Systems, tools and planning are all good, but we too often ignore the huge power our physical health can have. Today we start to consider the massive topic of Physical Health & Your Effectiveness.
Sluggishness.
Brain fog.
The 3 o’ clock slump!
Are these things that effect you? These are all things that affect me, most of every day.
They rob us of our focus. They rob us of our effectiveness.
I am no scientist in this area of life but I know that to neglect our physical well being and health can have a huge impact on our productivity.
Not just in the work sense. It impacts our ability to be ‘present’ and to be engaged in whatever context we are in. And so…. It impacts our family, our relationships and our self development and growth.
Welcome to Effective Faith…..
This is episode 36 of the Effective Podcast – TPhysical Health & your Effectiveness – part one. My name is Chris Wood and I run Effective Faith – helping you to be more than just productive. At Effective Faith our aim is to intentionally focus on what matters most, to resist the ‘productivity’ idol and to help Christians live effectively for Christ in their everyday work
Systems, tools and planning are all good, but we too often ignore the huge power our physical health can have.
Here is the point – it has that power whether we like it or not. It could be using it to pull us down. Or it could be like a jet pack – boosting us forwards. This is massive topic so we will look at it over a couple of episodes. This is the first
At the moment, I’ll be honest, my health is not good in this respect. I’ve been unwell in the recent past and this impacted everything. I have been struggling to recover. In fact, this blog & podcast has been a big part of my attempts to recover.
When it comes to our health, we often feel a bit discouraged, don’t we?
We know that these things take time. We know that any changes we make to our lifestyle to promote our health, we will feel the cost of them in full, right now. The benefits, we believe, we will not begin to notice for many weeks, months or even years.
So we get discouraged. Right now, it feels like we have everything to lose and little to gain when our horizon is our current life.
So, it can become a trap. If our health is poor, it leads to difficulty in everyday life. That’s been my experience. Trying to improve our health, just makes everyday life harder in the short term. It removes small pleasures and comforts and replaces them with things that hurt.
I want to say this is true, but it is not the whole truth.
Immediate Health Actions
There are things we do, that impact us in the short term. Changes we can make right now, that will have a positive impact today.
These are immediate health actions.
Stuff you do in the day that impacts you that day
Hydration
What you eat
Movement
De-hydration is perhaps one of the main reasons we feel that brain fog and sluggishness. It makes us drowsy and is linked to certain kinds of headache as well.
All this destroys our effectiveness.
Often we do not help ourselves here. The things we drink through the day will be caffeinated drinks such as tea and coffee. I read recently that even decaf versions of these still contain an amount of caffein. One impact of this is that it dehydrates us. To be fair, this effect is mild and is normally offset by the fluid content, but for heavy coffee drinkers, it could become a problem.
A friend of mine used to say, 2% loss of hydration, 20% loss of concentration. The stats there are wrong but the principle is valid. When we are dehydrated, our concentration suffers. By the time you feel thirsty, you are already dehydrated.
The stat is more like 1% loss of hydration to 5% loss of cognitive function. It is linked to poor concentration, increased reaction time, moodiness and anxiety – all in the short term.
And this is so easily fixed.
So, if you have brain fog – drink a glass of water. It is so simple.
But so easy to forget. So many times I set out with good intentions here only to realise I have been focussing for several hours and haven’t drunk anything all day.
Ease of access is the key. I have 3 water bottles. One by my bed, one that I keep with me generally as I go out and about and one at my desk.
Normally, when I wake up I drink the bottle by my bed. It is said that we often start the day dehydrated because we lose so much water over night. I’ve been told by a friend, in the hotter months this can be as much as 2 litres.
Throughout the day, keep hydrated.
This will have an immediate impact on your cognitive function. Do it today, you will notice the benefit today.
What you eat
We know that the afternoon slump is a big issue. Broadly speaking, this is caused by what we eat for lunch. The 3pm slump is related to the drop in blood sugar as our bodies process a carb heavy meal.
It makes us sluggish and drowsy and feel like we just cannot be bothered with anything.
Snacking is another issue.
I could say more but I tend to get a bit wordy on these things. The point is, that if you want to help yourself be effective throughout the day, consider what you consume. It can have an immediate impact on your effectiveness that very day.
Movement
We are not designed to spend all day sitting in a chair, rigidly staring at a screen. Yet that is what we do. And recently technology developments have just made this worse. Gone are the short walks to the file room or even the filing cabinet or printer in our office. Everything is digital – on our computer, at our desk. Gone are the trips to a colleague to ask a question. We pick up the phone or ‘jump on a video call’ or send an email or chat message.
Increasingly, for many of us, there is just no need to get up from our desk. We sit at our desk, work at our desk, have meetings at our desk, eat lunch at our desk. Then we go home, exhausted, and veg out on a sofa until then go for a change up by lying down in bed.
We are designed to move. But we don’t, and our bodies suffer from it.
All this leads to feelings of lethargy and lack of energy. Like a machine that stiffens up from lack of use. And this not only effects us physically, but mentally as well. Though that is a different topic.
So get up! We kid ourselves if we think the best use of our time through the day is to sit working. That we cannot afford the time to get and take a short 5 minute walk. I put it to you, that every day, multiple times a day, the very best thing that you can do to improve the quality and quantity of your work, is to get up and walk for 5 minutes.
You will notice an immediate benefit.
These things are actually quite low cost to change them and the effect will be instant. Now we start to examine things that are bit more costly and require a little bit more of an investment.
Short Term Health Actions
But, we are still talking short term changes and short term impact.
Stuff you do through the week that impacts you over the week. Get this wrong one day, and you will probably be ok, but over a week you will start to suffer.
For some of these things, I think many of us have operated in an unhealthy way for so long, that we don’t even realise the effect it has on us.
Sleep
This is the main one and we just don’t realise it. Which is odd considering just how much content there is on this. For some reason, every single one of us considers ourselves to be an exception – looking to outliers and extreme examples as our model, rather than the common experience.
It is widely know and documented that the average amount of sleep that the average adult requires every single day, is about 8 hours. This will vary from person to person but the degree to which it varies is not as big as you might think. Statistically, with 8 hours being the average, we look at that and so consider the range that will generate that average. We then make the assumption that the majority of people must sit at the extremes of that range and very few sit close to the average.
So, logically, with ourselves, we assume that we are capable of operating consistently at the below average level. Indeed, we consider our work and time of such grand importance, that we must operate at that level.
In reality, statistically, the greater proportion of people are close the average in terms of their sleep requirement.
Again, we know that consistent sleep habits are hugely beneficial, yet we still operate on the model that allows us to catch up and sleep in on weekends.
In all honesty, this is exactly how I behave, despite knowing better.
So, in the short term, week to week, if you want to maximise your effectiveness and energy levels, ensure you that you get enough sleep and ensure this is consistent. Perhaps we should even make this priority number 1 for our day.
It is basic maths. If you need to be up at 6am for the next day, then you need to go to bed around 8 hours before that – or 10pm. Whatever you are doing at midnight – is it more valuable than what you can do tomorrow with the energy levels to maximise your effectiveness.
If you hear nothing else – hear this.
General Diet
The next two I will not dwell on as I am not an expert. But I know that the healthier I eat, the better I feel. The better I feel, physically, the better my performance in life. Generally. I have more energy and I just feel more….capable. More alert.
If I have a few days of takeout and pizza or over eating, you just feel lethargic and uncomfortable all the time.
So, come up with a plan for healthier eating and stick with it.
General Exercise & Stretching
The immediate benefits of movement – they stack. They compound.
So we think about general exercise. And of course stretching. I could bring in loads of science here if I wanted to. The internet and books are not short on this. But I do not need to.
I am speaking to people who already know that this is true.
What you perhaps don’t realise, is we do not mean hitting the gym at 4am for 2 hours in the Iron paradise every day. Nor do mean running in the freezing rain and dark mornings of wintery Britain.
It is much more basic. Simple stretches and going for a 30 minute walk every day (alongside more consistently moving through the day rather than sitting) and you will notice the difference within 7 days.
Again, you just feel more comfortable and capable. And, this improves your effectiveness.
This takes time, but it is an investment that pays off in the short term.
Consistent Habits
I mention this because it is important. Perhaps equally as important as everything else.
Consistency is king.
Much of what I have said will have benefits as a one off exercise. But, they stack. They compound.
So consistency is king. We will think about this next time as we look at medium term, i.e. over the course of months and year and long term – i.e. over the course of a life time.
But, even in the immediate view and short term view, consistency with these habits and practices will significantly improve the benefits.
So, consistency is king. For all we might say about him, Jordan Peterson is quite helpful at this point. He says most of us get stuck in a rut because our standards are not low enough.
If you want to make changes, you need to be consistent. In order to be consistent, your standards need to be low enough that you can hit that bar – consistently. Then, with time, you can raise the bar.
I am reminded of the Couch to 5k Running programme. In the programme produced by the NHS in the UK, the first runs involve running for just 60 seconds at a time. I once downloaded a BUPA one that was even better – day one of the plan was a rest day. When they say COUCH to 5K – they really want you to start on the couch.
So, set your standards low enough that you can make a change and be consistent with it.
I hope we are beginning to see that there is a direct link between our physical health and our effectiveness.
Small changes can have a big impact – an immediate impact. This compounds even more so next week we will consider the medium term and long term impacts of improving our physical health.
If you found this valuable please leave a review and share it. Also, I’d love to have more questions from listeners. So drop me an email, effectivefaith15.58@gmail.com or use the contact form on effectivefaith.org. If you listen on Spotify, you should also be able to ask a question in the q&a box.
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Thanks again for listening. And remember – you can be very productive, without being very effective.