’s time to look at how to enrich your spare time. Using your usual morning commute time to read, learn a new skill or language or get in a yoga session will set you up for a productive and happy day. Knowing that you’ve accomplished something before work, even if it’s just some time taken for yourself to think, provides a sense of ownership of your day. It’s easy to let work take over, so reclaiming some time before the workday starts is crucial.
Keep Moving
Moving your body throughout the day will improve your concentration, keep you physically healthy and will contribute to a more positive mindset. You don’t have to join a running club or go to a spin class to feel the benefits. A lunchtime walk or a mid-morning stroll to the local cafe for a coffee will blow away the cobwebs. If your work diary is fit to burst with unending calls and Zoom meetings, why not take one or two of those calls outside in the garden or while you walk in the local park?
Stay Hydrated
Coffee doesn’t count here! Make sure you have a glass of water on your desk at all times while you work from home. Not only does keeping hydrated help to keep organs functioning properly, but it also improves our cognition, our sleep quality and our moods. If you feel you need a reminder to drink more water throughout the day, why not invest in a beautiful glass carafe for a deskside visual cue?
Create an Inspiring Home Office Space
Finding inspiration and motivation in a plain, under-loved home office is next to impossible. Make sure your workspace, be it an entire study or a corner of the dining room table, makes you feel creative and confident. Houseplants make great deskfellows, as do framed family photographs, special stationery and a really lovely paperweight. Bring art, soft furnishings and good lighting into the mix and you have yourself a haven for the working hours that will keep stress levels low and cheerful industriousness at an all-time high.
Give Yourself Some Closure
At the end of the working day, it’s important to create physical distance between yourself and your laptop and other accoutrements of your employment. If your living room has taken on more of a multifunctional role since the beginning of the pandemic, ensure all signs of work are packed away neatly, ready for the morning. Dedicate a drawer to store your laptop, pens and notebooks to keep work out of sight and out of mind, allowing you to truly switch off in the evening. If you work from a dedicated study or office space, clear the space of clutter and close the door. You’ll thank yourself come the morning when you have fully decompressed and feel refreshed and ready to take on the next challenge…
As we kick off the year our minds are abuzz with what lies ahead and the goals we hope to achieve. Coupled with the cold days and dark nights of winter and the tyranny of getting back on that treadmill, it’s little wonder that insomnia has a tendency to rear its ugly head during these months. The weight of the pandemic adds an extra layer of discomfort.
The power of sleep is not to be underestimated. It is a vital ingredient of our physical and mental health. Leading medical spa Lanserhof, which has retreats in Austria and Germany, takes sleep very seriously, explaining it is essential for tissue repair, cell regeneration, the immune system and memory functioning. “When people are sleep deprived or develop a persistent sleep disorder, the consequences include loss of energy, drowsiness, impaired concentration or memory and disturbed mood. Inadequate sleep has been associated with increased risk of hypertension, type 2 diabetes and the risk of developing anxiety or depression,” say the experts.
Getting a good night’s rest is easier said than done but there are ways you can improve your cycle. Here are some essential steps.
Let There Be Light
The more sunlight the merrier. When our bodies release the happiness hormone serotonin there is a direct correlation with the elimination of stress. Several studies associate low levels of vitamin D in your blood leading to a higher risk of sleep disturbances and reduced sleep duration.
Natural and artificial light absorption helps your body to stay more alert during the day whilst increasing the quality of your sleep in the evenings. Small changes can help; try to go for a walk outside during your lunch break or use a lamp with a daylight bulb at your desk. Use natural sunlight to wake up where possible or a device that simulates this.
Dr Victoria Revell, a senior lecturer in translational sleep and circadian physiology, outlines the significance of our circadian rhythms: “The duration, timing and quality of our sleep are determined by two different processes – our sleep homeostat and our circadian clock. The sleep homeostat acts like a timer with sleepiness accumulating during the day the longer we are awake. The circadian clock drives 24-hour rhythms in nearly all aspects of our physiology and behaviour, including our sleep-wake patterns, and determines the timing of our sleep. Light is the most powerful stimulus for synchronising our circadian clock to the 24-hour day.”
Adapt Your Diet
A varied diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins and dairy is ideal. Avoid caffeine, fizzy drinks and alcohol from late afternoon. You may also consider introducing a supplement which includes melatonin (a man-made version of the hormone that controls your sleep patterns) such as Lanserhof’s Beauty Sleep.
Consider CBD
Wellness brand RAIN harnesses the power of the botanical world to help people find calm and balance. CBD is a key ingredient. According to RAIN: “The boom in popularity for CBD stems from both scientific research and substantial anecdotal and experiential reporting to suggest that it has beneficial effects in helping to alleviate anxiety and stress, reducing inflammation, as well as improving mood and sleep.”
Establish a Routine
Eye health specialist and ophthalmologist Alastair Lockwood at Feel Good Contacts encourages consistency with your patterns: “No matter what time you go to bed, wake up at the same time every day as much as possible. Having a consistent bedtime will help you to sleep better because your body will start to get tired on cue. After a while of doing this you might find that you naturally wake up just before your alarm. Even if you don’t always manage to stick to your routine, the more you can do it, the better.”
Get Moving
As well as helping to reduce anxiety, which can impact the ability to nod off, exercise can cause changes in your core body temperature. According to the Sleep Foundation: “During exercise your body increases its temperature, and afterwards your body’s temperature drops. That drop in temperature mimics a similar temperature change that happens before you fall asleep, when your body cools down in the evening in preparation for rest. The similarity between these changes may signal to your brain that it’s time to sleep.”
Stop Scrolling
It is all too tempting to check those emails or see who’s doing what on Instagram just as we should be winding down but the issue isn’t just that you are keeping your mind active. Our screens emit a type of blue light which keeps us awake and boosts reaction times by suppressing the release of melatonin. Your body’s natural circadian rhythm is disrupted and you are tricked into thinking it is still daytime. So it’s a big no go for electronic devices, including the television, at least half an hour before bedtime.
Set the Bedroom Tone
A clutter-free space with a soothing smell and cool temperature (apparently 18C is spot on) can work wonders. Add an excellent mattress and pillow to the mix. Bed manufacturer Hypnos emphasises that choosing the right fillings in your bed and bedding can help regulate your body’s temperature to keep your cooler at night. Natural, sustainable fibres promote healthy air flow and wick away moisture, helping achieve that good night’s rest.
HOME ACCESSORIES & APPS FOR A DREAMY NIGHT’S SLEEP
