13 Good health powers creativity
Good health is an attribute that we often take for granted when we have it, but miss it dearly when we are ill. Being healthy powers creativity because when you are ill your creative abilities are limited to surviving the negative effects of your poor health. For this reason, good health greatly contributes to being more creative and successful in your workplace.
The reason this works is that work and creativity, in particular, require the expenditure of energy, time, ideas and resources that can become exhausted and need to be replenished often. Some of the more common ways to rejuvenate ourselves include:
- Taking adequate time to rest and relax
- Getting enough sleep
- Eating healthy foods in healthy proportions
- Engaging in enough physical exercise
- Have a healthy variety of activities in your life
Taking adequate time to rest and relax
Work can be stressful and exhausting. I need to take time out in my day to take breaks from my work to refresh and recharge myself to continue working effectively. Often a change is as good as a rest so I also change the tasks I am working on. On a weekly basis, I find it invaluable to take one day a week off from work and do other things. Taking vacations once or twice a year is also a great way for me to recharge and be more productive when I am back at work again.
Are you taking enough time to rest and relax to recharge yourself?
Getting enough sleep
Sleep is very different than just resting, you actually need to get several hours of sleep as well. How much sleep is enough for you? View this short video of Arianna Huffington talking about success and sleep.
Watch this TED Talk by Matt Walker about how Sleep is your superpower.
Are you getting enough sleep? How could you get more sleep regularly? https://youtu.be/5MuIMqhT
I find that sleep is like a debt; you can borrow against your account when you are in a jam but you eventually have to repay that debt or suffer the consequences, which may lead to illness or injury. Or at least I thought of sleep this way before watch the TED talk by Matt Walker. But I am convinced that the lack of sleep will definitely suppress your creativity. What is your experience?
Check out this article about an interesting way to get more productive sleep by Dr. Travis Bradberry “4 Ways Sleeping Naked Makes You Healthier and Wealthier”
Eating healthy foods in healthy proportions
Are you eating enough fruits and vegetables? For most of us, this is the part of our diets that is the most neglected. I find the chart below very helpful to remind me what foods I should be eating and in what proportions. I also find using 9-inch dinner plates very helpful, as well as drinking enough water. I try to drink about 2 litres a day. One strategy that works is to fill a 2-litre bottle of water in the morning and make sure you drink it all before the day is out.
(http://www.health.harvard.edu/plate/healthy-eating-plate)
How can you improve your eating and water drinking habits to improve your health and creativity?
How good are you with managing stress in your life? Watch this video about how to make stress your friend.
Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend https://youtu.be/RcGyVTAoXEU
Engaging in enough physical exercise
Are you active enough? Although it is important to balance your eating with your activity to manage your weight, it is also important to be physically active enough to keep your body in a healthy state. Activity can be anything that gets you moving and the more variety the better. Fun activities have the appeal to help you engage in them more often.
There are many popular forms of physical exercise but simple forms of activities like walking are also very healthy and low-risk activities that are easy to do. I bike 20 kilometres 4 days a week and do strength training with weights twice a week to keep healthy. This has really made a difference to my health. It also helps my creativity because of the hour or so a day I have to reflect on problems and challenges I am working on.
I am now using Google Fit, google.com/fit, to help me track my physical activities. It is free and works great on my Android phone. It is very easy to use as it will automatically detect when I am walking, running or riding my bike. I also use a heart rate monitor to help me monitor my heart rate which exercising. There are many other apps for Android and iPhones that you can try.
Are you getting enough physical exercise? What changes can you make to help you get enough?
Here are some posts that may help you:
- 10 Ways You CAN Exercise At Home without Any Equipment by Suzanne Hiscock
- Top 25 At-Home Exercises from acefitness.org
And what about just walking more. Check out these two videos:
Walking with Sandwiches: Ben’s New Year’s Resolution https://youtu.be/eeOf006HCf8
What can you do today to get more physical exercise?
Have a healthy variety of activities in your life.
All work and no play is not healthy. You need a variety of things in your life to help you not only to recharge and rejuvenate, but also to add quality to your life beyond the workplace.
Do you live to work, or do you work to live?
Where do you find the passions and joys in your life? How can you make more time for those really valuable aspects of your life?
What habits would you like to add to or remove from your life? Watch this short (3min) talk about how to try something new for 30 days. That appears to be the right length of time to make new habits or break old ones.
Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days https://youtu.be/JnfBXjWm7hc
Here are two interesting articles from ba-bamail.com about some interesting phone apps and habits that will help you live a healthier life.
7 Apps for a Better Life
What Are the Good (and Bad) Habits of Very Smart People?
Challenge:
What can you do better to promote a healthier life for yourself right now? What is preventing you from living a healthier and happier life?
Check out this website http://mtroyal.read101.ca/ and look for one thing you could be doing that you are not doing to promote a healthier life as a student.
