by Eric Ulchakere | May 20, 2020 | Health
Good morning, and welcome to the new “What is…?” series on the Apportis blog! Every Monday, I’ll post a quick and easy to read informational article about an important topic in healthcare. Today’s topic is….(drumroll please)…wellness!
The Merriam-Webster definition of wellness is:
“The quality or state of being in good health especially as an actively sought goal.”
Some synonyms are “sap,” “fitness,” and “heartiness.” Just for fun, the antonyms are “illness,” “sickness,” and “unsoundness.”
If wellness means actively seeking good health…what does that look like? What exactly is the difference between health and wellness, anyway?
The World Health Organization says that “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” while wellness is the “active process of becoming aware of and making choices toward a healthy and fulfilling life.”
In other words, wellness is the continual effort to try to be healthy. Since everyone is on different places in their wellness journey, here are a few things that you can do to put more focus on your own personal wellness:
- For one day, log what you’re eating: are you eating enough whole foods? Do you eat a lot of salty food in the mid-afternoon? Take stock of what you’re putting in your body so you can figure out if you can make any adjustments (cut out pop, limit sugar) in order to care for your body a little more.
- Incorporate thirty minutes of “you time” somewhere in your day. Whether that means bringing a book at lunch, or waking up early to do yoga, dedicating a part of your day to your own wellness will be sure to shape your day for the better.
- Learn how to make your wellness a priority, even if that means canceling some plans.
TLDR; Wellness is the journey toward a healthy lifestyle. And just like all journeys, it happens one step at a time.
by Eric Ulchakere | May 20, 2020 | Uncategorized
Three thousand, five hundred miles. That’s roughly how far it is from Columbus, Ohio, to the Grand Canyon National Park and back. It’s a daunting distance. When I told my parents that I was planning on going on a road trip with two of my friends, they were excited for me. When I told them the road trip was to the Grand Canyon, they were more than a little concerned.
“Do you know how far away that is?” My mom asked me. I told her of course I knew—I had planned the road trip. I used Google and some common sense to plan the itinerary. I picked cities that were around eight hours apart from each other on the major highways going to the Grand Canyon. I didn’t know what those cities would be like or what it would feel like to be that far away from home, in states I had never been to. My mom wasn’t impressed with my plans, which I knew seemed scanty, though I had made all the arrangements I possibly could have.
I knew my road trip plans sounded scary, dangerous, a little unnecessary. But I also knew I was scaring my mother simply because I was entering a situation that was largely unknown.
If I’m being perfectly honest (even at the cost of getting an “I told you so” from my mom), I was pretty nervous about the trip. As my departure day got closer and closer, I became increasingly worried. What if I messed up the AirBnb reservation? What if we had to drive in terrible weather? What if it was much harder than I was planning on, hoping for? What if, after all the work we put into planning, and all the money we spent on the trip, it ended up being a mistake?
Spoiler: I was fine. The trip was wonderful. We had no problems with the car, we ate tons of really good Mexican food, and I brought back a souvenir for everyone.
Funny enough, there was no specific moment when I knew I was going to be okay. The trip was an idea, a monster of a feat, an expense, a risk. But when I got into my car and actually left my neighborhood, and got onto the highway, I remembered what it was that I was doing: driving. All I was doing was going from one place to another. And when I thought about it, I realized that’s all I ever have done, or will do. We live in constant motion.
Knowing you want to go to the Grand Canyon can be dizzying, because when you think about it, you think you’re going to do it all at once. You think of the goal as a composite of anticipated experiences. You tell people what you’re going to do, and you feel the weight of all the hours you’re going to be spending in the car, how many gas stations you’re going to have to pee in, how many times you’ll be hungry or tired or nervous or just uncertain.
But that isn’t how a road trip works. The point is that you take your time. You split up the days. You make pit stops. You enjoy yourself. You don’t let yourself get freaked out about mountain driving or bad weather. You just drive. You take the next turn. You check how the gas is doing.
Here’s the truth about my trip to the Grand Canyon: it was not a trip to the Grand Canyon. It was a trip to my best friend’s house in Illinois, where we played Fleetwood Mac on the local pizza joint’s jukebox; it was a trip to Omaha, Denver, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, St. Louis and the places in between.
I saw the Grand Canyon, but I also saw red mountains, and desert that looked like it had never been touched by people. I met three stray dogs and saw an actual tumbleweed. I outdrove a storm, gained an education through podcasts, and at some point, stopped for a McFlurry.
Before I left, I couldn’t believe what I was doing. And after? The experience still feels bigger than it was. When I think about how crazy it seems to have done that, and all the risks that my friends and I took, I remind myself that I could do it again. It all ended up being very simple. Just put your last bag in the car, turn on the ignition, and drive.
I am a senior in college. The majority of my life is still in the future. My friends and I spend our nights talking about what we want to do, who we want to be. Someone wants to be a diplomat. Another wants to remodel the education system. These goals are so distant to us, they almost seem fictitious.
So much of what we want, as people, seems impossible. Maybe it’s losing weight, or teaching your children how to be healthy, or improving your mental wellbeing. Maybe you want a new job or to go back to school. Maybe you’re too afraid to start.
Dreams—the goals we want, more than anything—are intimidating. I consider this to be a curse, and a blessing: a curse, because we are liable to convince ourselves that what we want is too big for us. We do not know what our futures hold, or what we are capable of, but we do know, for instance, that 3500 miles is quite a distance.
But dreams are blessing to us, though they breed uncertainty, because it is within this uncertainty that we act anyway. We do not know if we will arrive at our goals, or if our plans will go well. All we know is that we can try. And in trying, we know what we really want, and who we really are.
If you could do anything, even if it freaks out your mom, what would you do?
Will you?
by Eric Ulchakere | May 20, 2020 | Health
It looks too big to tackle, but just start climbing and see what happens
Momentum
First point of business is to apologize for the long delay in posting. Apportis is going through some major growth and I have been focusing on everything else, leaving little time for “me.”
The good news is that I have retained most of the weight loss that has occurred since first starting this journey. The bad news is that I have lost all momentum and I am once again at the bottom of the mountain looking up. It took a conversation with my coach through the platform to refocus me and task me to find time to work on myself.
But wow, that mountain looks bigger this time around.
Any tips on how to motivate yourself once you get off-course would be gladly welcomed, what do you do?
Looking at my Calendar I have my Birthday facing me and we have a house guest staying with us for 2 weeks… I am going to struggle to get my diet back under control.
I don’t want to sound too glum, I do have some incredible results from what I have done so far. I had to have my biometrics done for a Life Insurance policy last Friday and my blood pressure is now in the normal range (tested 3 times) and my resting heart rate is down nearly 20 beats per minute!
I know this works and I know I need to regain that momentum because amazing things can happen.
Time to tackle a mountain.
by Eric Ulchakere | May 20, 2020 | Health
The Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, is a source of tension between the Democrat and Republican parties. While the GOP has tried to repeal the ACA, it remains in place. The city of Columbus is suing on the grounds that President Trump and his administration are attempting to undermine the Affordable Care Act, a violation of a clause of the Constitution which holds that sitting presidents must uphold laws. A large part of the alleged violation is due to the rhetoric of President Trump and his administration, including the President’s tweets about the law.
Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein said the lawsuit is not about politics.
“I don’t care what party the president is. What this partisan president is doing is undermining the insurance markets and preventing our citizens from providing good quality health insurance for their kids,” he said. “That’s what’s at stake. If you don’t have your health, you have nothing.”
Read the full article from The Columbus Dispatch here.
by Eric Ulchakere | May 20, 2020 | Health
I just got back from vacation. It was great, don’t get me wrong. But after a week or two of sitting around, having nothing pressing to do…I was ready to have something to do. This morning, I woke up ready to work.
Vacations are great because you get to experience life with little worries. There’s something empowering about relaxing for so long; I know that, at least for me, chilling out allows me to put the rest of my life in perspective.
At the end of my trip, I was thinking a lot about how I wish I could bottle up the feeling that a good two-week long vacation gives me. I figured there has to be a way to get the benefits of a vacation without actually going on one; especially because I don’t think it’s practical for everyone to take two week holidays all the time.
What is a vacation but doing what you want for a little bit, without having your to deal with your usual and ever-growing list of things you need to do, anyway? Surely we can all incorporate a little, half-an-hour vacation into each of our weeks, if not days.
Call it me-time, call it self-care—I’m going to call it a thirty-minute vacation, because I think it sounds fun.
Here are some ideas to incorporate a little break into your every day:
- Wake up early enough to make a cup of coffee/tea/water and actually sit down to drink it. I can’t tell you how many cups of coffee I’ve left on the kitchen counter that I wish I had enough time to finish. Drink while you read the paper, listen to a podcast, or just sit in blessed silence.
- Set an expectation for yourself that you’ll go offline at least thirty minutes before you actually want to go to sleep. Use these thirty minutes for good, not evil. This means you need to do something that actually relaxes you during this time, and not something that sounds like it’s relaxing, but really isn’t. Watching the news is a great example of something that sounds innocuous but can be a huge stressor for people.
- If you can’t set aside 30 minutes a day because of your job or your kids, make sure you get an hour in each weekend of doing whatever it is that you find relaxing. If this means sleeping in, getting lunch with a friend, or watching your favorite Netflix show, it’s so important that you find time to refresh yourself. Knowing you can find time for yourself, and that it’s important to do so, will absolutely help you tackle life with a higher level of enthusiasm.
- Exercise! As if the endorphins aren’t enough, taking time to take care of yourself physically and mentally will make you feel better than, dare I say it, a long week of doing nothing.
- Cook something nice for lunch the next day. Put on some nice music and treat your future self to a thoughtfully prepared meal that you wouldn’t usually take for lunch.
Find something that makes you relax and do it passionately. Life is too short to not enjoy yourself vacation-to-vacation.
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