Does Adaptability Impact Our Health?

At HeartFIT, we recognise that your mental health and emotional wellbeing is just as important as your physical health. As such, when we talk about topics like adaptability, it is our hope that we can encourage you to train a healthy mindset as you train a healthy body. 

Big changes in our lives, particularly when they are negative or overwhelming, often greatly impact our mental and emotional health. Adaptability is a skill that can help us combat feelings that are weighing us down, and to accept things and remain positive as we get on with life.

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The following information comes from an article by Life Zemplified. It explains some benefits to becoming adaptable, and how we can increase our adaptability. Check out the link at the bottom of this section to read the full article.

So, what does being adaptable mean?

A quality said to be essential to the success of many is the ability to adapt to a continuously changing environment. Experts say our capacity to adjust to a variety of different circumstances is essential to enjoying a happy and satisfying life.
 
“Our ability to have life satisfaction, to be happy [and] to have good relationships really depends on our ability to adapt.” - Guy Winch, Ph.D.
 
When we are adaptable, we:

• Stay calm and persisting in demanding circumstances
• Embrace new challenges enthusiastically
• Deal with setbacks quickly and positively
• Easily see the bigger picture
• Create and enjoy win-win relationships

With the ability to adapt we are:

• More valuable to our employers and our spouses or partners
• Better leaders in our organizations, our homes, and our communities
• Better able to handle life stages and career transitions
• Better equipped to bounce back from adversity more quickly

And finally, we’ll be happier and more satisfied with life, as we no longer struggle with feelings of helplessness or hopelessness.

To increase our adaptability, we can practice:

• Accepting. Understand that change happens and accept new tasks and projects with a positive attitude. Be helpful and cooperative.
• Learning. The more information you integrate into your knowledge base, the more you have to draw on when faced with new circumstances and challenges. This increases your intellectual flexibility and ability to keep on open mind in the face of change.
• Creating. Seek out new ways of doing things, experimenting with how you tackle responsibilities and challenges. Adopt differing methods and approaches to solving issues and meeting varying needs.
• Being Receptive. Keep an open mind and actively listen to other ideas, knowledge, and experiences. Look for positive nuggets of information that you can use to achieve new roles and responsibilities.
• Being Spontaneous. You never know what opportunities you might miss if you keep a closed and rigid mindset. Try changing your plans at the last minute. Accept a last-minute invite. Drive a different way home. Learn improv. Play.
• Embracing. Practice staying calm and accepting when unexpected changes occur. Strive to find ways to make changes work instead of looking for problems or reasons why they won’t work.

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Remember, it initially may require a strong will and discipline to accept change, but it will eventually become natural with time and practice. Adaptability is a skill, and it's something we can all learn to help us maintain a healthy and positive mindset. 

5 Strategies for Adapting to Change
Kathryn Sandford, an author and professional life coach, gives us five strategies we can use to adapt to change. 

1. Changing Your Mindset – Your Power Choice. We like to live our lives in our comfort zone. Our subconscious likes this because it is the “known”. Embracing change is stepping into the unknown and our subconscious will does not like the “unknown,” so it will resist.

Our fear and self-limiting beliefs will kick into action when we are faced with the disruptive consequences of change. There is no escaping the fact that change is a disruptor and it feels uncomfortable and scary. However, it is our power of choice that enables us to activate positive change in our lives. We cannot control the events of change in our life, but we can control how we react to the impact that these events have on our lives.

The more you use your power of choice and the more you focus your mindset on positively adapting to change, the more resilient you will be to dealing with impact that change will bring to your life.

2. Find Meaning in Life. Knowing what is important in your life gives you purpose and sets the direction of how you want to live your life. With a sense of purpose and meaning in life, you have clarity and focus and both these elements are essential to you being able to successfully adapt and manage the impact of change in your life.

Having no purpose or meaning means that you tend to drift in life within the confines of your comfort zone. Purpose and meaning in life gives you the courage to step out of your comfort zone – which is where you will find change and the opportunities it can offer to you.

3. Let Go of Your Regrets. Regrets have a huge impact on how you respond to change and they hold you back in life. Letting go of your regrets is key to you being able to move forward in life.

You cannot change what you did or did not do in the past. The only control you have now is to choose to live in your present and future life.

A great exercise to deal with regrets in life is to cut up some pieces of paper and on each piece write a regret. Then, let the paper go. Rip it up or scrunch the paper into a ball and throw it away. Say goodbye out loud to that regret and remind yourself that everything is okay now.

4. Write a List of Scary Things to Do – Then Go Do Them. Change is scary and it is all about stepping out of your comfort zone into the unknown. Our subconscious needs to get familiar with us stepping out of a comfort zone and doing scary things. 

Make a list of scary things that you would like to do but have been too afraid to. Put a plan in place and then go do them. Go have fun, challenge yourself and get yourself used to the feeling of being scared and stepping into the unknown. (NB: Stay safe - save trying out this step until COVID-19 is no longer a risk to your health). 

5. Focus on Living a Balanced and Healthy Life. Living a balanced and healthy active life builds our resilience and ability to successfully manage the disruption that change can have on our lives.

Stress is a normal response to dealing with changes and challenges in daily life. In the short term, stress can help you perform better under pressure, but constant stress can pose problems for your health. Finding positive ways to deal with the stress and pressure that we face daily is key to our survival on both a physical and emotional level.
 
Check out the rest of Kathryn's article by clicking the button below:

Adapting to and Embracing  Change
 
Adaptability is a skill that can greatly improve your quality of life. If change is accepted as a natural part of life, you will be better equipped to deal with it when it comes. 

Dr. Barton Goldsmith, an author and professional therapist, has some sentiments to share about embracing change. He says:

"If the changes in your life are overwhelming, you don’t have to deal with them all by yourself. Friends, family, support groups, and counselors are available, but you do have to reach out and ask, which can be hard. It may be a struggle, but you don’t have to suffer. The love of those who care for you can make life much easier to deal with.

Life can be difficult to navigate in our fast-moving society. Things are changing so quickly these days that by the time you’ve opened the box of your new mobile phone, it’s probably already obsolete. Learning (at your own pace) to deal with the changes going on around you is a great survival tool. We used to say “Go with the flow,” and that may be the most comfortable way to deal with the future."

On a similar note, doctor, writer, and keynote speaker, Dr. Shimi Kang, has a unique method of learning adaptability. She has done a TED Talk on the topic, and it is well worth a watch if you have a spare 20 minutes on hand. You can find out more on the ideas spoken about in the video by clicking HERE.
Check out Dr. Kang's video below:

Top 8 Benefits of Deep Breathing Exercises
Check out these top benefits of deep breathing from therapist Andrea Watkins at Urban Balance.

1. Decreases stress, increases calm. By taking deep breaths, your heart rate slows, more oxygen enters our blood stream and ultimately communicates with the brain to relax. Deep breathing also ups your endorphins, the “feel good” chemical.

2. Relieves pain. When the body releases endorphins, not only they help you feel good, but they combat pain too.

3. Stimulates the lymphatic system (detoxifies the body). Breathing is in charge of 70% of cleansing the body of toxins (the other 30% is through bladder and bowels). If you do not breathe fully, your body must work overtime to release these toxins.

4. Improves immunity. When your blood is fully oxygenated, it carries and absorbs nutrients and vitamins more efficiently. Essentially, the cleaner the blood, the harder it is for illnesses to stay in your system.

5. Increases energy. The more oxygen that is in the blood, the better your body functions. It also improves stamina.

6. Lowers blood pressure. As your muscles relax, your blood vessels dilate, which improves circulation and lowers blood pressure. Deep breathing also slows and regulates the heart rate, which also helps lower your blood pressure.

7. Improves digestion. The more you breathe deep, the healthier blood flow you will produce, which promotes your organs to function more effectively, including your intestines.

8. Helps correct body posture. Next time you breathe in, notice that you simultaneously lengthen and straighten your spine. In order to take a deep breath in, your lungs take up maximum space, your diaphragm pulls down, so in turn your torso straightens in order for this to be possible.

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Click "Read More" for some methods of deep breathing you can try right now. 

So, how is deep breathing achieved? 

Just like any exercise, deep breathing takes a bit of practice before you start noticing the benefits of its effects. With deep breathing, there are different types of techniques that you can use to achieve a positive result. 

The 4-7-8 Method

The 4-7-8 breathing technique, also known as “relaxing breath,” involves breathing in for 4 seconds, holding the breath for 7 seconds, and exhaling for 8 seconds.

Before starting the breathing pattern, adopt a comfortable sitting position and place the tip of the tongue on the tissue right behind the top front teeth.

To use the 4-7-8 technique, focus on the following breathing pattern:

1. Empty the lungs of air
2. Breathe in quietly through the nose for 4 seconds
3. Hold the breath for a count of 7 seconds
4. Exhale forcefully through the mouth, pursing the lips and making a “whoosh” sound, for 8 seconds
5. Repeat the cycle up to 4 times.

Check out the video below for a more thorough explanation from Dr Andrew Weil: 

The Diaphragmatic Breathing Method

The Diaphragmatic Breathing exercise emphasises feeling connected to your body. It requires laying down, so make sure you have a comfortable spot to do lie before trying this. Take some time out of your day to practice this method by doing the following:

1. Lie down on a comfortable surface with your legs spread comfortably and your arms relaxed alongside your body. Feel and connect with the ground beneath your body, placing both hands on your lower abdominal, just below your rib cage.

2. Start by focusing on the inhale and exhale and notice the rise of the inhale and the fall of the exhale. Breathing in through your nose, your belly rises, and breathing out through your nose, the belly comes down. Allow there to be a pause between each breath. 

3. Can you feel the breath in your belly? If not, try bending your knees, keeping your feet on the ground. This will help the breath to come down into the lower abdominal.

Can you feel the rise and fall of your belly as you breathe? Imagine as you inhale that there is a balloon inside or a ball of light expanding with each breath. This is a deep diaphragmatic breath.

More Deep Breathing Exercises

Mindful Breathing. This involves becoming aware of your breath and focusing on it. It does not involve trying to change the way you breathe. However, the act of focusing on the breath usually slows down breathing patterns, making you feel more relaxed. As you focus on how air moves in and out through your lungs, mouth and nose, it becomes a form of calming meditation.

Mantra Breathing. This technique makes use of a mantra to help focus on your breath. A mantra is a phrase or word that you repeat to yourself to create focus. As you repeat it, you become able to relax and meditate.

Square Breathing. This employs visualization to create focus. As you inhale, visualize one side of a square. Then, visualize the next side of the square as you exhale. Repeat the process until you have imagined each side of a square.

Nostril Breathing. This technique can help to reduce agitation and anxiety. As you breathe you close off one nostril and take air in slowly through the other. Then switch, closing off the second nostril while breathing through the first. Repeat the process until you begin to feel calmer.

Read more by clicking the button below:

Enjoy new healthy and refreshing recipes from Isabella at EatSmart Nutrition each month. 

What increases your risk of a stroke? 

Age is only one of many stroke risk factors. Some factors depend on your lifestyle choices, others on your medical history, and then there are risk factors that you cannot control.

The most common   lifestyle factors    to increase your likelihood of a stroke are:

• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Smoking
• Obesity or being overweight
• Poor diet
• Lack of exercise
• Excessive alcohol consumption

The possible   medical factors    are:

• An irregular pulse (atrial fibrillation)
• Diabetes
• Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD)
• A previous transient ischaemic attack (TIA)

Some   factors you cannot control  are:

• Age
• Gender (men are statistically more likely to suffer a stroke)
• Family history

The Stroke Foundation website is a helpful resource for anyone interested in learning more about what a stroke is and how it can be prevented.