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Tanya Squires

SLOWING DOWN & RECONNECTING TO WHAT MATTERS

Archives for January 2019

Why dieting doesn’t work and what to do instead

January 25, 2019

I became interested in healthy eating when I was off work in 2015 with stress-related illness. Diet undoubtedly has a massive impact on our health and mental health. But if I’m honest, I think I was also looking for something positive I could do to take back control.

Either way, it was the start of a passion for healthy eating that has stayed with me ever since. I’m far from perfect and my diet isn’t stellar, but I’m always working on it.

Honestly though, it’s not solely about health and wellness. I also want to lose a couple of stone – to get back to how I looked before I had children.

I hate diet culture, and I feel strongly that our worth as women shouldn’t be dictated by how we look. I see gorgeous women at every size, and I don’t want to fit in any predefined box. I certainly don’t want to sit here hating my body for the fat it carries, wobbly bits or patches of cellulite.

Can you give zero f**** about what anyone tells you that you need to weigh and look like… accept your body… be grateful it created two children… and also want to be slimmer?

I say yes.

I wholeheartedly believe you can reject being told how your body should look, and accept your body as it is – whilst also favouring a certain aesthetic. Neghar Fonooni has argued this point eloquently, and you can follow her on Instagram.

An aside about body image and eating disorders

I am incredibly fortunate to have a healthy relationship with food, and with my body – I pretty much approach food and body weight like a man! (Although I do realise that men can also suffer from body image issue and eating disorders.)

I see food as giving sustenance and pleasure, and whilst I can look at my body critically and want it to look different, it’s not a big source of distress. I only wish I had such a balanced, healthy and pragmatic outlook in all areas of my life!

I understand that it really isn’t this simple for a lot of people. Growing up, I saw friends and classmates who hated their bodies or even suffered from eating disorders. I know how prevalent this is, and how complicated food and diet can become in this context.

If this is an issue for you, I would highly recommend Darya Rose’s website and blog Summer Tomato. Darya is both a scientist and a former dieter, so she has amazing understanding of the personal experience AND the science.

For the purposes of this blog post though, I am putting body image issues aside and looking at food and diet in a fairly practical manner. The question I want to answer is, how should we be eating, for both health and weight loss and maintenance?

Why dieting doesn’t work and what to do instead

How many people do you know who are perpetually on a diet, but never really look any different? Or they lose and gain the same stone of weight in an endless cycle? How many people do you know who have lost an impressive amount of weight, but then gained it back again six months later?

I think it’s fair to say dieting doesn’t work. Not in the long term.

The trouble is that restricting your calorie intake… makes you hungry! It takes a lot of willpower to continually resist the physical drive to eat, and willpower is finite.

At some point, you will lose your resolve – whether it’s due to stress, a bad day, or just temptation that occurs outside of your everyday routine. And then there’s always Easter, Halloween and Christmas to navigate…

Deprivation sets the stage for overindulgence, as you’re hungry, and you’re also lazer-focussed on what you can’t have. So you eventually crack and you eat the ‘bad’ foods, you feel guilty, and you absolve your ‘sins’ with another cycle of deprivation.

Then as soon as you eat again, the weight goes back on. Except that you have probably lost muscle mass in the interim, your metabolic rate has slowed down, and it actually becomes slightly easier to gain weight this time around. This is the cruel irony of yo-yo dieting.

Admittedly some diets are more effective than others. Many people find low-carb approaches or intermittent fasting easier because you don’t tend to be as hungry. There are also individual differences at play, so what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for the next.

Ultimately though, I believe diets per se are not helpful and DON’T work in the long term. On the other hand, changing your diet can work. But how do you do this in such a way that you can lose weight and keep it off permanently?

Just eat real food (and why there is no ‘best’ diet)

I have done a lot of reading on this topic over the past couple of years, and the answer I come back to every time is this: Just eat real food. That is, unprocessed food – cooked from scratch using real ingredients.

Your diet could include meat and fish, it could be Paleo or Primal, you could be pescatarian, vegetarian, or vegan. You can get so caught up in trying to work out whether we ‘should’ eat meat, fish, eggs, dairy, wheat, gluten, and on and on – but this can be a red herring. I’d argue that a high-quality diet that includes meat has MORE in common with a vegan diet than with a junk food diet.

Real food means food made from ingredients that you would recognise as food. Fruit and vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, animal proteins, whole grains, fats. You don’t even need to read ingredients lists because for the most part, you’re buying ingredients and assembling them into meals.

In many ways this seems really simple and straightforward advice, but it took me a long time to fully understand WHY this would matter. I readily understood that eating real food would have huge health benefits, but why would eating real food actually enable you to lose weight?

Hang on – what about calories in, calories out?

If you believe that calories in minus calories out is the formula determining our weight, what I’m writing is just not going to make sense to you. Surely if we eat the same number of calories from junk food or real food, we will take in the same number of calories. We might be healthier eating better-quality food, but we should weigh the same…

The problem with the calories in minus calories out theory is that our bodies make so many adjustments along the way – depending on what we eat, how much sleep we get, stress levels, how much we move, and how much muscle mass we have.

Technically, ultimately the equation holds true – except that the body is constantly compensating for the changes we make in our food intake or energy expenditure.

If we undereat and over-exercise, our bodies perceive this as starvation – our metabolic rate is lowered, we want to move less, we become fixated on food, we become hungry. And if we lose muscle mass, as dieters often do – our metabolic rate is lowered (because it takes more energy to sustain muscle than other types of body tissue).

Other factors completely outside of calorie intake and expenditure have a huge part to play. Sleep deprivation and stress both raise levels of cortisol, promoting both hunger and fat storage. So if you’re eating well, exercising regularly, doing everything right but you’re short on sleep – you may not achieve your weight-loss goals.

It’s becoming clear why weight loss is so hard!

(By the way, if you want practical, science-backed, nuanced and detailed information on all things diet and exercise, the Precision Nutrition blog is a fantastic resource. It’s primarily aimed at personal trainers, but I’m a fan because I love going in-depth.)

So if not calories, is it all about the macronutrients?

It’s true that different macronutrients are more or less satiating. Fats and proteins will fill you up for much longer, whereas carbohydrates can leave you hungry again quite quickly. So, what you actually eat (as opposed to the number of calories you eat) can determine how hungry you feel later, and therefore how much you have to rely on willpower.

In addition, our bodies monitor the nutritional content of what we are eating. If we’re still short on nutrients after a meal that met our calorie requirements, we will still be hungry. As a vegetarian I’ve never been much of a McDonald’s fan, but I have eaten – if not enjoyed – a few of their meals over the years. I never understood how I could feel hungrier afterwards than before I’d eaten anything!

So, there is definitely an argument to say eating a higher fat and protein diet, and keeping carbohydrates down, is the answer. Personally, I think it’s a pretty good answer. I have issues with blood sugar/insulin levels, and I feel terrible if I go high-carb and low-everything else, so this certainly rings true for me.

But it’s not the full story.

If eating fewer carbohydrates and more fats and proteins can be helpful for losing body fat, can we flip that on its head and say excessive carbohydrate intake is what’s causing the obesity crisis? It turns out that no single macronutrient is the problem here.

When looking at ancestral diets and what modern-day tribes eat, the example of the Hadza is often cited. The Hadza are foragers who live in Tanzania and their diet still consists mainly of wild foods such as baobab, honey, large game and tubers. During the wet season their diet is particularly high in carbohydrates. And their metabolic health is impeccable.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the Inuit who live in Arctic regions and subsist on high amounts of meat and fish such as whale meat and blubber. Again, these people are healthy and don’t suffer from the chronic illnesses we do in the Western world.

At first glance, these diets could not be more different. But the thing they have in common is they are based on real food, not junk food.

Why eating real food will win every time

In optimal conditions, our appetite should be self-regulating. If we choose high-quality, nutritious food, eat until we’re full, stay active – walk, run, dance, do household chores, lift weights – find ways to minimise and mitigate the effects of stress, and get enough sleep, all should be well.

So why is obesity at its highest ever levels? What is going wrong here?

The answer is that we’re eating processed, hyperpalatable foods which completely override the natural feedback loops in our brain that should tell us when to stop.

Even the advertising tells us this. ‘Once you pop, you can’t stop.’ There is a breakfast cereal called Krave, and endless snack foods claim to be irresistible.

There is a fantastic book on this topic – The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make us Overeat by Stephan Guyenet. Stephan’s approach is a little different to the mainstream, as he argues that it’s not one particular macronutrient that is driving obesity up.

In fact, it is irresistible combinations of fat and sugar – or fat, sugar and salt – or fat, sugar, salt and crunch – that send our brains into overdrive. These foods have been deliberately engineered to give us huge hits of pleasure, which drives us to eat more of them. Hunger and satiety, our normal regulatory mechanisms, are completely drowned out and overridden.

We didn’t evolve in the presence of these types of food – and we evolved in intermittent food scarcity. Our brains are designed to detect when something has a lot of calories and will keep us alive. Fat and sugar are powerful signals to our brains that this food is something we need more of. The pleasure systems are activated to ensure we take in as much as possible.

In the environment we evolved in, these hyperpalatable, send-your-brain-crazy food combinations were not really available. And when humans did have the opportunity to gorge on something high in fat or sugar, they were likely to face a food shortage the following week.

Our brains that worked so well at keeping us alive in times of scarcity don’t fare so well in the face of an abundance of hyperpalatable processed food. When you’re experiencing full-on fat-sugar-salt-crunch pleasure, the systems normally in charge of hunger, eating, adequate nutrition and fullness don’t stand a chance.

If I ever doubt this, hand me a large bag of Kettle Chips and see what happens.

Why your body wants to defend its current weight

It’s difficult enough trying to eat a healthy diet, lose fat and maintain a lower weight when we’re surrounded by appealing, convenient, processed foods. However just to make things harder, there is another piece of the jigsaw puzzle to consider: the lipostat.

This is a complex topic and I don’t think I can do it justice here, but I would highly recommend reading The Hungry Brain in order to understand this better.

In very simple terms, your body has its own idea of what weight you should be – and it will fight hard to maintain that, even in people who are overweight and obese.

The lipostat is like a thermostat for body fat levels. Much like you set your desired temperature on a thermostat and the central heating system adjusts accordingly – your body will make adjustments to maintain the level of body fat it ‘thinks’ is appropriate.

These adjustments could be in the form of driving your hunger and cravings up, lowering your metabolic rate, or lowering your desire to be active. Physical activity, among other things, changes the lipostat settings – enabling your body to accept a lower level of body fat.

All things considered, if you want to lose body fat and keep it off – you have to do it by stealth.

How can we outsmart our brains for weight loss?

After reading this, you could be forgiven for feeling the outlook for sustainable weight loss was a little bleak. However, you can outsmart your hungry brain if you take the right actions. Here is my summary of the recommendations Stephan Guyenet gives in The Hungry Brain.

  1. Fix your food environment. Make the foods you want to eat visible and accessible. Make sure the foods you don’t want to eat are either out of sight, or not there in the first place. This is one of the biggest, simplest things you can do to tip the odds in your favour. (You can also prep food healthy ahead, or save leftovers for your next day’s lunch – as you’ll probably eat what’s easy. When eating out, you can look at the menu ahead of time and choose healthy options, away from the pressure and temptation you would face in the moment.)
  2. Manage your appetite. This tells your brain that you are not, in fact, starving. Choose foods that send strong satiety signals without being overly calorie-dense. This tends to include simple foods that are close to their natural state, and moderately palatable (appealing, but not so delicious that you will keep on eating long beyond what you need). Stephan suggests fresh fruit, vegetables, potatoes, meats, seafood, eggs, yogurt, whole grains, beans, lentils.
  3. Beware of food reward. Chocolate, pizza, chips, crisps – you know the foods that you find it hard to get enough of. It’s not that you can never have these foods, but you probably need to keep them to a minimum if you want to lose body fat. Also avoid things that are inherently habit-forming such as alcohol and caffeine, which drive you to consume more of them (and bring a whole lot of calories along for the ride). Caffeinated drinks don’t have to be a problem if you don’t add sugar, but alcohol is always calorie-dense.
  4. Make sleep a priority. You can find my tips for getting more sleep here, and however important you think sleep is – it’s more important than that! In terms of food and weight gain, lack of sleep increases hunger, cravings, and impulsive behaviour. And high levels of cortisol encourage fat storage. It is a recipe for weight gain.
  5. Move your body. Regular physical activity can help manage your appetite and weight in at least two ways. Firstly, it increases the amount of calories you use (studies have shown that people generally don’t go on to eat enough calories to compensate for those expended during exercise – although it varies). Secondly, physical activity may help maintain the lipostat in the brain, encouraging your body to be comfortable with lower levels of body fat. (I have previously written about metabolic conditioning as a way to get great results whilst spending less time exercising.)
  6. Manage stress. Much like sleep deprivation, stress can really undermine efforts to lose weight and sustain a healthy weight. If you are a stress eater, you can look to replace stress eating with more helpful coping mechanisms – find other things which make you feel better in that moment. It can be helpful to identify stressors and make practical plans to improve situations that are stressful. And you can practice mindfulness meditation, which I have personally found incredibly helpful.

Where to from here?

So, it comes down to this: Just eat real food – make that the easy option, get the other stuff out of your environment as much as possible. Don’t diet, don’t make anything forbidden, don’t let your brain think you’re starving! Stay active, prioritise sleep, manage stress.

This is fairly simple and intuitive advice – but I don’t think it’s easy to implement. I don’t say that to be discouraging, but because I think it’s better to recognise that the system is stacked against you.

You’re surrounded by junk food, and junk food advertising. Subway is wafting bread smells out onto the street. On every street corner, you can find food that is appetising, cheap and convenient. Entire industries are built around fuelling and satisfying your desire for hedonic pleasure from food.

The alternative, at least to start with, is simply harder. You may lack time, money, expertise in cooking, or all of the above. You may set out with the best of intentions to buy whole foods and cook from scratch, but life is hard, and stressful, and of course at times you fall back on what’s easy.

All you can do is take it one step at a time, and go easy on yourself when it doesn’t go to plan. It’s not about success versus failure, it’s about learning a new way to eat, and a new way to live.

If you think about a few examples of learning something new – learning to walk, learning to ice skate, learning a new language, learning to drive, learning a new skill for work. In any of those examples, have you ever seen anyone instantly download the skill into their brain, and execute it perfectly from that moment on?

No?

In that case, please don’t set out to overhaul your diet and lifestyle and expect to get it right first time! Or second, third, fourth, fifth, tenth, twentieth, fiftieth time. Just take steps in the right direction and don’t chastise yourself for mistakes.

And I’ll be right there on the journey with you, making the same efforts, the same mistakes, and trying again.

Filed Under: Nourish your body

Five steps to cut back on Facebook and regain peace of mind

January 11, 2019

I always knew social media would be a bad idea for me, and very deliberately managed to avoid it until July 2016.

I’d left my job and was gearing up to be a freelancer, with distant dreams of one day starting a health blog. I didn’t see how any of this would be possible with no social media.

I dived in headfirst. I fell in love with Instagram. I found LinkedIn useful, if not exciting. Got bored with Twitter. Pinned lots of recipes on Pinterest.

And, without wishing to be dramatic… became massively addicted to Facebook which completely undermined my already shaky mental health.

Just so you know, I’m not going to suggest we all ditch social media altogether. I’m just here to talk about its dark side, and ways to manage it.

It fascinates me watching my husband use social media. He picks up his phone, has a scroll, hits a few likes, laughs at something, puts the phone down, forgets all about it and gets on with his day.

He has no idea how remarkable this is to me!

For me, it’s a very different story. I can see beautiful people leading perfect lives on IG all day and it’s all good – but if I’m not careful, Facebook really messes with my head.

Short history: I’m somebody who has insecurity around being liked. I was bullied at school and you’d be surprised at how much this still affects me, even aged 39.

I don’t really talk about it, or think about it, and I’ve moved on. My brain hasn’t, entirely. Certain things are really hard on me. Any hint of nastiness, negativity or being left out hits me hard. Can you stop for a moment and imagine what Facebook did to my poor brain?

So, we’re now counting how many friends I have, and showing me how that stacks up against everyone else? Everything I post is measured in Likes?

And I can see how people are responding to what others post, so I know they’re THERE. They’re just ignoring me.

I found the whole experience massively addictive.

The novelty. The validation. The never quite knowing what you’ll find next. The high of feeling liked and included. The crash of later feeling left out and ignored.

FOMO. The need to see what everyone is up to. The need to (constantly) tell them what you’re up to. ‘Look, I can do good things too. Don’t forget me.’ Wanting to keep up. The sting of comparison.

Getting utterly confused about what’s real. Getting a birthday text when the person hasn’t posted a FB birthday message and thinking, ‘Oh God – people will think I don’t have friends.’

If it’s not on Facebook, did it even happen?

Facebook groups, making friends who *get you* on the other side of the world, epic conversations, feeling seen and understood.

First experience of being torn down in an online group setting (for something you innocently said and would still stand by, but which was grossly misunderstood).

All of this is close to the bone, and hard to write. Frankly, it’s embarrassing. And for the record, I no longer feel this way. And I LOVE a birthday text!

In writing down the distorted thinking I developed, I’m just addressing the elephant in the room. I am convinced I’m not the only person to feel or to have felt this way.

Facebook played into my insecurities. When I look back, it seems ridiculous the number of times I cried over a story I’d pieced together of everyone else leading better lives than me, and not really liking me. Based on Likes.

I may be an extreme case, but I’m far from alone, and that’s why I’m writing about this topic.

So, why is Facebook so addictive?

Part of the answer is, it’s designed to be. Sean Parker, the Founding President of Facebook (who left in 2005), has spoken out about how the platform was designed to entice people use it compulsively.

‘That thought process was all about, how do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible? It’s a social validation feedback loop, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. We understood this consciously, and we did it anyway.’

Whilst there has been a reluctance to classify social media as addictive in the same way as drugs and alcohol, it is accepted that many of the effects on the brain are incredibly similar.

What’s happening to your brain when you use Facebook?

Whenever someone likes or comments on a post, you get a hit of dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter (a chemical messenger that acts within your brain) which inspires us to take action to meet our needs and desires. Dopamine drives motivation and focus.

Have you experienced the ‘flow state’ where you’re creating something, writing, painting, playing music, or competing in a sports event? (I sometimes experience this when I’m writing.) You’re hyper-focussed, exhilarated, everything comes easily, and time flies. THAT is powered by dopamine.

Drugs, alcohol, sex, pornography, shopping, food, and social media all increase dopamine levels in the short term – lighting up the reward circuitry in the brain, and telling us this is something we want more of. The role of dopamine is to make us take the action needed to GET more of what we want.

Why is social media so rewarding?

As humans, we are wired to be socially connected. Social acceptance, affirmation and validation will always be compelling for us. Earlier in our evolution, our survival depended on living in social groups – and it’s still very important now.

So, we are primed to notice, and to care about, whether we’re accepted by our social group. When you think about it, Facebook is social validation on steroids.

Another factor to throw into the mix is lack of predictability. If you look at gambling, it’s addictive because the unpredictable nature of the reward – winning – is an incredibly strong way to reinforce behaviour. You come back for more, because you might just be ONE dice-roll away from a huge win. And when a gambler feels favoured by luck, dopamine is released.

Tech companies understand all of this, and they build in ‘compulsion loops’ that keep people coming back for more. Likes, shares, and comments provide social affirmation – on an unpredictable schedule. We compulsively check Facebook because we never quite know what we’ll find next.

This is bad enough in a healthy person, but if you’re suffering from anxiety, social media can massively amplify this. The more anxious you feel, the more compulsively you go back and check – just one more time – frantically searching for something that will make you feel better.

I’ve talked about the addictive nature of social media – but the consensus is that very few people are genuinely addicted to it. However for a minority of individuals, it is associated with a number of psychological problems – including anxiety, depression, loneliness, ADHD and addiction.

There are six questions you can ask yourself to check whether you’re at risk of developing a social media addiction:

  • Do you spend a lot of time thinking about social media or planning to use social media?
  • Do you feel urges to use social media more and more?
  • Do you use social media to forget about personal problems?
  • Do you often try to reduce your use of social media without success?
  • Do you become restless or troubled if you are unable to use social media?
  • Do you use social media so much that it has a negative impact on your job or studies?

At one point in time, I would have answered ‘yes’ to five of these (all except for using social media to forget about personal problems. I’m just not the forgetting type!)

Right now, I don’t think I would answer yes to any of them.

If you find yourself spending too much time on Facebook, checking your phone too often and it’s a major time suck – you would probably benefit from cutting back. You might not need to do everything I’ll outline here, but have a look, and pick and choose your strategies.

At the other extreme, if Facebook is causing you psychological problems and distress and you DON’T need it for a specific purpose (e.g. freelance work), consider closing your account altogether. It’s a pretty simple and effective solution.

However, if you have compulsive behaviour around Facebook, your usage is escalating and it’s making you anxious and miserable BUT you need to keep your account open and in use (which I do as a freelancer and blogger), the following steps are for you.

How I cut down my Facebook usage and regained my peace of mind

I tried, unsuccessfully, to cut down on my Facebook usage so many times and ended up right back where I started. But with a lot of trial and error, I eventually figured out a formula that works for me. Of course, we’re all different – but I hope it gives you a good starting point.

I’m not talking about never using Facebook, but using it carefully and intentionally. I still have an active account, I still check notifications daily, I can still see if I’m tagged in something, I actively participate in Facebook groups, and I post every few weeks.

But I truly don’t think about Facebook outside of those times, and it is liberating.

1. Buy an alarm clock and charge your phone outside your bedroom, preferably on another floor.

Not taking your phone up to bed means you cut out those last social media checks of the day, and your phone is not the first thing you look at when you wake up. In the morning, this gives you a little space to have thoughts of your own – rather than filling your mind with extraneous information before you’re even fully awake. It also helps train your mind not to need this straight away.

I resisted making this change for quite some time and then one day, I just did it – and it was surprisingly easy to establish a new habit.

I still check Instagram within the first half hour of waking up, but it’s no longer the first thing I do, and I don’t *need* to do it. I don’t usually check Facebook until I start my computer.

2. Do a one-month digital detox.

I have only ever managed to successfully cut back my social media usage by first cutting it out altogether. I could speculate as to the reasons why, and I suspect it allows your brain to reset, and stops fuelling the compulsion loops. But all I really know is, it works.

You don’t have to announce it, although I often have let people know I’m doing a digital detox just out of courtesy – as I’d hate for anyone to think I was ignoring them.

At the height of my Facebook usage, when I was checking my phone many times an hour and then stopped cold, I got overwhelming urges to scroll my phone and didn’t know what to do with my hands. I discovered an app called Binky, which is basically a nicotine patch for social media addicts.

It’s faintly ridiculous, but it actually worked a treat! Every time I felt the urge to scroll, I scrolled Binky instead. The app has a feed with completely random images which you can like, comment on and re-bink. It’s strangely soothing. After a week or two, I was able to delete Binky and I remained Facebook-free.

3. Reintroduce slowly.

I found that the best way to start using Facebook again without getting sucked right back into it was to only use it on my computer. It’s much less slick than using it on your phone, and less immersive. Occasionally I download the app in order to share a photo, and then delete it again a day or so later.

I do sometimes check the Facebook site on my phone using my browser, but I don’t leave my account logged in, making it harder to check regularly.

For me, that’s as far as I can go. If I keep the app on my phone, within a week, it’s game over. Every time, I go through the same thought process: I’m so much better with it now, this time might be different. It’s never different.

4. Sort out your notification settings

If you want to work your way up to having the app on your phone, TURN OFF THOSE NOTIFICATIONS! No notifications is best, but if you have to have them, go through in detail and take off all notifications except the ones you can’t live without.

I’d recommend taking notifications off for all groups – it’s just another prompt to look at the app, and you rarely need to jump into the group with any urgency. You can check in on groups in your own sweet time. You’ll still be notified of any likes and comments on your posts within the group.

Side note – if you comment on a busy post where you really don’t need to see everyone else’s replies (babies, weddings or anything else calling for congratulations) it’s a good idea to turn off notifications for that post.

5. Work out what you’re going to use Facebook for and stick to it.

So, you need to cut down your Facebook usage drastically, but you have chosen not to deactivate your account altogether. What are the specific reasons you need to stay on Facebook? A few examples would be:

  • You need a social media presence as a freelancer
  • You want to participate in Facebook groups
  • You have family abroad and you want to keep them updated

Ask yourself – what is the bare minimum I need to post to achieve this?

Personally, I keep my Facebook account because I need some sort of social media presence as a freelancer and blogger; I need to have a Facebook account in order to boost posts on my Instagram business account, should I ever wish to; I have family across the country and abroad, and it’s nice for them to see family pics.

So, all I need is a feed that looks vaguely up-to-date. I don’t need to see everyone else’s posts, and I don’t need to get involved in the day-to-day goings-on. I thought I would really miss it, but it turns out – I really don’t.

To keep my feed updated, I post about once a month. I save Facebook posts for big news, the kids’ birthdays, anything seasonal such as Halloween and Christmas, holidays, and the occasional picture that’s just too good not to share.

The beauty of using Facebook in this way is you’re much less susceptible to feeling disappointed or upset if a post is ignored. You have a clear reason for posting, which is simply to put something on your feed so it doesn’t look too dormant, and share pics of your kids (dog, cat, whatever) with the handful of people who love to see them. Job done, what happens after that doesn’t matter.

(Phone pictured at top of post is not mine. I don’t have so many – in fact any – sports news apps!)

Filed Under: Calm your nervous system

Seven simple steps to make time with loved ones count

January 4, 2019

Reconnecting with people is one of the five health pillars I have chosen for this blog, but it’s not as immediately obvious how it relates to health compared to eating real food, movement, sleep, and managing stress.

The thing is, we evolved to live in social groups and we’re wired to need connection with others. Isolation is both painful and psychologically damaging, and social stress and separation can affect cortisol levels and immune system function. Connection to others realty does matter.

I’m very lucky to have my little family. My kids and husband are never in any doubt as to how much I love them, but I’m very focussed and task-driven, and I have a lot on my plate. I work hard, and I can get so busy that I’m not always as present as I’d like to be.

I’ve been thinking recently about how to make the most of time with my family. As whilst I want and need to work and that’s not about to change anytime soon, I also want time with my kids – the mundane, the magic moments, and everything in-between.

And I want to reclaim time with my husband, and time for catch-ups with friends. I want my life to be about more than just Getting Stuff Done.

Over the Christmas holidays I shut down work entirely for over a week, and I knew it would be a chance to reconnect with loved ones. A reset of sorts, and a reminder of what I don’t want to miss out on.

It’s been great not to have my attention split into fragments.

Now that I’m back to reality, I want to find ways to keep this connection with my loved ones strong. This is what I plan to do.

This is my plan for creating a better balance between work and the rest of my life, and for nurturing my connections with my family.

Note: I’m married, a mother of two primary-school aged kids, I’m self-employed, I work from home, and I do the school run (but my working hours are NOT 9am – 3pm, they can be much longer and there is juggling involved!)

I realise everyone has different circumstances and I’ve not attempted to cover all bases. That’s why I am writing this as a list of my personal plan, rather than a set of recommendations. Not everything here will apply to you, but hopefully my list will give you some ideas…

1. Make mornings less rushed, and eat breakfast together

My mornings typically involve pressing snooze a few times, rushing around making lunches, shouting at my daughter to get dressed (no, adjusting your Playmobil queen’s crown is NOT getting dressed!) and then shouting at my son to stop playing computer games and put his shoes on.

I’m not sure our mornings will ever be idyllic, but there is lots of room for improvement. I plan to:

  • Pack lunches the night before
  • Get up when my alarm goes off
  • Sit down and eat breakfast with my kids
  • Don’t read on my phone until I get back from school drop-off (I’m allowing for a quick check of notifications though)

2. Walk to school

We live a 15-minute walk from my kids’ school, so there is really no excuse not to walk. In addition to the health benefits of exercise and early-morning sunlight, walking to school will give me a relaxed opportunity to chat with them. Swapping the stress of finding a parking space for my daughter walking on walls, and maybe even a bike ride for my son in summer – seems a good swap.

3. Create space to reconnect after school / work

I tend to pick the kids up from school and then jump back on my computer to get my work done before it’s time to make tea. Realistically that’s not going to change, but I would like to take a moment to properly reconnect with my kids after school.

Each day is different, and when they have friends round, my kids are really not interested in chatting with me. But on the days when we don’t have visitors, I’m thinking about a routine where we sit down, have a drink and snack, and my daughter can read her school reading book to me.

Likewise, when my husband arrives home from work, I’m aiming to stop my work timer (it’s a freelancer thing) and say a proper hello. I won’t be putting lipstick on and getting his pipe and slippers… but a proper hello and ‘how has your day been’ chat? I can do that.

4. Have as many hugs as possible!

Hugs are good for your health, lower your stress levels and promote the release of oxytocin. I am on a mission to get more hugs from my loved ones in my day!

5. Sit on the floor with the kids for 10 minutes

This is something I don’t do enough of. I have great times with my kids, we have lovely days out, and snuggles when I put them to bed. But I’m often guilty of saying no to the simple things like playing a board game with them – because I always have so much else to do.

I am going to commit to spending little pockets of time with them, on the floor, doing whatever they want me to – whether that’s a ten-minute game or jigsaw puzzle or watching a film on a weekend.

6. Create a phone curfew and make the most of evenings

So much of my time and energy is taken up with work and the kids that time with my husband can get squeezed out of my day. We can catch up at weekends, but during the week, we seem to be on an endless merry-go-round of chores and cooking and driving kids to places. It doesn’t leave much.

Although there’s not much I can change about that, I can make the most of the last hour or two of the day. I think what I need to do is ringfence and protect that time. So, I am planning to introduce a phone curfew at 8.30pm or 9.00pm to clear some space to sit, relax and chat.

7. Prioritise real-life time with friends and family over online time

When time is at a premium, social media is something we can cut down on to create more time. And it makes sense to replace a fairly empty form of social connection with real-life, face-to-face conversations. Meeting a friend for an hour, or just staying for the cup of tea you’re offered, is so much more valuable than scrolling, liking and commenting.

Other thoughts

I’m not going to change all of this stuff overnight. My list is a roadmap, something to come back to, something to aim for. I’m planning to tackle mornings and walking to school, plus time with my husband in the evenings – then I’ll come back to this post and remind myself of other ideas!

Whilst improving the quality of time spent with loved ones is great, I’m mindful that we all need time alone to recharge too. (Perhaps that doesn’t apply to everyone, but it’s certainly true for introverts like me.) So, it’s not about being with other people every second of every day. We always need a balance of social interactions and time on our own.

I don’t intend to approach any of this with a sense of guilt at not being a better mother / wife / daughter / sister / friend. That just isn’t helpful, and I’m doing my best – we all are. Selfish as it may sound, this post is about the health benefits to YOU of having strong connections with loved ones. But a really great side effect is that you will all benefit – it’s a win-win.

So, these were my seven ideas for connection with my family and friends. Are there any of these you could implement, or do they spark any ideas for you? It’s well worth a think about if your life, like mine, can feel like one long to-do list.

Filed Under: Reconnect with people

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