How to be really unwell

An alternative look at wellness

It is all too easy to gloss over what we need to do to be well and have a oh I can start tomorrow mindset. So I thought it would be really interesting for you to see what behaviours, habits, thoughts and beliefs are your current daily norms so that you can see that you may not be unwell now but you are creating the perfect environment for being extremely ill in the future.

This is so important as everyone is encouraged to live such unhealthy lives. There is still the same emphasis of race to the bottom and having unwellness has been normalised to the point that are you really successful unless you have acheived something in the backdrop of some label of some sort?

So let’s take a mind, body, spirit approach to how to be really unwell. I am going to break down a day and write about common behaviours and how they affect all human beings and their systems.

So firstly you wake up after a fitful night’s sleep and what is the first thing that you do? If it is pick up your phone then you are damaging your brain and in particular your emotional regulation and prefrontal cortex cognitive ability.

When you wake up, you are supposed to transition from a delta brainwave of sleep into a theta brainwave – where the brain is more flexible and malleable,” which is essential for becoming more emotionally intelligent, creative and effective problem-solvers.

Grabbing your phone as soon as you wake up means that this important theta brain wave is bypassed and you go from a delta brainwave to the high stress beta brainwave.

This can have a significant impact on the physical structure of the brain and increase anxiety. It also leads to less plasticity and flexibility of your neurons and synapses.

Don’t worry though, you will have had a very false and damaging dopamine hit. This will make you feel good for all of 10 seconds before you feel bad and want to chase that feel good feeling. You probably have no time though now, you got distracted by all the doomscrolling, so are rushing to complete your morning routine.

You have lay in bed scrolling for some time, you have not eaten or drank anything yet, but thats ok as everyone knows that intermittent fasting is going to keep everyone young, alive and functioning at the top of their game.

This is not the case if you have acute or chronic stress levels.

Acute stress reactions occur after an unexpected life event, the symptoms develop quickly but do not last for long. The symptoms are heart palpitations, nausea, chest pain, headaches, abdominal pains and breathing difficulties. You don’t need to experience all of them, but they do indicate that your system is dealing with the fallout of something serious.

Chronic stress is a consistent sense of feeling pressure and overwhelmed for a long period of time. This type of stress increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases and conditions inclusing strokes. You are also at risk of anxiety, depression, disgestion issues, headaches, muscle tension and pain, sleep issues, weight gain and cognitive function issues in the brain. You may also disconnect from other humans and isolate away from activities that could potentially help you.

Ignoring this state will lead to long term sickness and unwellness.

Eating something within thirty minutes of waking up has been shown in research to support brain function, support metabolic rate, control hunger throughout the day and limit fat deposits on the body.

It also will support your adrenals which will be having to work extra hard if you are focused on the unwell lifestyle.

Cortisol which is associated with stress and managing it, is also a key component of our circadian rhythm, is released by the adrenals into our blood stream. This then triggers glucose to be an immediate energy source to our muscles, with also an inhibition of insulin production so the glucose isnt stored but available to immediate use.

Cortisol also narrows the arteries and another chemical epinephrine increases your heart rate. Together they force blood to harder and faster to confront and resolve the source of stress.

As you embrace the high stress start of the day and set the tone for the rest of your routine your body is doing this -

• Inreasing blood sugar levels

• Sending false hunger signals

• Suppressing your immune system

• Suppressing digestion

• Increasing pressure on cardiac function

All of these will support you in being unwell and are the foundations for conditions such as hypertension, heart disease, atherosclerosis, stroke, respiratory problems, obesity, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and up to 90% of cancer cases.

If you want to really put your body under pressure then a good way is not to rehydrate when you wake either. If you do not rehydrate then you are reducing your metabolic rate, affecting your ability to regulate temperature, reduce strength and stamina in the body, increasing the risk of urinary infections and cardiovascular diseases.

You also are shrinking your brain and reducing its ability to focus, problem-solve and pay attention. You are going to be fatigued, have lower mood than if you were hydrated plus have lower rates of sef-esteem.

Interestingly a morning coffee does count towards rehydration as the diruetic effect is not enough to have a huge impact unless you are having gallons of coffee. There is also evidence that shows milk provides good hydration so grab that early morning cappucino, but be mindful it may actually be doing you some good!

We all need to be careful of the effects of the sun on how young and pretty you look, so make sure that you slather that sunscreen all over yourself before you go outside, oh and grab those sunglasses too, so that you can look both cool and stop that full spectrum light getting to your brain.

So the cost of fashion and preventing those wrinkles is that you will not be getting enough serotonin produced by the brain to be stored in your pineal gland to be transformed into melatonin later.

Thats ok though, sleeping is cheating, or for the weak.

You will also be preventing the synthesis of vitamin D, but who needs that? Well if you are wanting to be unwell, no-one needs it.

Rushing to get wherever you need to, and not thinking or being present about what you are actually doing is a really good state to be in if you want to be vulnerable to developing depression, increased stress responses in the body, low mood, plus emotional and physical numbness. The most extreme sympton of this is complete dissassociation, where individuals can experience memory loss, perception of everything external being distorted and unreal with a blurred sense of reality.

You may go to a place of work, you may stay home and word, you may study, you may volunteer. Whatever you fill your day with, if you have too high a workload, with too much responsibility for getting all the tasks done in an unrealistic time period then you will in fact over time be less productive, have increase of errors and mistakes, and, feel completely overwhelmed.

You will have problems disconnecting with your tasks, with a knowing that your to do list never gets any less alongside a feeling of always being behind. You feel distant from family, friends and peers, with a belief that they do not understand, plus they also cannot help as they make more work than they take.

You have lost passion for anything and have little purpose or meaning.

In short you are going down a very slippery slope of unwellness.

You will suffer from sleep disorders, distraction, have a weakened immune system, a lack of energy for anything, mood swings or, indeed, anhedonia with lots of negative critic talk going on in your head. You will have difficulties in having any kind of balance in life, particularly on having meaningful relationships that can bring you joy, fun, play and support.

But it is all ok as you can join the vast majority of human beings who have been conditioned into believing that this is normal and that a single day of ‘self care’, taking a selfie with a tree, or by the sea, or with an animal, and then posting it on social media (to virtue signal) shows how you fully understand the ethos of self care and is enough to keep well.

Its not, but hey ho, lets keep doing it.

The central nervous system of human beings has not evolved since the dawn of homo sapiens. Human beings, evolved and were the successful species of humankind because they lived in tribes.

The group was important.

So important in fact that when there was the perception of disrespect, not being valued, and, not being cared for, there was a mechanism which sent out an unconscious alarm to heighten the stress response, to free up resources to fight, flight or freeze.

It literally was a life or death situation.

So it makes total sense (to be unwell) that we do not nurture quality relationships, we allow ourselves to think that ‘liking’ an online post is akin to someone valuing us, and that video calls are as good, if not better than face to face contact.

We need social touch, social posture, affective visual cues such as eye gazing and facial expressions.

When we are too busy, too isolated, too overwhelmed, too sad, too angry, too lonely to be amongst human beings then we really are changing structures within us that define us as being human.

When we do not have meaningful, or even shallow, connections with other humans it starts off by manifesting in us as increased anxiety, depression, reduced cognitive ability, sleep disorders, and suicidal ideation.

This continues into fear of people, negative coping strategies such as substance misuse, self harm, violence and aggression.

The brain shifts in structure and lack of connection is as much as a killer as smoking, alchohol and substance misuse.

It takes around 200 hours to turn a stranger into a close friend, you need frequent, quality contact to maintain the emotional depth of a meaningful relationship. That equates to around half an hour a day.

Thats too much right?

Especially when we are hell bent on being ill anyway.

An interesting fact though, when humans dont have enough quality friendships it literally changes the fabric of society that we live in.

What changes have you noticed recently?

Social behaviours that are necessary for a closely bonded, trusting and valuing group are laughter, singing, dancing, rituals, eating, and emotional story telling.

Intimate relationships depend on touch and close contact to survive and for humans to be human.

What does your social world look like? How many of the following do you have?

Intimates

Close friends

Best friends

Good friends

Friends

Acquaintances

Known names

Known faces

The averages that humans need to be optimally well are

Intimates - 1.5

Close friends - 5

Best friends - 15

Good friends - 50

Friends - 150

Acquaintances - 500

Known names - 1,500

Known Faces - 5,000

The first five on the list are the categories that have the greatest effect on our health and wellbeing.

When you consider all you have to do in a day, against the energy, time and resources needed to cultivate quality relationships, it becomes apparent why it is so much more easier to be socially isolated and unwell.

It is a really sobering consideration. Especially in how sick society has become.

So as you go through your day, how do you eat?

Do you eat because you are hungry?

Do you eat because you are told to?

Maybe you eat because you need something and society has taught you to feed that need with food.

Again, because of the pace of life, most human beings are relying on more processed food.

Do you ever look at the labels?

As a rule of thumb, anything that has more than five ingredients is not good for you long term. So will be a great boon to being unwell if you eat them.

They are made with profit in mind and are full of additives, preservatives and frankenstein ingredients.

Your dopamine pathways certainly will have been trained by processed food though to get that rollercoaster effect of high sugar content foods. These are not good for us but readily available and in this non-stop life of excess, we are certainly influenced so that they are part of our daily diet.

There is research that makes abundantly clear that without a diet that included generous amounts of animal protein then homo sapiens would not have evolved into modern, verbal, intelligent people.

Where does this stand in our push towards veganism?

If you have no time to stand, stare and nurture relationships, then there is a supposition that you have no time to prepare, care for and really enjoy the food that your brain and your body needs. The brain takes up the most energy and needs clean food.

It is totally true that we can have a plant based diet.

IF

We realise that no plant based foods can help us synthesize the B12 that we need to keep us healthy. So we have to have a clean supplement that can be metabolised by us easily so we have bioavailable B12.

For most people this has to be injectable. Once per month. Just taking oral supplements of a poor quality will not be helping our B12 levels.

But, it may kid us that we are saving the planet and keeping healthy.

When in fact it is doing nothing but storing up unwellness for now and in the future.

A sedentary lifestyle is one that is described as being one where an individual spends six hours or more per day sitting or lying down.

Signs that you are living a sedentary lifestyle is that you are struggling to sleep, you feel fatigued, have brain fog, aches and pains, gaining weight and generally feeling low.

Some of the diseases caused by living a sedentary lifestyle are having vein-related issues such as deep vein thrombosis. Heart disease and high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes are highly correlated as well as stress, anxiety and depression being on the list.

It is so easy to slip into a sedentary lifestyle, especially if you consider all of the demands on you, all that you are dealing with in a hgh stress situation, plus when we have all the ‘symbols of success’ that are aligned to a work strategy that keeps most people sat at a desk for most of their day.

That is all good though, as its an easy way of being unwell.

It all adds up.

We are moving into evening time now.

What’s your poison?

Netflix, glass of wine, something sweet, something saturated fatty, anything really to zone out.

Maybe its rushing here, there and everywhere, taking children to groups, answering emails on your phone, grabbing something to eat on the go. It may even involve taking your highly stressed body to a highly stressful workout at the gym.

Whatever you choose to do it will be instrumental in keeping your body in a highly stressed state, plus also indulging in negative coping strategies to keep you locked into the emotional dependency of it.

It wont be the restorative power of nothing.

Which is something that is extremely difficult to cultivate in life.

So best we stick to the familiar of over doing it.

Have you had time to play, to have fun or to just laugh today?

Rats are often used as animal models in neuroscientific research as their brains and our brains have similarities in areas.

In studies, when rats are given shelter, warmth, food, water, supposed safety from life they very quickly get depressed and die.

The reason?

They need play, fun and laughter to be well.

Human beings are the same.

When we are deprived of them we end up with hormone inbalance, depressed brains, inflammation, we age rapidly and are unable to problem solve or find creative solutions to the challenges of life.

It seems awfully counter-intuitive for most people these days to play, as its not really part of a routine that is about hard work. It is essential and is a preventative factor from a lot of lifestyle diseases.

Before we consider sleep. Let us consider light.

How much natural sunlight have you had today?

Enough to get serotonin stored to transmute to melatonin?

Studies consistently show that the amount of natural sunlight humans get in a day has a huge effect on their circadian rhythm, their homeostasis and the quality of their sleep. The more the better.

How much blue light have you had today?

Blue light in small doses, during the day is beneficial as it boosts attention, reaction times and heightens positive mood.

In too great a dosage and from evening time onwards it is not at all beneficial and in fact is detrimental.

Exposure to blue light suppresses the secretion of melatonin, with even low, dimmed blue light having an effect. Eight lux has an effect!

Blue light at night has been linked to disrupted sleep, depression, diabetes and cardiovascular issues. If you do not use dimmed red lights, avoid looking at screens two to three hours before bedtime and seek to be further stimulated then you are not going to get the rest, recuperation and renewal that you need from your night time.

Even if you do manage to fall asleep, you often do not stay for long enough in deep sleep which is when our deepest detox happens.

This causes inflammation in the brain and the body from which illness, diseased and unwellness can thrive.

So how well and unwellness are you?

Why is living unnaturally normalised to the degree that it is?

£216.8 billion pounds

That is the amount of money spent just in the UK on health needs through the department of health.

Let that sink in.

Being unwell is a big business.

£20.9 billion was spent on medication by the NHS in the UK in 2020. That figure will be much higher now.

It is extremely profitable for people to be just about functioning sick.

It is a market place where it is a disadvantage if your customer actually improves to the point of not needing medicine.

Public Health England completed an analysis into the top five prescribed medications, which shows that, in 2017 to 2018, 11.5 million adults in England (26% of the adult population) received, and had dispensed, one or more prescriptions for any of the medicines within the scope of the review.

The totals for each medicine were:

antidepressants 7.3 million people (17% of the adult population)

opioid pain medicines 5.6 million (13%)

gabapentinoids 1.5 million (3%)

benzodiazepines 1.4 million (3%)

z-drugs (sleeping tablets) 1.0 million (2%)

These medications are generally used to support the symptoms of the lifestyle issues desxcribed above.

antidepressants (for low mood, depression, eating disorders, mental distress, menopausal women)

opioids for chronic non-cancer pain

gabapentin and pregabalin (together called gabapentinoids and used to treat epilepsy, neuropathic pain and, in the case of pregabalin, anxiety)

benzodiazepines (mostly prescribed for anxiety)

z-drugs (sleeping tablets with effects similar to benzodiazepines)

Around £10 billion a year is spent on managing diabetes and its associated co-morbodities.

These figures are staggering.

For most people, they do not improve, they do not get well, they are in a managed decline.

It creeps upon them until they do not know how they are outsisde of their unwellness. It becomes part of their identity.

The majority of unwellness is lifestyle dependent.

We may be living longer, but the price is that we are living longer in pain, in suffering and dependent on a multitude of drugs to make every day just about tolerable.

I see so many people who are gradually sinking into chronic unwellness as they are too busy, too distracted, too sad, too angry, too isolated, too stressed to realise that is what is happening.

How well are you at being unwell?

In June I will be focusing on how we can all enhance a wellbeing routine that supports us all to be age well.

Ageing is a disease.

We can get older and wiser without getting sicker and weaker.

We can live our life without there being a sacrifice to our ability to be well.

It is both as simple and complex as that.

There is a lack of responsibility for personal autonomy, and a huge movement that is normalising unwellness, sickness and in particular mental distress.

It is time to take a look in the mirror and say to yourself

Do I want to be well, Do I want to age well, Do I want to feel well?

OR

Do I want to be unwell, Do I want to age in sickness, Do I want to feel unwell?

It is entirely up to you.

The only think I ask you to do, is to do either consciously.

Be the best at being well.

OR

Be the absolute best at being unwell.

Own it. Then at least you can say you chose your life path and every bit of unwellness came with conscious, deliberate action.

Do not be so tragic as to be unwell because you never thought of what harm you were doing to yourself.

That, indeed is the greatest shame.

The fact that we are living does not mean we are not sick.