Make Time for Wellness, Before you’re Forced to

One of my good friends shared this quote on Instagram last week, and it was just too good not to share:

“Make time for your wellness, or you’ll be forced to make time for your illness.”

So often, our excuse for not exercising/meditating/eating right etc. is that we don’t have enough time. These kind of activities are viewed as a luxury. And quite frankly, we don’t have time for yoga when we’ve got shit to do!

As a teacher, I frequently de-prioritised self-care in term-time. I was just so busy. I had so much to do. People were relying on me. Essentially, I just couldn’t justify giving the time up to this kind of ‘self-indulgence.’ Instead, like so many of my colleagues, I’d plan to cram all of my relaxation into the school holidays.

And guess what? I’d get an awful cold, often losing my voice completely, at the beginning of every single holiday. I’d spend half my break in bed, with Lemsip, feeling very sorry for myself.

This ‘holiday cold’ is a running joke amongst teachers… only it’s not particularly funny.

The world is waking up to the notion that mental health requires effort and daily action;  that these acts of self-care are necessities, not luxuries, that are key to our physical, mental and emotional health. 

On a more simplified level, many of us just need to wake up to the truth of this quote – that we’re going to have to give up some time, like it or not.

But, we do have a choice.

Either we allocate little segments of time to daily self-care and wellness, or we prepare to give up large chunks of time, to feeling like garbage, when our body decides it can’t take it any more.

When this mindset in play, I can no longer justify putting off my life, for work.