What is it?

Physical well-being is much more than good health. It is the direct result of lifestyle choices and our behaviors around sleep, diet, physical activity, hygiene, and relaxation that achieve or derail optimal functioning. All this is important in relation to our mental well-being. Studies show that if you are physical well, then you are more likely to be mentally well also.

How do you achieve physical well-being?

Since physical well-being has many components there are limitless ways to improve it. For example:

• Eating well
• Exercising
• Getting enough sleep
• Staying hydrated

The challenge is getting real about where you are physically and setting realistic goals to get you where you want to be.

Be sure to focus on your strengths and not your weaknesses. This seems that it should not be the focus to making health improvements but when we apply our strengths to areas that need development we are more likely to be successful.

7 steps to kick off your physical well-being journey

1. Be Accountable. Accept the fact that you—and only you—are responsible for what you do. No more blaming others for tempting you into eating unhealthy foods, putting off exercise, or indulging in other bad habits. At the end of the day, you are the one making the decisions regarding sleep, diet, relaxation, and exercise.

2. Measure. You can’t know where you are going if you don’t know where you have been. Are you collecting the right information?  Track your exercise so you can build on it. Learn about your family’s medical history. If sleep or diet is an issue, use a tracking app (or a good old notebook) to log your behaviors--what and when are you eating, when are you going to bed? Data collection is critical for better decision making.

3. Analyse. Is your data telling you a story? Do you see areas that need immediate change or perhaps a trend in the right or wrong direction? For example, can you run/walk further, do you get less out of breath, have you lost weight? Can you identify areas that need to change or that you can add?

4. Surround yourself with positive people.  Do you need help from an expert? Surround yourself with people who are going to support your physical well-being journey, not prevent you from achieving them.

5. Exclude people who will drain you of energy. You may need to fire someone who is a bad influence on your journey toward physical wellness. Is there anyone in your life who is draining your energy or creating an obstacle to reaching your wellness goals? Perhaps it’s time to let them go.

6. Implement. Action, action, action. You must actually put your plan into action. Success is in the “doing.”

7. Be Patient. Unfortunately,  plans don’t always work right away. They need time. Physical well-being isn’t a goal that is achieved at once. Your plan may need tweaking or revamping. It takes grit to go back to step one and reevaluate, but that’s what you sometimes need to do. They persevere. They stay nimble.

Well-being walks around Annesley

  As you are aware, walking plays an important part in my own Mental Health and Well-being, I cannot promote it enough, being out in nature and the fresh air is the best medicine I know. With that in mind I am inviting everyone to share local walks that you can do as a family in 1/2 term or at any time. Please email or find me and share your walk and I will add them on to this page with the OS map.  

Annesley Heritage Walk

The Annesley Heritage Walk is a short Historic Walk taking you around the village and visiting monuments and building that were important to our important mining past, some are still here and some are not. You can start at any point as it is a nice circular walk that uses mostly good footpaths. 

See what you can find and ask parents and grandparents about their importance.