From burnout to balance: Objects of my affection

If you are moderately well off, and able to buy yourself nice things – homewares, clothes, fitness gear, gadgets – one of the trendiest things you can do with them right now is throw them out or give them away. The empress of decluttering, Marie Kondo, advises us to get a hold of every possession we own with two hands, and discard anything that doesn’t ‘spark joy’, a phrase so popular it’s become a meme. Gretchen Rubin, a bestselling author on happiness and habits, has a new book coming out next year called Outer Order, Inner Calm. These books are only two of the 18,600,000 or so results that come up when you do an internet search for ‘decluttering’. I admit that, in getting ready for my move from a three-bedroom house to a 70m2 flat, I’ve been relishing the opportunity to get rid of stuff.

But that’s not what this month’s blog post is about.

A funny thing happened to me last Sunday. I lost my sipper drink bottle, the kind that has a sort of a straw poking out of the top that allows you to do something the manufacturer calls ‘vertical drinking’ – you don’t have to tilt the bottle or unscrew a cap to drink. I needed to wait until the weekend to go shopping for a replacement. ‘No problem,’ I thought. ‘I’ll just take a cup to school and refill it whenever I have a spare moment. I’ve always thought it’s much more civilised to drink out of a cup or a glass than a sipper bottle anyway. Or I’ll take my other drink bottle, the kind you take the lid off when you need a drink. By the end of the week, I’ll probably realise I don’t even need to buy a replacement.’

Nothing worked. Up until that week, I’d stuck to my goal of six or more glasses of water a day and now I was down to two or three if I was lucky. I was thirsty and cranky. Every time I thought, ‘Now’s a good time to leave the classroom and go fill up a cup’, I was ambushed and side-tracked by a student or colleague. My old sipper bottle had allowed me to quickly take a sip between classes or on the drive to or from school, which was impractical with a cup or a screw top bottle. True, I could have worked on my self-discipline and practised saying ‘no’ to prioritise my water drinking habit, but in the end, I didn’t even wait for the weekend to go shopping for a replacement.

So, I’ve written a few hundred words in praise of a water bottle, but I could just as easily have written about my little rubber bracelet with an LED light that gets me through my early morning runs safely, even in the darkest winter. Or the fruit and vegetable delivery company that makes it easier for me to snack well. The Buddhist monk in my head is not happy about my bottle woes, and neither is my social conscience; both agree I should be able to do without a water bottle that, at $20 to $30, would be unaffordable for many of the families whose kids I teach.

Among my friends, I’m known as someone who does without a lot of stuff, such as a TV or – for almost a year after my flatmates moved out – any lounge furniture at all. I actually overheard my friend scolding her child as they were outside my front door:

‘Mum, do you think Lynne will have some furniture in her house this time?’

‘Don’t you mention anything about her furniture. It’s rude. Pretend you don’t notice.’

There is plenty I can live without, but I’m just going to admit it, there are a few products I find almost essential to maintaining healthy habits at the busiest of times. It’s only when I have to do without them I realise how lucky I am to be able to buy them, and I’m very grateful too.

This blog is the opinion and experiences of its author and should not be taken as medical or dietetic advice. Healthy Food Guide has not verified the content and cannot endorse any advice given. Healthy Food Guide recommends seeking professional health advice for specific complaints or symptoms.

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From burnout to balance: Holiday thoughts

Paris. The end of a long, long day of sightseeing. I turned to my friend’s 10-year-old son and asked him what was the best thing we had done that day.

He thought for just a moment and said: “Sitting in the park, watching those old guys playing petanque, and then they talked to us.”

After a moment he added: “Or going up the Eiffel Tower.”

Kids. So honest. One of these activities required zero funds, queueing or organisation. The other, quite a lot.

Speaking of the Eiffel Tower, we knew we were really lost when we drove past its twinkling nights late on our first night in Paris, looking for our accommodation. My friend had noticed her tablet’s battery was running low and she had the presence of mind to scribble down the remaining directions, handing them to me to look after. Inexplicably, I threw them away, leaving my friend, her two young children and her mother and I to spend a few frustrating and, frankly, terrifying hours driving around the City of Lights. They can laugh about it now, but I still can’t. (And, people of Paris: I respect your food and fashion, but may I suggest you paint some white stripes on your roundabouts to create lanes? Black and white look stylish together!)

It’s that time of the year. Many of us are looking forward to our holidays and I just want to sing the praises of a holiday spent here in New Zealand. Sure, if you want an adventure, it’s great to go overseas, but if you want to relax, I don’t think you can go past a holiday in your home country. It’s a real rest. Without any worries about unfamiliar currency, customs, language or road rules, you can just focus on recharging your batteries for the coming year.

Those friends whose lives I endangered in Paris still speak to me now, and I feel very grateful that they have invited me to spend a few weeks with them these holidays. We’ve rented another place together, but this one’s in Oamaru, so as long as I’m not in charge of directions, we should be pretty safe.

This blog is the opinion and experiences of its author and should not be taken as medical or dietetic advice. Healthy Food Guide has not verified the content and cannot endorse any advice given. Healthy Food Guide recommends seeking professional health advice for specific complaints or symptoms.

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From burnout to balance: Treats as good for your health as your soul

Sometimes you really feel like a little treat and, while it’s lovely to turn to the occasional bottle of wine or a chocolate bar (so I’ve heard), it’s also a good idea to have some options that have a little less impact on your health. This can be especially useful when the days are busy, cold and dreary, or otherwise difficult, and you feel you need a boost a few times a week.

Back in the days when I still read articles about losing weight, I would read lists of non-food treats, eg, manicures, movie tickets, new workout gear. What strikes me is these treats are much more expensive and time consuming than a bag of lollies or a chocolate bar. My friends who are raising kids and/or also working outside the home simply can’t afford the time (and in many cases, the money) it takes to have an afternoon or evening off at the movies or to hit the shops on a whim.

So, I’m in the process of compiling a list of treats that won’t harm my health, are cheap (around $5 or less) and are easy to get. I’ve just started, so currently it comes in at just two items, which is, I admit, about as short as a list can be.

1. Magazines
   Frivolous and colourful, magazines in the waiting room are one of the things I look forward to when making a doctor’s appointment. But it’s also a little luxury to lounge about at home, on a couch or in bed, flicking through a magazine. I’ve researched this one and can confirm that a colourful glossy will only set you back about $5. Posher versions. some so posh their pages are matt rather than glossy, can be less than $10 and sometimes I borrow a bagful for free from my local library.
2. Flowers
   Nothing in the supermarket fitted my price criteria, but I picked up a bunch for $4.99 at my local greengrocer. You can, of course, bring the price down to zero if you, your friends, family or neighbours grow a supply. I’ve never really paid much attention to flowers before, but I’m pretty sure the ones I’ve bought are tulips, but only because two visitors to the house referred to them this way. They were just buds for the first day, with the faintest hint of orange petal showing through, but then they bloomed. Every day, when I catch a glimpse of them, they surprise me. It’s not just that they are beautiful, but they change – closing up every night and then opening slowly as the days brighten.

There you go: a couple of treats that are free or cheap, easy and, with my bunch of flowers providing joy for well over a week, lasting much longer than any pick-me-up bar of chocolate has ever lasted me.

This blog is the opinion and experiences of its author and should not be taken as medical or dietetic advice. Healthy Food Guide has not verified the content and cannot endorse any advice given. Healthy Food Guide recommends seeking professional health advice for specific complaints or symptoms.

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From burnout to balance: Resetting with the new year

You know, when I look back on my last few posts, they seem pretty chirpy. Honestly, though, I can’t remember a time in the year and a half I’ve been writing this blog that I have felt so depleted.

What a year. The Auckland teacher shortage (a phrase I googled to make sure it wasn’t a figment of my imagination and got 489,000 hits in less than a second) continued. My father – a refugee who arrived here aged sixteen, unaccompanied by any family and probably the main reason I’ve chosen to work with immigrant kids – died. I can’t even type this without tearing up. My ulcerative colitis returned and I haven’t been able to eat fruit, vegetables, nuts or wholegrains for a couple of months.

Of course, wonderful things happened too: my brother got married to a lovely woman and I moved into my dream house – small, modest and within running distance from work, but these events required organisation and effort. Overwhelmed, and with that weird logic that sometimes comes over us when we are having a rough time, I chose to make things worse for myself rather than better.

I can’t remember a time when I’ve dropped so many healthy habits. I stopped running and going to the gym for a month or two. I went to sleep later and later. I stopped writing down things I was grateful for. I even gave up on tiny little habits that cost nothing in terms of time and effort, such as standing on one leg when brushing my teeth (sounds weird, but there’s solid evidence this helps to improve balance).

As a teacher, I have to constantly remind myself that learning isn’t linear. You have to keep circling back and re-teaching stuff. Just because we did page 15 in the book yesterday, doesn’t mean everyone in the class is ready for page 16 today. Some of them need another look at page 15 and some are still stuck somewhere near the front cover.

As it is in the classroom, so it is in life. I’ve made it to the end of 2018 and I know I’ve got a lot to re-learn in 2019. Bring it on.

This blog is the opinion and experiences of its author and should not be taken as medical or dietetic advice. Healthy Food Guide has not verified the content and cannot endorse any advice given. Healthy Food Guide recommends seeking professional health advice for specific complaints or symptoms.

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From burnout to balance: The value of support

I just read ‘How to support someone with depression and anxiety,’ and boy did it bring back some memories. (You can have a look at it and other advice on mental health and resilience here. It took me just moments to put together this incomplete list of the people who supported me when I felt overwhelmed by depression and anxiety.

• To the flatmates who wouldn’t leave me alone in the house and had to cut short nights on the town so that one or other of them could be there for me, thank you.
• To the little brother who opened his home to me when I needed a place to stay, thank you.
• To the boss who quietly said, ‘There’s depression in my family, too,’ and granted me a year off, finding a much less demanding role I could do to keep me connected to friends and colleagues at work, thank you.
• To the colleague who spent a Sunday helping me finish off a work project that was too much for me to tackle alone, thank you.
• To the colleagues who cheerfully gave me lifts to work when I was unable to drive myself, thank you.
• A special mention to the friend who drove miles out of her way to pick me up, take me to work and drop me off again at the end of the day, making what must have been at least a 90 minute round trip every school day for a year, thank you.
• To the friend who took me out for a quiet dinner on my birthday, pretending not to know it was my birthday, not even mentioning the ‘b’ word, knowing it would upset me, so that I returned home a little more cheerful than when I went out, thank you.
• To the friends who cooked so many dinners for me, sending me home with leftovers, thank you.
• To the friends of friends who gave me a place to stay when I went back to work on reduced hours and, when the topic of rent came up, just asked me how much I thought I could afford, thank you.
• To the friends who patiently dealt with the side effects of different medications, when halfway through a visit I would suddenly need to sleep for an hour or two, thank you.
• To the friend who saw my depression was getting worse and called my doctor’s office, thank you.
• To the friend whose internet ‘research’ revealed that depression could be treated with potato juice and brought me a freshly squeezed glassful every morning – I am sorry to say that after the first mouthful it all got tipped down the drain. But, thank you anyway.

This blog is the opinion and experiences of its author and should not be taken as medical or dietetic advice. Healthy Food Guide has not verified the content and cannot endorse any advice given. Healthy Food Guide recommends seeking professional health advice for specific complaints or symptoms.

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From burnout to balance: The benefits of baking

In what seems to be a golden age of vegetables and protein, I am a defiant baker. While some have given up on carbs, sugar and even fruit, I keep on baking because I find it both soothing and delicious. I am not alone, according to this article, The Rise of Anxiety Baking.

“Baking is mindful. Mindfulness means paying attention to yourself in the moment and not being in the past or the future, but really being there,” says Philip Muskin, a Columbia University psychiatry professor and the secretary of the American Psychiatry Association.

Most days, I eat a piece of home baking. Last week I had fruit muffins that used up some lovely poached spiced feijoas (thereby making room in the freezer for the feijoas of 2019). I’ve modified an old recipe for banana chocolate chip muffins by leaving out the chocolate and substituting thick swirls of peanut butter, a much better flavour pairing, to my mind. I choose muffin recipes with half a cup of sugar or less, which works out to a teaspoonful or two of sugar per muffin. I’m comfortable with that. I use mostly wholemeal flour. Sometimes I want to feel like I’m baking but I don’t feel like making muffins. That’s when bread or crackers come out of the oven – or this Seed and oat bread, which is halfway between the two.

Actually, almost anything that ends with me taking a tray out of a hot oven can scratch that baking itch, even my favourite home-made breakfast cereal, Awesome granola dust, which comes from Jamie Oliver.

I’m a bit jealous of people who seem to have no sweet tooth, but I continue to look forward to a treat in my lunchbox most days and a relaxing potter around my kitchen on the weekends. I really do think if you’re sensible with recipes and ingredients, you can bake your cake and eat it too.

This blog is the opinion and experiences of its author and should not be taken as medical or dietetic advice. Healthy Food Guide has not verified the content and cannot endorse any advice given. Healthy Food Guide recommends seeking professional health advice for specific complaints or symptoms.

 

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From burnout to balance: You can’t always spot good health

I can remember accompanying Dad to church one day a few years ago. Afterwards, he ran into an old friend, started chatting and introduced me. The friend looked me over and said,
“And how old are you, my dear?”
“Umm…37,” I replied, to her apparent surprise.
The moral of this story, I think, is that I look a little younger than I actually am. Or maybe that when you get to a certain age, everyone looks like, in my late father’s words, a ‘spring chicken’.

My face is plump and round, so the wrinkles haven’t had much of a chance to really settle in yet. The other thing that gives me a bit of a youthful glow is my skin, which is – and I hope you don’t mind me sharing this – really oily.

I’ve been reminded of this recently as my skin has broken out again. For the last 20 years, I’ve taken medication to stop the breakouts that started when I was in high school, but while my skin has been pretty clear, the medication has been driving my blood pressure up. I stopped taking it a few months ago, under doctor’s orders. So here I am, in my 40s, with just as many spots around my forehead, chin, chest and back as some of the teenagers I teach. (Just for the sake of clarity: I haven’t seen the kids’ chests or backs, nor do I wish to.)

Out of interest, I looked up prices for acne treatments, which seem to start at around the $100 mark and go up to at least $300, with the option for adding something called ‘numbing cream’ for another $25. (Does it anesthetise you to the fact you’ve just squandered hundreds of dollars on questionable treatments?)

I don’t believe in any of that, although I’ve tried to be extra careful about getting plenty of water and plenty of sleep, but I’ve still broken out the concealer most mornings. (Can I also just say that ‘Concealer’ would be an excellent title for Lorde’s next album, or any female singer songwriter, really.)

Despite the concealer, people notice the pimples. On a particularly pimply day, a colleague asked me if I was under the weather. I’m actually in better health than I was before, even if you wouldn’t know it from looking at me. My doctor said I had been at risk of a stroke – a few pimples are a small price to pay for normal blood pressure.

So I’ve been thinking of all those bright-eyed, clear-skinned ‘wellness influencers’ who put their looks down to a particular lifestyle or product. You know what I think? Some lucky people just have clear skin or great figures without even trying that hard – especially when they are young. I remember some of the supermodels of the 90s. Despite, drink, drugs and all-night parties, they looked pretty fabulous. While there are many healthy habits that can improve our looks, sometimes you just have to be content to know that health, unlike beauty, is not just skin deep.

This blog is the opinion and experiences of its author and should not be taken as medical or dietetic advice. Healthy Food Guide has not verified the content and cannot endorse any advice given. Healthy Food Guide recommends seeking professional health advice for specific complaints or symptoms.

 

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