When you have a family to look after, you can sometimes forget that you need to look after your own wellbeing as well as the wellness of those you love. There never seems enough time or energy left at the end of a day to have some good old fashioned “you time,” but this unfortunately means you neglect the needs of your body, mind and spirit – your primary food.
Coined by the IIN School, the term “primary foods” refers to what feeds the soul; loving relationships, regular exercise, spiritual practice and a fulfilling career. When you have these four factors in balance, everything else falls into place. It’s not just a healthy diet that nourishes you, but other complementary elements affect your overall health and wellbeing, and so making a few simple changes can give you big results.
Firstly, carve out daily quiet time, in which you give yourself the opportunity to recharge. Whether you use this time to read a book, pray, meditate or journal, this is your time and can really shape the rest of your day. You might like to try an exercise called Morning Pages (developed by Julia Cameron), to relax your mind for the rest of the day. As soon as you wake up in the morning, write down everything and anything that is on your mind, as soon as it pops into your head, before you get out of bed. This allows your worries to leave your mind and get onto paper, and calms and refreshes your busy brain during the day.
Next, try and find an exercise that you enjoy, aiming to put aside 30 minutes to one hour 4 times per week to do it. Whether you want to get out of the house and go for a jog, or stay in with a dance or workout DVD when the kids are asleep, the key is to just make the time to get up and move. It’s not about losing weight (although that can be a wonderful side effect!) but exercise also helps reduce your stress, improve your sleep, increase your energy levels, lower your blood pressure and strengthen your heart.
Finally, take time to connect with your spouse on a daily basis. You may have kids that take up a lot of time and energy, but your family is based on a solid relationship between you and your spouse, and so it’s important to nurture it, even if it’s just half an hour after the kids go to bed. You might need to get out of the house and go for a date, just the two of you, or, if you can’t find a babysitter, find some fun “date night in” to do. Just making these three changes can help you find better balance overall, and improve your wellbeing to the heights that you deserve.
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