Wellbeing Thread - who's in?

Coffee, yes.

I've gone from about 8-12 cups a day to 2 max (sometimes just one).

I have replaced it with green tea and less of it (so about 4 cups of tea a day). I didn't like it at first, but stuck with it and after about 3 weeks I really started to get into it. Now I love the stuff. I found trying the 'flavoured' varieties (e.g. green tea with lemon) was a good way to get into it at first.

I won't give up that first cup of coffee in the morning for anything, but now I find that I actually want a green tea rather than a coffee at any other time of day. And I crave hot drinks less anyway.

If anyone had told me I would be doing this 2 years ago, I'd have been to say the least.

I didn't get the sleepiness thing though. Maybe that's the tea? Or are you not getting enough sleep with all the studying etc? Come to think of it, how on earth have you been doing a thesis without coffee?

Hi sunshine.

Sounds like you are the person I need to keep my eye on for motivation!

I've just realized btw that I've been merrily posting under two names on this thread - I started as AnonWasAWoman which was a temporary namechange.

I am currently trying to work out whether the lack of coffee is good - did you (or has anyone else) given it up long term? I feel a lot better for it but I'm so, so sleepy all the time!

On the plus side, it's so nice reading everyone's lists or resolutions and keeping my mind on mine. Thanks for making the thread work - I was cringing at the idea it might be a one-post wonder.

Hi everyone. Great idea for a thread.

I am definitely going to try out that oil cleansing method. It 'speaks' to me, in the same way that once I decided to stop using skin make-up I found that my skin no longer needed it after about a month.

I don't have too many issues about well-being as I went through a similar process to Anon about a year ago. I'd allowed myself to get quit run down, put on a bit of weight and generally felt crap. My life was stable, but ultimately unfulfilling. I wanted to get back into shape without feeling that I was giving in to rubbishy messages about how women should look, and I wanted to try something new and challenging that made me feel good about me.

My baseline fitness was fairly good anyway (I have a dog so have always had two good walks a day regardless) so it didn't take too much. I just started running again (something I used to do regularly but let slide) and I stopped eating crap without denying myself the odd bag of crisps/bar of chocolate. Ironically, now the focus is more on how I feel rather than how I look, I am probably in the best shape of my life (though I'm never going to be a supermodel ).

Mentally, I am in an even better place. I have discovered that for me there is a direct link between my physical health and my state of mind, something I am going to be much more mindful of in the future. I have recently renewed an old hobby and have also started doing some challenging community work, so although I am still powerless to create a new and exciting career because of child commitments and retraining costs, I really feel like I've taken control over my life again, which is the next best thing.

I now make time, twice a week, for an hour-long bath involving a glass of red wine and a good book. This is more recharging for me than any expensive spa treatment and is probably the one thing I would never give up for anyone.

Goals for the future are to drink more water and to eat more protein/zinc-rich foods to encourage skin healing, as I notice these days I take far longer to heal than I used to.

tilly I love that link, thanks!

Man I love this section. Where else would a wellbeing thread turn into the benefits/ills of civilisation? :o

Speaking of cheap beauty products the Oil Cleansing Method is much beloved by the MN S&Bers and cheap as chips.

I've done bugger all on my list but I'm dealing with my DDs sleep issues at the moment which are driving me maaaad.

i love the NEF five ways - i hadn't read that before but if i thought hard about what makes me feel good it would be those five things

Stealing a idea from Blackcurrents

i am going to raise a finger to the patriachy everyday

(give the patriachy the middle finger)

the New Ecomnics Foundation Five Ways to Well-being is good:

neweconomics.org/projects/five-ways-well-being

my favourite is 'Take notice' which i think of as 'Take delight in small things'

that's exactly how dh and i are, ninja. fortunately the credit crunch is a great excuse to scrooge up

Aargh, Christmas presents! I'm rubbish to buy for because anything I actually want, I usually want to choose myself, so at least half the presents I receive go straight in a drawer. And (apart from my DH, whose taste I know pretty well) I can't help but assume a lot of what I give people is equally unwanted. Yet I can't just say "actually, don't bother giving me a present and I won't give you one" without sounding totally Scrooge-like.

Modern consumerism is actually starting to make me feel sick. I had another good wellness moment yesterday when my dad and I agreed that we're not buying Christmas presents for each other this year, only for my small DC. We both have more than enough stuff. DH and I end up charity-shopping so many gifts in January, everyone might as well just give the money straight to charity!

But I can be deeply grateful for indoor toilets and hot water, dentistry, contraception, washing machines etc. and still think that modern consumerism a. makes people more dissatisfied with their lives, and b. is contributing to us screwing up the planet.

I have more of a problem with people fetishising the past (subtext: when everyone Knew Their Place).

Anyway, as a result of this thread and the recent poetry one, I read a poetry book in the bath the other night and felt very pleased with myself.

I agree.

And I think as well, there is a real problem that so many people think everything is immensely better than the very recent past. In some ways that's true - medicine has changed out of recognition in the last hundred and fifty years, even in the last fifty really. But it gives us this false sense that we ought to be deeply grateful and enthusiastic about everything - we've started to fictionalize the past to fit in with this idea that everything has changed dramatically. And this ignores the fact that lots of things are the same, or differently bad (and obviously ignores a lot about developing countries, or even the south of the US).

I think that frustrates attempts to say 'no, it's not actually all ok, there is still a need for feminism', and maybe that's why it's so difficult to react to all the bombarding messages you discuss?

I don't know, it just seems to me if you object to the way beauty advertising (I know it's wider than advertising but that's an example) works, someone will always say how lucky we are to live with luxuries like this, or isn't it great we don't have to live in the 1930s when everyone was rough as a badger's arse.

i do think there is something very unique about the time we live in whereby we're bombarded with so many messages and discourses about how to live, be, look, etc that are often in stark contradiction to one another and at total discord to the realities of the pressures of our lives etc etc that the human psyche is under such a strain in a new way. we are bombarded constantly with massively sophisticated symbols and messages... i'm in danger of waffling but there's something in it i think.

it's a nightmare astar. balancing the rational 'now'/'me' brain with all the conditioned messages and their attached emotions (mostly guilt) is a blumming life long endeavour imho.

but that's the thing, i think the same and my son is perfectly content being parented that way. that's the way my brother and i grew up and it's as it should be imo. i don't know why i let the other ideas in when i don't even believe them myself i think not working for the first time ever has been quite destabilising to my sense of self. which is bizarre since i didn't have a career, only a job. but i was brought up in a very 1980s feminist household and seem to have internalised the view that staying home with the kids is a lesser option. again, wtf?

yes, you definitely need to tackle that astarin! and yes you are making sense. time to amuse yourself and tackle boredom is grand for character. i honestly worry about these kids who are stimulated 24hrs a day with activities and attention. mind i may just be trying to make myself feel better for the masses of time my son spends pottering about the house having sword fights with imaginary intruders and talking to himself and his cars and figures and creating elaborate stories about things he's seen and done. i like to believe he's developing imagination, self amusement, etc etc rather than he's actually going mental from lack of stimulation or active parenting.

My granny used to wash her hair with Fairy if she'd run out of Vosene She had a full head of (mostly) black, curly hair till the day she died.

Something I want to work on as part of my wellbeing is getting out of the guilty mother trap. I am currently a SAHM, not by choice, and I've struggled with the transition. As a consequence, I constantly second-guess myself and wonder if I'm 'doing enough', 'getting it right' etc., especially since DD came along and DS has had to adjust to having a sibling. Here's an example: on Friday afternoon I baked cakes AND did painting with DS while holding upset and overtired DD who was crying in my ear, and we even managed to have a nice time. Yet the minute I said he could watch some tv while I made his tea, I started feeling guilty that I wasn't spending enough one-to-one time with him, and was this going to make him feel pushed out now that he's not the only child in the family, bla bla bla. Everything good that we'd done that day was forgotten. WTF is that about?

I worry and fret so much when actually I should make time to step back and look at my children objectively: they are healthy, happy, beautiful (of course!) and well loved and cared for. We enjoy them and they seem to enjoy us. An important part of growing up functional is nurturing the individual, and that goes for parents as well as children. Basically, it does everyone good to have time for themselves Am I making any sense?

I shall immediately inform my dad that he's missed a trick with the non-ecofriendly washing-up liquid! He will be shocked he didn't catch on to that trend ...

Seriously, isn't it terrifying there's more than one person who does that?!

LRD - yes!! Reclaim the Night is definitly good excercise!!

Oooh - I thought my mum was the only one who did that.. she uses ecover washing up liquid though

Oh lord, that reminds me of my dad .. he washes his hair in fairy liquid. At 60 he has a full and thick head of hair and is thus convinced it works.

Yeh LRD, You don't necessarily want to go as cheap as my DH with his "basics" bath gel. But I suppose if he's happy with it. Personally I'm happier with a few more pennies and a choice of flavour/perfume.

Yes, that is very true. I like actually finding the cheap alternatives. I'm just a very easily influenced by glossy magazines telling me what I really need is the blissful spa experience, etc. etc. My problem I know!

Something else that is lovely is lavender gel that boots botanicals do, which you can put in the fridge.

There's often a cheaper and just as good alternative with smellies though.

A squeeze of bubble bath or a few drops of essential oil in a burner needn't cost the Earth.

Like the hot water bottle and cuddly eiderdown idea WIF
We all like snuggling up on the sofa together on these autumn evenings