Reflection

My blog this month was heading in a very different direction as its Men's Health Week 10th - 16th June 2024, but this week has been a strange one. Sadly, I have been reflecting on the loss of Dr. Michael Mosley, who has undoubtedly been a significant influence on me. I have regularly listened to and learned from him as I adapted to this modern, fast-paced, and continuously changing world where our health and well-being seem to no longer be generally improving.

Dr. Mosley has had a huge influence on all of us through his passion for health and well-being, ensuring that well-being becomes part of the discussion about health and making it easy to integrate into our daily lives. He had the ability to be engaging and consistently shared his passion for enabling us, the public,  to be healthier and ultimately happier.

I believe that all of us now recognise the importance and greater need for well-being in our ever-busy lives and are making time for it. This is made easier by knowing that science now supports the idea that little and often is better than irregular, long, intense sessions. We are more likely to stick to this approach.

Dr. Mosley has been an important contributor to our understanding of health and well-being. Reflecting on his top five recommendations, I find myself incorporating most of these into my daily life:

Intermittent fasting / time-restricted eating: Leaving longer periods between meals and eating less on two days a week. My own journey with this started when I read an article in a Sunday paper on a train departing the UK on my honeymoon in 2008. This led me to engage with other professionals on this subject. Fasting has been shown to improve insulin, glucose, and cholesterol responses, as well as our hormonal health. It is something I am continuously working with but I know that I make poorer choices when I am tired and my sleep requirements are different now than they were 20 or even 10 years ago.

Short bursts of daily exercise: Incorporating exercise into your daily life, such as using the stairs instead of the lift at work or getting off the bus a stop early for a brisk walk. I feel better on days when I’ve walked the dog in the morning before the day begins, even if it’s pouring with rain. Having the routine of the dog certainly helps, but finding 10 minutes in the morning to take a walk before you start work energises you and makes you more productive, so any perceived loss of time will actually improve your productivity.

Embracing the cold: Short-term stressors like a cold shower can increase our heart and respiratory rate, which can be beneficial in short bursts. I’ve always loved swimming, and for the last few years, I have been one of ‘those’ who sea swim year-round. It’s not only the cold water or the flotation but also being surrounded by the beauty of the coast, and I know I am lucky to be able to do it. We’ve realised that our swims are longer when the sunrise is stunning rather than when it’s a drizzly or choppy day. Our perception of our surroundings can affect our ability to cope with the adversity of the cold. Ironically, I seem to find swimming easier than showers, perhaps because I can walk in slowly and adjust my breathing. My plan is to build up to 30-40 seconds of cold water at the end of my shower and see how that makes me feel. The bonus is that I can do this every day.

Bodyweight exercises such as push-ups or squats: Being able to do a squat enables you to get up and down to the toilet, which is essential if we want to remain independent as we age. Practising squats whilst waiting in a queue is a sure-fire way to embarrass teenage daughters, or you could do them whilst waiting for the kettle to boil.

Making good food choices: We are confronted by hundreds of unhealthy options every day, and billions, if not trillions, of pounds are spent on advertising to encourage us to make poor choices. These choices have a negative impact on our health and our wallet, as they often don’t satisfy us long-term and encourage us to consume more. Blood sugar crashes also impact us in a variety of ways but including our tiredness levels, which often leads to further poor choices.

Working with these five things, which are just the tip of what Dr. Mosley talked about in his extensive career, can help us all improve our self-care at little or no cost. His aim was to make it easy to change and to look at incorporating those changes into normality, finding anchor points in our lives to introduce something new. Next time you have a shower, will you turn the dial down for 5 seconds? Will you do a squat whilst waiting in line? Or another of my favourites, from my time in London, is to work my pelvic floor when I’m sat at red traffic lights!

Reducing our chronic stress levels while exposing ourselves to short stressors, keeping moving, eating healthily, being in the moment, and enjoying our surroundings are all ways we can easily add to our daily lives.

We don’t know what will happen in the future, but we need to look after ourselves today to ensure our best tomorrow.

RIP Dr. Michael Mosley 1957 - 2024

PB x

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