BALANCE

BALANCE. The coveted prize in many people’s eyes.

“I want a good work-life balance” “You should eat a balanced diet” “I just want a balanced life”

But being ‘balanced’ is often hard to define. Why? Because it’s different for everyone.

You may feel like you have a good balanced in some areas of your life but not others. And as life is fluid what may feel balanced one day can be completely different in a week. This is why creating balance is a journey, a process and not a final destination.

Here is my story on how I discovered the right balance of exercise in my life, and what it taught me about the health journey.

I have always had an up & down relationship with exercise. At times I was all in; teaching yoga 3 times a week plus my own practice and HIIT on the days I wasn’t teaching. Then there have been times I have stopped everything completely for months.

While I have generally done exercise for pain management or prevention, I noticed that there was not an all-or-nothing result depending on how much exercise I was doing.

I discovered during my slow exercise times I really only needed to do about 30min a week to make sure I wasn’t feeling any pain, but my strength suffered pretty quickly. I didn’t lose much flexibility, but my spine felt stiff during movements that had once felt free.

So while I wasn’t in pain, I definitely wasn’t excelling physically.

It goes the other way too. During the months I was doing some form of yoga or HIIT every day I felt super strong and was able to move with ease – until I had a pretty stressful few weeks and the fatigue hit me. I pushed through because I still had to keep taking classes, work with patients and everything else that was going on in life. It was only going to be for a short time (so I thought).

Pushing my body when my mind was also at its limits exhausted me quickly.  

 Balance is not a single state of being. It’s fluid, and ever-changing. Everything we do tips the scales in a certain direction.

 I may only have to do a small amount of exercise per week to prevent myself from feeling pain but to really thrive physically I must do more. How much more? Well, that depends on what else is going on in my life.

Discovering the right balance for you means listening to your body and acting accordingly. Developing a connection with yourself and being honest with how you are feeling is often where we find the first clues for when things are out of balance too. Symptoms don’t usually develop until the imbalance has been there for a while.

Being aware of where you are at, and asking if it’s where you want to be is the first step to seeing if you want to make changes. Creating balance in your life requires radical honesty.

The more we reinforce certain habits and the more the scales tip in a certain direction, the longer the effects last as well.

Most of us don’t feel horrible after a few squares of chocolate, but if all you eat is processed foods those few squares of chocolate at the end of the day can be enough to make you feel rotten. Being an optimistic person doesn’t mean you never feel sad. But by being someone who always looks for the positive in life you are less weighed down by the negative things that do come your way, and more easily return to a happier state as times shift (because they always do).

If you are doing just enough to “fill your cup” when you are faced with hard times the energy store empties pretty quickly.

But just as life is full of things that drain our energy, you can choose to fill those energy stores.

Get enough sleep. Eat foods that leave you feeling satisfied and nourished. Move your body in the ways it’s calling for. Set goals. Create boundaries, and enforce them. Practice gratitude. Ask for help. Give to others. Find your joy, daily.

Balance is a core value at Soul Care Chiropractic because we don’t believe in an “all or nothing” approach to health, but one that is achievable to every person who walks through the door.

It’s not about always being perfect – exercising every day, never eating gluten, or living stress-free. It’s about making choices daily that energise us, leave us feeling lighter and remind us of the joy that life can bring.