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How downshifting benefits your health and wellbeing
The article below is reprinted with permission by Sally Lever and is taken from her excellent newsletter on downshifting and healthy/simple living Fruitful
I highly recommend subscribing to Sally's newsletter. To subscribe, please send a blank e-mail to subscribe@sallylever.co.uk . Priorities and values Suddenly, with the prospect of being responsible for someone else's life, my priorities had changed. No longer did my health come second to my availability to work and earn money. Some would say that my behaviour was a natural reaction to surging hormones - nature taking over and asserting itself. I prefer to see it, with hindsight anyway, as the start of a shift in my priorities and values. When we choose to prioritise our quality of life above our standard of living, magical things can happen with respect to how we treat ourselves. For most who downshift, improving health and wellbeing take a driving seat, often where it has previously been denied or ignored. And for those who are forcibly downshifted through ill health, this change in circumstances can be very challenging indeed. For those who take the route of voluntary simplicity and decide of their own accord to slow down their pace of life and reduce their stress levels, miraculously, it seems, health issues suddenly seem to become less of a problem. How does this happen? Trading money for time. The answer is very simple. Downshifting involves deciding to accept a lower level of income in return for more time to spend as we want to spend it. In order to practice preventive medicine and optimise our health and wellbeing, time is exactly what is needed. Spending more time on ourselves benefits our nutrition. Real food, home cooked, is higher in nutrients, lower in harmful additives and costs less than convenience food in money terms. Growing and preparing food can also be an enjoyable experience for many, rather than just a means to an end. Thus, the process of looking after ourselves in itself becomes a stress-relieving activity. By reducing our stress levels, we strengthen our immune systems and are therefore less likely to succumb to infection or contract stress-induced chronic conditions, such as heart disease, cancer, depression, chronic fatigue states or diabetes. When we spend more time on self-care, we are more likely to find a form of exercise that suits us and that we find enjoyable. When we are ill, time gives us the opportunity to explore the options with respect to treating the illness. We can choose to take a more holistic approach through diet, exercise and rest, alternative or conventional therapy or lifestyle changes. During the pregnancy that I mentioned above, one thing I came to realise was how incompetent I was as a patient! I was so lacking in self-awareness that I didn't have the first idea how to answer my homeopath's questions. Ok, to be fair to me, they did seem to be rather odd questions, like "How do you feel in a thunderstorm?" What on earth did that have to do with how long I could keep a meal down? I got impatient with her and wanted a quick fix, when really what was needed was my cooperation and thoughtfulness. Often I felt like cutting out the middle man and just throwing my carefully prepared platefuls of food straight down the toilet! I was afraid that I would not cope with the situation and that my baby would not survive. My anger soon dissipated when I realised the homeopathy was working and I was starting to benefit from giving myself time to be more self-aware rather than fighting my affliction or denying it existed. What other aspects of downshifting are beneficial to our health and wellbeing? Trading an unhealthy environment for a healthier one. One of the parts of our lives that we attempt to optimise when downshifting is the way in which we earn a living. Hopefully we will take steps to modify our employment to suit our values and minimise stress levels. Looking at our working environment can be part of this. What effect does working in an air conditioned office have on our well-being? What about fluorescent lighting, noise levels, access to sunlight, fresh air and water? Trading an unhealthy environment for a healthier one can benefit our wellbeing by reducing the physical stresses we have to endure and by bringing us into contact with fewer infections. Reclaiming the responsibility . In my experience, many downshifters discover during the process of changing their lifestyle that they feel more able to accept responsibility for their own health and wellbeing. They learn to face up to the challenges of making self-care a priority. One of the advantages of working from home (and home educating) that I'm personally very grateful for is that when I or my sons are ill, there's noone putting pressure on us to return to work or school. When we need to rest, wrap up warm, take extra fluids or get more fresh air, we can adapt our day to incorporate this and recuperate in our own time. Ultimately, it's not up to our GPs, our bosses, our family or anyone else to keep us well. It's up to us. Copyright Sally Lever sally@sallylever.co.uk http://www.sallylever.co.uk/ |
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Pioneering members of the home education movement in Australia, Beverley and Robin Paine are passionate advocates of true educational choice for families. They began homeschooling their children in 1986 and three years later started the South Australian Home Based Learners network.
Beverley wrote Getting Started with Homeschooling in 1995-97 and since then continues to write books and booklets on home education. She balances spending time helping home educators with working in her garden and renovating her home, as well as continuing to build her collection of writing on a variety of homeschooling subjects. Beverley maintains an extensive collection of websites as well as several Yahoo groups supporting families teaching their children at home.
In 2007 Beverley joined the HEA and became a committee member in 2008: she also edits and produce the HEA Newsletter, HEA magazine, Stepping Stones for Home Educators, annual Resource Directory and other HEA publications.
If you'd like to keep in touch with what Beverley is up to her in her life, sign up for the Homeschool Australia Newsletter or visit her Homeschool AustraliaFacebook page.