How to build up your health

                  

Why do I need to build up my health? Or, why does anyone else, for that matter?

I gaily traversed through this winter, so pleased that I barely got sick. Mostly, it was due to an anaemia problem that I have, sort of disappearing. (I worked hard to get this to happen!!) Anaemia made me very run-down and really lowered my immune system. Now I just keep an eagle eye on it, throughout each day, and do whatever I need to do, to get the iron levels back up. Iron. That's my problem. Lack of iron, at different times in my life. And I lack it because my body can have problems absorbing it, and storing it. I keep a supply of an amazing iron-plus-other-stuff supplement on hand, and it's the best that I have ever used.

Plus, I was actually doing things to actively prevent getting anaemic, and also to prevent getting sick. I do a barely known yoga breathing exercise to cool my body, and amazingly, this has helped no end. Certainly, when I am overheated, not as in summer-hot, but as in body-too-hot, I am inclined to be lacking in iron, and/or, sick. Or, both. So, I do something to prevent both.

First things first

I have never met sometime who was totally free from any physical things that they were prone to, and these, I believe, are often the key to staying healthy, and also getting healthy:

• do what we need to do, to keep our body moving along efficiently. 
• Deal with, and keep an eye on, any physical tendencies.

Keep on track with them

So, getting back to my iron-thingey, I found out many years ago, that iron is highest about 7am each morning. Maybe there are new findings, but I have stuck with that. So, I aim to be up and about before 7am to do a small amount of yoga, which is either:

• for maintaining health: some sun salutes and a couple of easy poses, breathing, etc
• for recovery from being run down or unwell: some flexibility moves, especially for shoulders and hips, where we store a lot of tension. I'm not a naturally supple person, I have to work at it, and these sort of movements, as trivial as they are, help get me back into my grove

Either for 10 - 15 minutes, with the above exercise. That's it. These are for keeping my body ticking over nicely. And I do the breathing when I'm up to it, for recovery. What I do here, is not for the body-beautiful, nor for any other reason other than keeping on top of things. I find that it is  easier to have something that I do, regularly, that physically, helps me maintain on a level that I can keep fitting into my life. Easily.

find out what suits you best, for maintaining your health, and for building it up, when needed. 

Keep it simple, and succeed (Kiss formula)

Take time to recuperate when you've not been well

And, of course, as a yoga teacher, I do know not to do exercise when I've got a temperature. I rest, instead. And sleep. And I don't lie there doing yoga techniques. If I'm well enough to do that, then I'm well enough to be up and about, in my reasoning.

To build up our health, it helps to notice what's going on, physically

It's really worth it, to notice what is happening with your body. When I was younger, I really bought into the modern and yoga thing whereby, if you were unwell, then shock, horror!! The universe was supposedly mirroring something back to me. Or, I felt that I "deserved" it.

When I stopped doing that silly tendency to analyse what was happening in my head, and looked instead to what was happening with my body, my health improved. I looked at physical evidence, instead.

What did I look at? My physical patterns, which tell us so much. Which ones? I just do the easy ones:

• how much sleep that I need, and the quality of sleep
• how my diet affects me. So, that's what we eat at certain times; and how does it work with our body?

And I find that some things affect us physically, mentally, and emotionally, too

• other people. Toxic people are truly best avoided (this was totally one of my life's biggest lessons)
• our environment. This is our home, and our work environment, mostly. 

There will be more factors for each of us, like responsibilities, money, family. But the process for dealing with any thing that impacts our health, is the same. It is unbelievably simple, and involves a bit of trial and error:

Find out what suits you. And just do it. Make it doable (KISS)