Physical Necessities

Every body has certain basic needs that society in general seems to be ignoring more and more as the decades roll on. To live well, we need to have healthy bodies. To have healthy bodies, we need to care for our bodies as much as we care for our favorite pets: Feeding healthy food, watering daily (sometimes several times a day because the fluff ball tips the bowl), bathing, brushing, medical attention when concerning symptoms arise, exercise, playful interactions, visiting our favorite friends, and ensuring adequate sleep are things we do for our pets because we know that nobody else will take care of these things for our partially helpless furbabies; these are also things nobody else is going to do for me if I don't, and nobody else will take care of for you if you don't happen to have round the clock care workers and you don't act in your best interest in these matters.

For now, let's focus on cleaning up our bedtime routines so we sleep better and can focus more easily. It seems every week we have another study out showing how certain modern technological advancements are interfering with our sleep patterns, so let's start by turning off all screens about an hour before going to bed, and making sure that all of the lights we have on during that hour are yellow, orange, or even red to help our eyes and minds experience the natural shutdown sequence that comes with reducing blue light within view. For even better results, let's keep our bedtime routine slow and relaxed as we calm down for the night: Dim lighting, gently brushing teeth, washing and moisturizing face, calmly choosing tomorrow's outfit, and changing into whatever version of night clothes you prefer, then calmly crawling into bed. Keeping close to the same sleep and wake times can also help us sleep more deeply for a more effective repair time each night.

After adding in the nutritional and exercise aspects, sleeping well will become even easier. Just remember that before we can exercise effectively, our sleep routines must be sorted out fairly nicely so we're not too exhausted for exercising daily. And if we're too tired, we won't remember to follow through with our dietary requirements. Sort your sleep, and I'll sort out my sleep, and I'll have another resilience action piece for you in May.

In the coming months, I will dig further into each category because meeting your physical requirements most of the time is necessary for building long term resilience and living your best life for real rather than having to fake it and use all of the fancy filters to clean up social media pictures and videos.