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Post in Wellness Warriors
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Wellness In Progress: November 2024

November 2024 Wellness Bingo.jpg

Hey there, BIC! I don't know about you, but keeping up (or even just doing) things for my own wellness or self-care can slide off my radar or just get pushed aside for some other activity. That happens even more often at the end of the year and with the holidays.

 

Here we have a game of wellness bingo for November. I thought it would be a fun way to try to keep at it, or to keep it top of mind, by making a little game of it. I also thought this might be a good way to get a leg up on resolutions for the new year. Wellness takes work - let's do the work together, BIC!

 

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

🌻  There are a couple of ways to participate. You can aim every week (or every month) to try to check off a different 5-boxes in a row - vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. OR, to add a different take to this wellness challenge, you can use this sheet to see how many boxes you can check off this month. Those are just 2 ways to participate; I'm sure there are other ways and if there's an approach that you find works better for you to get in a little more self care, more regularly, please do share! 

 

BONUS CHALLENGE: This challenge is certainly one you can do on your own. It's also something we can take part in together! Share about the activities you did to earn each square. I love hearing from this Community - I learn about new things I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. Or, share challenges or questions.


🎀  We are all at different stages of our wellness / self-care journey. I'm not at expert at all at this and if there's an activity that is not something you are ready for or that you shouldn't engage in, make the adjustments you need to, or just skip the activity. For instance, the first square is to take a walk outside - if it's storming outside or you're in an area where it is not safe to walk outside (e.g., weather advisory, shelter-in-place, etc.), then skip this one and stay indoors. Be safe. For some of these activities, particularly the physical ones, please consult with your physician or health care provider before starting, if and as appropriate. 

 

  The time periods I included are arbitrary - if you want or can do more than a 10 minute walk outside, go for it. If you're starting out or if you're crunched for time, aim for 5 minutes and work up when, if and as appropriate for you.

 

🗒  Wondering about the activities mentioned in the squares? Check this out - Wellness In Progress: November 2024 - Activity Summary

 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

Amazing wellness activities glad to hear you were able to get some self care in ❤️ @ather 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

@peculiarzmakeup  Thank you!😊 it was nice!

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

Such great self care activities @ather! 😍 I looooove red polish and so fitting for the season! Thanks for the reminder - I need to give my nails / hands some TLC - on the to do list for tonight! 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

@itsfi  yes! Hands need TLC too!! Did you paint your nails? 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

@ather  great work, you have checked off so many already!

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

@caitbird  Thank you! I feel like I have done more that I missed. I only have a few more days to complete this! 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

So I wanted to do a "Tools: Self-Care Edition" as someone who has learned a lot living with a fully disabling condition (P.O.T.S) that often impacts how long I can stand and walk without fainting.

 

On my chart, the peach X's are things I have done since this challenge and can still do. The Maroon squares are activities I currently cannot do (walks, exercise, standing long enough to cook, stretching). The red-circled items are things I lean heavily into during times like this and still struggle with sometimes. I will drop some of the "self-care tools" I use to accomplish them below:

 

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BODY CARE: This one is the hardest for me right now. Showering is a challenge because heat from the shower and lifting my arms over my head while standing exasperate my syndrome. Here are some of the things I have learned from this for times you're having a difficult time working in a shower because you're too busy or just feeling down:

  • Most body wipes are worthless. If you want to be shower clean and don't have time to jump in I highly recommend Scrubzz Rinseless Body Wipes. They're pretty much medical grade, lather up when they get wet and you can towel off when you're done,
  • Get to know your favorite dry shampoos and refreshing products to extend the life of each hair wash. I'm a big Klorane With Oat Milk fan myself,
  • On days showering, doing your hair, and getting dressed feel overwhelming take things bite by bite and use breaks to indulge in enjoying a nice face mask, foot ritual, catching up on things you can do, or other forms of self-care like reading or sitting outside if you have a private space. The last time I showered, for example, the entire process took about two hours with a break between showering, getting dressed, and doing my hair but I found things to do sitting down like catching up on bills in between,
  • Try doing your hair, moisturizing, and make-up while sitting down if you have a floor-length mirror!
  • Pull self-care double or even triple duty and treat yourself to body care products you love or with aromatherapy or scent benefits to motivate and calm throughout the process,
  • Use BIC to motivate body care. Often I can't shower, for example, but doing the makeup challenges here gives me a reason to engage in my regular skincare routine and not shrug it off (and is something I can enjoy doing sitting down and helps me feel better about myself if I do it as I often struggle with feeling when I'm housebound I've "let myself go"),
  • If all else fails remember you're not dirty you're just sort of hygge and the Swedes don't shower often either.

STAY HYDRATED: As part of my condition hydration and electrolytes are crucial. Hydration is good for everyone but sometimes harder to achieve than it seems. Here are some things that help:

  • Get a water bottle that motivates you to drink at least 3.7 liters a day (or 90 ounces). I like the CamelBak Eddy bottles and also have a bottle that tells me I'm halfway there I refill, finish, and then know I've met my goal. Even having a color that matches your outfit or cool design goes a long way,
  • Sometimes plain water is just...blah. Consider flavor additives, electrolytes, or adding a lemon. Everyone is different but I go through about six Nuun Sport Lemon Lime electrolyte tablets a day and they're my favorite.

SPEAK KINDLY TO YOURSELF: This is still a real struggle for me. I often feel bad I can't stand to clean, shower more, or do yard work. I think everyone regardless of disability never feels like they have it all done and gets critical of themselves. I find it helps to validate right now I am doing all I can and my health is my biggest priority. Give yourself some grace and know that it's O.K. not to overextend and to put yourself first sometimes.

 

GRATITUDE (HOW FITTING FOR THANKSGIVING 😂😞

  • Focus on what you can do and have achieved compared to what's still left to work on or out of the question. For example, right now I could focus on the burgandy-blocked activities I can't do but look at all those peach things I still can do and enjoy!
  • Don't feel like you're limited to toxic-positivity or gratitude journals only. Research shows keeping a time-limited "venting" journal is as important as gratitude practices and every emotion is a healthy emotion when channeled productively,
  • Think of all the support you may have in life however limited it may be,
  • Eat turkey?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

I love how you know yourself and what works and what doesn’t it’s really cool to read about the process. I have POTS as well I lay down a lot and take a lot of breaks. I  struggle with being kind to myself too, you are such a joy and every conversation I have with you is a smile. I love learning and reading this taught me a lot. You did an amazing job! @PDXXXX  ❤️❤️❤️ 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

Oh no @peculiarzmakeup ! I'm sorry you have POTS as well: it's such an odd syndrome and hard to explain to people all the ways it impacts us. I'm glad to meet a fellow POTSie here though 🙂 I do think having a condition that limits what you can do stirs up a lot of negative self-talk we have to learn to combat. I'm getting better at it sometimes and still majorly struggle with it at other times. Lots of sitting down and breaks indeed, lol. You are such a doll. Hit me up anytime if you need a POTS buddy to lean on, I know it gets hard ❤️

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

You’re so sweet! Same for you ❤️ I love these wellness challenges really puts stuff in perspective 🙂 @PDXXXX 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

@PDXXXX, I like to have some body wipes or similar products in my gym bag for days when I might not have time to shower or when I'm traveling and I just want to feel more clean when I'm running to and through airports, so I will be sure to check out those wipes you mentioned. I've been using Luna Daily The Spray to Wipe Discovery Trio

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

Looking at my bingo card, my self care efforts for this week leaned more towards activities with a physical body care bent to them. Interesting. 🤔 

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🚰  Stay hydrated: I'm usually pretty good with staying hydrated but had a dip in my water intake for a couple of weeks. I keep a bottle of water in the fridge so if/when I'm rushing out the door, I can just grab and go. Also, with the rain in latter part of the week, I've also been drinking more warm water - warm water with lemon, warm water with thyme, warm water with lemon and thyme 😉 
 
🎀  Streeeeeetch - This is a good way for me to start up and wind down my day. I have found a couple that I do while still in bed, before I go through my go-to morning stretch routine.
 
🛌  Get a good night's sleep - Sleep, glorious sleep! I don't usually have any problem falling asleep; it's staying that way until it's time to get up to start my day. Waking up in the wee hours of the morning and not being able to fall back asleep (or only being able to do so for an hour at a time) makes me so much more exhausted the next day. Weekends are better. 
 
For the last couple of weeks, I've been testing out different activities to do when I can't get back to sleep and there's plenty of hours before what would be a decent hour to start my day. The one(s) that have worked best are: using my PEMF mat or journaling before heading back to bed, and, in each case reaching for a steam eye mask to (hopefully) help lull me back to sleep.  So far, the success rate has been 85/90% so I'm counting that as a win and checking off this box! 
 
💟  Practice gratitude: I have much to be thankful for. Even so, as with many things, some days are better than others when it comes to actually expressing that gratitude, or living it out in meaningful ways. Experience has taught me that it's helpful to have one or two tools or activities available to ground me and help me put that gratitude in practice. One of those things comes in the form of gratitude journals. I learned about a couple of good ones from a former coworker as well as one of our BIC beauties. The former kept a journal devoted to writing down, on a daily basis, one person or one occurrence that she appreciated that day. @fatimamummy  shared about using The Five Minute Journal or Gratitude Journal. I've incorporated both of these practices into my own journaling from time to time based on what resonates with me on a particular day, including this week.
 
🌻  Body care: Incorporating my PEMF mat into my wind down routine a couple of nights a week not only gets me using the mat I paid for (a huge plus!), but it has also been really good for reducing soreness and tension in my upper back. Win-win! This week, I added an extra night of it and went for a longer session, too - so relaxing!  Also, while I was doing some decluttering and organizing earlier this month, I found a gift card that I had forgotten about and used it for a massage this week. Ahhhh!!!
 

11.18 - 11.24.jpg

The yellow star are the self-care activities I focused on this week. 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

Amazing job on your bingo! I think it’s incredible how for each thing you thought of and implemented ways of helping them improve such as sleep I think it’s so difficult to fall back asleep I liked hearing about how you used the mat, these are such great thoughts and things to incorporate, they are all very meaningful! Amazing! @itsfi ❤️

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

Thank you for noticing @peculiarzmakeup. It's been good to work on the self-care activities and really nice to find ways to keep them doable. 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

Last Week I completed the top left diagonally

For this week I tried to do the other diagonally

 

Speak Kindly To Yourself

This one for me takes a very mindful approach I am often hard on myself, I struggle with this a bit but reminded myself to take a pause and reflect on things. I try to ask myself if I would look at someone saying or doing the same things as me in the same way and the answer is always no. So I try to say to myself what I would say to someone else and observe how feel without judgement rather with grace empathy and compassion. 

 

Treat Yourself

I got some pecan pie! 
Lived in the moment.

Lots of naps this week 

 

Free Space 

Cleaned my room! Got some organizers at Target put things away, and swept! This was a great feeling! Clothes declutter

 

 

Sleeping Well

I sometimes drink caffeine a bit late in the day I was mindful to make sure I stopped having it around 12pm. This led to a lot more rest than usual! 

 

Digital Detox

My phone is always glued to me haha but I did create a collage to use to set on my phone two hours before bed as a reminder, visuals are helpful for me! 

IMG_4750.jpeg

yay for Bingo! 

the cat hitting snooze made me smile 😊 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

@peculiarzmakeup, fantastic work with your self-care! You picked some challenging squares and you nailed all of them! 👊 You got BINGO! Woohoo! 

 

I love coffee, I love the smell of coffee - beans being ground, coffee as its brewing. Good call on calling off coffee at a certain point in your day. Though I have noticed, or I noticed when I went out more, that if I had coffee with my dessert or just after dinner, I'd sleep better. Odd, I know. 

 

Good to have reminders for taking a break from your phone/electronics - setting an alarm and having your visual cues are meaningful tools. 👍 Do you have any go-to activities you particularly enjoy doing or look forward to when you're disconnecting from your electronics?

 

 

bingo .png

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

Thank you @itsfi I like to write whether that be poems or something else but they always seem to rhyme, I also just like to reflect on my day or make lists. I like coffee too but it puts me to sleep haha I like diet soda or matcha I used to work at Starbucks but I do too love the smell of coffee 🙂 thank you for the encouragement I appreciate it! 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

@peculiarzmakeup, reflecting on the day is an excellent practice. 💖

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

@peculiarzmakeup  Great job! I also have a hard time speaking kindly about myself! But it’s good to work on! I need to start my digital detox too. I’m good throughout the day I normally loose my phone but night is my only time to do the things that make me happy so that one will be hard for me! 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

Thank you so much! I agree about digital detox it will be interesting to see what I’m reaching for when I try to use my phone like what is handy about the phone haha great job too ❤️ @ather 

Re: Wellness In Progress: November 2024

This is a great thread. I m all over the places but will try to keep up. I should be able to do so by the end of the month since I’m off work til then. I need to catch up with my reading. I haven’t done so for soo long. Confession; digital detox happens by chance since I was too busy to looking up at my phone or iPad after dinner for the last couple week. Pet and human all need cares in my house 😂🤣

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