Living Your Healthy Life With The 3 Ms

I've been working with people for a while now and experience has led me to the conclusion that focusing on three key areas can do you and your mental, phyiscal and spiritual health a lot of good.

I call these areas the '3 Ms' and - in no particular order of importance - they are as follows:

Mindfulness

Mindfulness means paying attention to whatever is going on at this very moment - sometimes referred to as 'being in the zone' and include things like:

• Smelling the roses on a walk or watching a deer
• Consciously eating your food without doing anything else simultaneously
• Actively listening to someone speaking with an open mind
• Focusing on writing a report with no distractions
• Playing with your child

Why is mindfulness really important to your health? Because you are focusing on the now which is where you are truly alive and not in the the past or the future.

When you think about the past and the future, worries and fears are likely to come into your mind causing some degree of anxiety and negative emotion which are damaging to your health.

Meditation

Meditation is helpful because - like mindfulness - it helps you to focus on the now.

Meditation takes many forms - even day-dreaming counts - and you can join a meditation or yoga class to learn from experienced practitioners.

You can also listen to a relaxation CD or visit a therapist who uses meditation as part of their practice.

Everyone has experienced some form of meditation and so you already know how to do this.

You already know that meditation makes you feel at peace - even gazing out of a train window without thinking of anything else counts.

Movement

Perhaps you are someone who likes exercise or perhaps not. Many people associate the word exercise with going to a gym or something else that 'is not for me'.

I use the word movement to aim to remove this association as it can mean anything which involves moving your body.

In my experience, this term works for even the most 'anti-exercise' individual as long as it meets the 2 following condition:

• It's something you enjoy doing i.e. it is fun (I'm sure you can think of a number of things)
• It can be incorporated into your daily life rather than being an add-on to an already busy day

Examples of this second condition would be taking the stairs rather than the lift at work, lifting dumb bells whilst watching or listening to the news or going for a walk at lunchtime.

For all but the most debilitating health conditions there is usually something we can do to generate the positive feel-good chemicals - including serotonin (the happy coping chemical that counters depression) and noradrenalin (the motivational neurotransmitter) - which movement helps us produce.

I hope you find this post useful and would love to receive your feedback - just leave a comment or contact me at West of England Coaching and Counselling.