“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16)
God has created us to be body, soul and spirit and the Bible reveals God’s will for us in all of these areas. Sometimes we have limitations beyond our control, but generally speaking the healthier we are in body the better we are equipped to fulfil our calling. Therefore let God’s Word dwell inn you richly that it might strengthen your faith and discipline your life.
“To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1 In the church’s calendar there are but a few weeks between Christmas and Lent, between feasting and fasting. Aesteticism has no real value in the Christian life – if we can on occasions fast as unto the…
Reading Dr. Sue’s article on Ebola, my thoughts easily led on to a spiritual consideration of this modern-day plague which is devastating West Africa, especially Sierra Leone and Liberia….. I wondered about the large Christian congregations in these parts of the world and how they were responding to the challenge? Had they shut up shop…
There is no shortage of religious “experts” offering childrearing advice. Whilst much of this is in the context of instilling a godly character, the practical application of ‘training up a child in the way he/she should go’ (Proverbs 22:6) surely needs to include an awareness that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and…
Why are mental problems and disabilities on the rise? Could it be that we overlook the Bible’s keys to healthy, positive thinking? It has been reported that five of the 10 leading causes of disability worldwide … are mental conditions, these being: major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, alcohol abuse and obsessive-compulsive disorders. In addition,…
Last month I addressed the question: Should the church teach health education? Encouraged by the response to this article I am continuing in a somewhat similar vein this month. Becoming a committed Christian is to choose, by default, to swim against the tide. Indeed, it can be argued that it is impossible to follow Christ…
Presenting our health-related ministry at the Christian Resource Exhibition was a fascinating experience. I choose the word ‘fascinating’ very deliberately, because, whatever else it achieved, it was quite an eye-opener in respect to human (Christian?) behaviour in respect to this hot topic. Strange isn’t it, that whilst the vast majority of churches now accept the…
I have just been reading Susan Ruff’s article for this month on Summer Fitness and had to smile when I came to the heading marked OAP, which in Susan’s terms of reference stands for Older Active Person! I’m 65 next month so-yes- I’ve had five years already to get used to the idea of being…
The other day I stumbled across an article written by a lady who (like so many of us) has battled hard and long over the issue of emotional eating. When we fail to live up to our hopes and expectations we can easily beat ourselves up with feelings of guilt and shame, but this ultimately…
“In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.“ (Psalm 4:8) “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.” (Psalm 3:5) “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious…
When it comes to controlling our appetite we so often feel both weak and vulnerable. The desire to live healthily and not to overeat is there, but in practice it’s often a different story. ‘The mind is willing but the flesh is weak,’ said Jesus. Amen to that! So, if the flesh is weak, why…
THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGE
We all have parts of our life we want to change. Whether we want to weigh less, exercise more, quit smoking, save money regularly, declutter our home, work towards that new job or one of any number of possibilities, it seems that there is always room for improvement. Part of our problem is information overload; in the hazy days of yesteryear we often didn’t know what we needed to do in order to achieve our goals unless we could consult face to face with an expert or spend hours trawling through the tomes in our local library, and experts and books were generally carefully vetted. These days we have the opposite; a few seconds in the company of our favourite search engine will throw up thousands of answers- of extremely variable accuracy - to most questions; the challenge is to know which ‘expert’ opinion to trust.
Given a little experience it is possible to sift out the good stuff, and in the days of fake news and fact checking it has become an indispensable skill that many of us have acquired. So, with some Wi-Fi and a modicum of common sense, we can generally download enough information to learn how to move towards whatever our current goal is with just a few clicks. We know what we ‘should’ do, we no longer have any excuses in that department. The problem is doing it.
We live in a society where it is easier to not reach our goals than it is to comprehensively smash them. We may have the very best of intentions to eat less, move more, spend less, save more, digitally detox, or many other activities that form the basis of a typical New Year’s resolution, but with the food and leisure industries spending millions every year inducing us to part with our hard earned cash it’s an upward struggle. And all of this flies in the face of our most basic neurological wiring – the need to seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy. It really does take most of us all of the self-talk in the world to drag ourselves out to that 6am spin class because it takes a long time to derive any pleasure from it, there is usually much pain involved, and it’s hardly a masterclass in energy conservation, so every nerve ending in our body is screaming at us to stay in bed instead. For many of us those odds are simply insurmountable.
There are so many theories behind the science of behaviour change. One of my favourite ways of looking at this is motivation, which comes down to two things. In order to make a big change you need to perceive it as important enough to take on the mammoth swim against the tide, and to believe that you can do it. Once it’s important enough and easy enough, in the words of LaBeouf you’ll ‘just do it’.
So, whatever it is – how important is it to you at this moment? On a scale of 1-10. I’m guessing it’s more than 1, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking about it as a potential change to make, and probably not a 10 either, because in that case you would be getting on with it. So more than 1 is great, why is it that high? What would it take to make it even higher? Doesn’t have to be 10, but close to that would probably be enough. Now think about how achievable it is, same questions. What are the barriers? What small changes do you need to make in order to clear the path to the big one? A long, honest look at this might just give you the extra push towards where you need to be.
And lastly, enjoy the process. You can do this. Be your own best friend along the way, and make sure you reward yourself for your awesome success; more about this to follow at a later date!
The Don'ts and Do's of How to Lower Cancer Nearly half of all UK cancer cases are preventable (44%)
. PDF version: pbwf.org/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=dontsdosofcancer.pdf
I WANT TO RIDE MY BICYCLE……
We view cycling from so many perspectives. It may be that the mere mention of anything bike related conjures up hazy, rose tinted memories of someone older and faster pretending to push us along as we took our maiden voyages without stabilisers, safe in the false belief that it was them, not us, that was keeping everything upright and moving, or those happy years when we were old enough to be allowed to explore our world unsupervised and yet too young for a driving license so that a favourite childhood toy ultimately became a route to freedom. It is undoubtedly viewed by many as a wonderful way to while away a weekend, or even a holiday. Or it can be a vehicle that serves its purpose by simply enabling our daily commute. Whatever our perspective, thinking about our two wheeled friend can evoke a wide range of emotions and memories.
Cycling has been brought into sharp focus in recent weeks with the annual epic battle that is the Tour de France, and nowhere more so than in the currently sunny little part of the world that I call home, just a short walk from where this years’ winner, Geraint Thomas, whiled away his schooldays. Cycling has captured the imagination of the locals as once again we celebrate the success of one of our city’s greatest sporting sons; we are accustomed to congratulating the same school for its sporting success, as it also gave us former Welsh rugby captain Sam Warburton and the football legend we find in Gareth Bale, and both of these swiftly became national treasures given our natural obsession with both sports. But cycling? Hmm, that’s a new one to a lot of us, but hey, if a Welsh man is winning it, we’ll give him our passionate Welsh support all the way, whatever sport it is.
Then there’s the down side. The relationship between cyclists and other vehicle drivers on our roads is famously not a happy one, with tensions on both sides about the dangers inherent in riding a flimsy metal frame clothed in little more than overly tight lycra and some kind of head gear while all others are ensconced in at least a ton or two of highly protective, fast moving, accident reducing precision engineering. Cyclists claim their way is cheaper, environmentally friendly and healthier (assuming no accidents); conversely, motorists have the upper hand regarding comfort, speed and safety.
One thing is certainly true. Cycling is good for our health. We know that exercise and increased physical fitness- and in this context, specifically getting on your bike - comes with many health benefits, including reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, dementia and some forms of cancer, and that vague but pleasing term ‘all-cause mortality’ – whatever people died of while the scientists were studying them, they were less likely to die of it if they rode their bike regularly. It’s good for our mental health too. Apart from the hard work and the risk of being involved in a very one-sided altercation with a fast-moving car, what’s not to love?
It turns out there may be one thing: osteoporosis. We know that one of the most important things we can do to prevent this painful thinning of our bones is to engage in regular weight bearing exercise, which cycling isn’t. The bike bears our weight while we sit down, and that doesn’t keep our bones healthy in the same way as walking or running would. So, what to do? Simply remember to walk or jump around - or engage in whatever form of other weight bearing exercise you love – sometimes, as well as cycling from time to time.
Meanwhile, whether you enjoy it as a hobby or view it purely as a means of transport, the message is clear; wanting to ride your bicycle may be more than a song, it could literally save your life.