Yes! Sweat the Small Stuff
It’s ALL about the “small” stuff when it comes to living a healthy counterclockwise life. It’s about the accumulation of all that small stuff, the sum of the many little decisions we make every day that can result in keeping us vibrant, engaged and happy well into the upper reaches of our lifetimes.
It’s true: We’re constantly bombarded by news of the newest miracle product, the best-ever exercise plan, the just discovered! powerful-beyond-belief! anti-aging supplement, the one (impossibly exotic) cure-all superfood, the quick fix we’ve all been waiting for, the big secret that will now be revealed. We want to believe. We are socialized and acculturated to believe in The Next Big Thing. Yay consumer capitalism! Yay take-a-pill western medicine!
But health and wellness doesn’t work that way. Health and wellness is the result of specific choices. You reach for an apple instead of a bag of chips. You take a walk instead of sit in front of a screen. You stretch your calves when you wait on line at the grocery store. You go to bed a half hour earlier. Earth-shaking? No. Life-changing? You bet.
I was reminded of this way of thinking when I read Deborah Szekely’s new post at wellnesswarrior.org. I’ve written about kick-ass nonagenarian Deborah before. Let me quote her again right now:
Achieving overall fitness and well-being is built choice by choice, one “smidgen” at a time. So is disease and infirmity. In fact, the small choices—repeated often enough and over time—have the greatest impact. The cumulative effect of actions and non-actions shape the person we are today and the person we are in the process of becoming as we age.
Later, she writes this:
Aging is not something that kicks in suddenly when we turn 65; it is a progressive accumulation that builds over a lifetime of eating, breathing, exercising (or not), “stressing out,” burning the candle at both ends, and a myriad of other actions and choices.
And Jeez, the woman should know. She’s 92. She glows. She hikes up mountains. She travels the country and the world promoting good food and good health. She is living life to the fullest – is able to live life to the fullest – because she has spent the last 70-plus years paying attention to the small stuff.
For those of you who know me more broadly as a writer (and not just of these blog posts), I want to add that this same advice permeates my writing life. In the new edition to When Words Collide, a book about the art and craft of writing well that I first co-wrote many years ago, I say this:
Keep in mind that good writing doesn’t just happen. Stories don’t “write themselves.” Skilled writers, talented writers, professional writers work hard at it. They struggle and strain. In fact, contrary to the clichéd admonition, they do sweat the small stuff. In fact, it’s all about the “small stuff.” Clear, powerful, evocative prose is the result of a series of small, conscious choices that transform the ideas inside writers’ heads into the stories we want to read…. Style is the culmination of many small things done well, the result of sheer hard work.
The same, the very same, can be said about living a vibrant, healthy and engaged life. So today, right now, make one small good choice. (And send a comment about it to the site. I’d love to post a list.)
9 comments
I have a few contributions – probably nothing new, but they work for me.
1. Have a drink of water before having a snack – thirst can masquerade as hunger.
2. Have that snack, but make sure it is what you really want. If you want crunchy, eat something crunchy. If you want something salty, eat something salty. The key is a SMALL snack, and trying to identify what it really is that you want. Otherwise, you (okay, “I”) find myself eating around it and eventually, finally, eating what it was I wanted in the first place. Instead of 100 calories, I’ve now eaten 600 calories.
3. If you need to ponder, do it while walking. Anywhere. One of my daughters walks up and down the hallway in her house while on the phone or reading a recipe or her email. She figures she gets in nearly 500 steps a day this way. A small number, but it adds up.
4. Say a prayer of gratitude at night before falling asleep. It’s something many of us learned as children but a habit many of us also forgot. It might be yet another small thing, but it makes me feel good and I figure if I feel good, I might sleep a bit better and goddess knows, I need that!
5. Something I do not do, but hope to start making into a habit – sing…out loud! I’m old enough not to care if people think I’m crazy. It will make me feel better, increase oxygen intake and capacity, and maybe I might remember some of the old folk songs that were sung to me many moons ago.
I’m excited to see what others post because I need all the pointers I can get.
I pack my lunch everyday. This is all I will eat on any day, until I get home for dinner.
As a grazer, I eat all day, but I’m never ravenous. I use (and re-use) snack bags to apportion servings; for example, one bag of baby carrots will fill about four snack bags, and I bag ’em up as soon as I get them home. Same for nuts. Crunchy foods keep you busy. I put foods like applesauce in small Tupperware, of which I have a week’s worth. Don’t forget the dash of Saigon cinnamon because intense flavors are satisfying. (Here’s a tip: Put the cinnamon on the bottom of the Tupperware or it will all stick to the lid.) Eat an orange a day. A bit messy to peel, but then your hands smell terrific.
When you see your day’s food in one place, it helps you review that you’ve got something for every food group. Of course, that includes two dark chocolate cookies.
This is pretty effortless, really, once you get into the habit.
I know that if I eat well, I feel good. If I eat crap, then I feel like–well, you know.
Great stuff, Martha. I especially like the idea of seeing what you eat in one place. For those who can’t exactly do what you do, it could be instructive to take photos of each meal or snack and then view them at the end of the day.
“Burning the candle at both ends” was a phrase my father said to me often when I was growing up and even into my adult life. And while it may be true that I light the candle at both ends from time to time, there is definitely some small stuff that I choose to sweat:
1) As a professional in the software industry, I am in front of my computer all day so rather than sitting at a desk I use a stand up desk.
2) When the weather is nice I try to run my errands by bike.
3) When I watch TV I do so while using my foam roller.
4) We choose to eat at home often so that we can control the ingredients used in our meals and we always buy organic when given the choice.
5) I’ve created a social life that revolves around outdoor pursuits and the gym rather than eating and drinking.
6) During the week I go to bed early and around the same time each night. When we had our new home built, we made sure that the master bedroom would be quiet, dark, and kept very cool.
Thanks for all this, Shelli. I am the happy recipient of your #5.
Yes!!! I see patients at a doctor’s office a couple days a week and they are often surprised at their new diagnosis of diabetes or high blood pressure, etc. What they fail to realize is that it is the sum of all the small choices they have made for decades. Personally I feel the best way to ensure good health is to slow down and stay present, mindful and intentional. That daily practice will allow you to stay level headed and aware of your body. Listen to it instead of ignoring it. We often push through or throw caution to the wind in order to meet deadlines, finish our self imposed lengthy to do list or because we don’t want to have to think about our food choices (lack of time, want convenience and they taste of processing, etc). Anyway, great read!!
Emily: Any specific hints about mindfulness? Ways of catching oneself and coming back to the present?
I know. I know. I know. It’s supposed to be so simple, such an elegant little solution. And when you write it and say it, it IS. But then I get left alone to my own monkey-mind devices and all hell breaks loose and you know blah blah blah….it all makes me so tired. How do you cattle prod your own behind??
So forget the idea of “solutions,” and just vow to do ONE thing — like a little thing — differently today. Don’t overthink. Don’t worry about long term. Just…go drink a glass of water. Just…stand up and pace when you talk on the phone.
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