Staying fit and healthy
in the midst of COVID-19
With the country now in complete lockdown, all the routines and patterns that shape our lives have been disrupted. Helen Gardner, from our partner Intentional Health, reflects on the opportunities this provide us all to make a fresh start when it comes to our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing.
A post on twitter made me laugh this morning with reference to the current health and social crisis. It said, ‘I never meant to give up so much for Lent!’
This period of uncertainty brings many laugh or cry moments. Life seems surreal as everything we perhaps took for granted is potentially taken away from us.
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 says, “May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”
Change Habits
The way we live is undoubtedly going to be different for the coming weeks, but the need to be intentional about our health and wellbeing is ever more important.
Let’s remember the NHS five ways to wellbeing and take this as an unprecedented opportunity to reassess how we live:
- How we connect to each other, never taking kindness and sharing for granted;
- How we keep active and engaged: physically; emotionally, mentally and spiritually;
- How we can keep learning from each other;
- How we give to others: financially, emotionally, through our personal blessings, prior experience and with our time;
- How we take notice of the world around us.
This change in our daily routine is a fantastic opportunity to see our lives as a new blank sheet of paper full of promise and freedom…a welcome break to make a fresh start.
Practical Support
Intentional Health teaches that taking notice of what our habits are (good and bad) and what triggers those habits is a great place to start so we can develop new healthier ones!
Knowing what we do often and why we might do those things/react in certain ways is really powerful and can lead to positive change. Different habits take different amounts of time to master but an average is 66 days. (That’s why habits are hard, but not impossible, to break.)
Intentionally taking notice of our subconscious brain activities (through self–reflection, accountability to a friend and prayer) can put us in a position where we feel able to break old habits and create new ones.
Tools to help you stay fit and healthy
- You can receive encouragement and support to stay healthy in body, mind and spirit by signing up to receive Intentional Health’s COVID-19 updates.
- Our partners MegaFitness have developed a range of family fun, family-friendly workouts that you can do from the comfort of your front room.
- The NHS also provide great advice on simply workouts you can do at home.
- Eating well is also really important. The Healthy Church Initiative has some great guidance and the Change4Life website is packed with ideas for healthy meals.