 Hello and welcome to today's Business Skills webcast, The Mastery of Wellness. My name is Sarah Gonzalez, I'm from Redback Conferencing and I will be your host for today. So today we are talking about the mastery of wellness and how it can impact every single aspect of your life. Today I would like to welcome you to this event and also our host Michelle Powell, how are you today? Good thanks Sarah, thanks for having me. Great, great to be here, we've got so many people registered for this event and we're excited because like I said this is something that touches every single one of us whether we think about it or not and it's also something that delves into your personal life, your family life, your work life. It sort of covers everything doesn't it? Every aspect of your life is impacted by your health. Essentially I think your ultimate wealth is your health. Okay well that's a good start so can you tell us a little bit more about wellness, what you do, what it all means before we get into these 10 steps that I'm really excited to hear about? Sure, well as you know my name is Michelle Powell and my business is called Vitality Reconnected because we do have that vitality in there. We just need to reconnect with it because society pressures, work pressures, family pressures kind of disconnect us from it and I think we need to you know gain that back. It's in there, we just need to find it again. Yeah exactly, exactly. So I'm a holistic health practitioner and an inner wellness specialist so in everyday language what that actually means is I do physical, mental, emotional, nutritional and spiritual. So think of it like a counsellor, a naturopath, a personal trainer, a physio and all of those sorts of people put in the one. Like a unicorn. Well I can be pretty magical. So these 10 steps that we've spoken about within the registration process can we just get started on those because you've actually caught a 10 step checklist to uncovering the key to check in with yourself. So is this something that we do on a regular basis? Is it something we do once and then move on from? What is this all about and how can we use it? That's great. So I think that it's really important for us to have the ability to check in with ourselves because we tend to rely on everybody else to tell us how well we're doing in every aspect. So if we learn our own signs of our own body we can check in. And I've spent the past 13 and a half years in the health industry and that's what brought me to create the mastery of wellness because I just found so many people are confused and conflicted because there's so much information out there. Where do you start? What's right? What's wrong? Where do you go? So I broke it down into 10 areas that you can address with yourself and then from there you can figure out do you need additional help and support? Do you need a coach? Do you need a trainer? Do you need a naturopath? What do you need? So it gives you the ability to analyze yourself and then go forward from there. Okay, let's get started on number one. Alrighty. So basically the 10 steps are broken down. Some I'm sure most people will be really aware of and others it might be I've never thought of adding that into there. So some might make perfect sense, movement, nutrition, hydration, breathing patterns, thoughts and emotions tie in because generally our thoughts lead to our emotive state. So how we're feeling, sleep cycles, the relationships that we have in our life, the stresses that impact us in many ways. Work and finances I've tied in together because generally our work environment leads to our financial capacity and then my favorite one is being true to yourself. So let's have a little bit of a look at each one. Yeah, let's kick into movement. So is this physical getting out there, go into the gym, relieve stress in that sort of way? Yes and no. Okay. So this is one area that most people think they have a lot of information on and think they're quite knowledgeable on but they generally are very confused. So movement actually has two aspects of it. Okay. There's working out, which we all tend to know really well going to the gym, lifting weights, going for a run. But when I say to people, what are you doing to work in? Most people look at me pretty blankly like, what is that? So we actually have two energy systems in our body. One is catabolic, that's energy out, tissue destructive. And there's the anabolic system, which is our rest repair energy in. Okay. So if we've tipped the scales always on one element, we're going to be out of sync, which throws our hormones out of balance, throws our moods out of balance, throws our mental capacity out of balance. So learning how to balance our working out and working in capacities is really important for movement. And on the movement topic, I think it's really important that people know, you don't have to beat your body into submission. There tends to be, you've got to punish yourself and you've got to smash yourself in order to achieve something. But if you're already stressed and you add more stress onto the system, that only creates a recipe for more problems, not less. So movements one that we generally have to be a bit careful of and do our research really, really strongly because nowadays, people get pushed into things which are generally wrong for their individual body type. Okay. Yeah. Now, if we move on to the next one, I think this one's quite self-explanatory for a lot of people judging by the picture, but what does this actually mean? We think of nutrition as just eating, you know, our green vegetables, something that's going to do, something that, you know, comes from the ground. Is that what it's all about? Because there's so many diets and fats and... Isn't that just like... I can't imagine what you hear. Oh, it's ridiculous. Like, there's so many weird things out there, like the fruitarians and all sorts of stuff that's so restrictive with our diets nowadays. And the thing is the old saying goes, one man's food is another man's poison. And I think that's really important because what would work for your body might not be right for mine. Yes. So there's no such thing as an actual diet, but it's individualized for every person. And I think that's where people tend to go wrong. They follow a diet that's planned out, but it doesn't actually take in how they utilize food themselves. So if we look at it from a scientific level, everybody, just like we're different on the outside, so too are our organs. The size, shape, color, even location of our organs is as unique as our thumbprint. So when it comes to diet, it's not just researching or what's the latest thing to do, it's looking at what does my individual body need. And there's lots and lots of ways that you can do that. But I think for everybody watching today, it's really important to look at the quality of our food because with today, we just, we're eating food-like substances, not actually food. So we do need to get back to basics and start eating real food again. Because the whole, you are what you eat thing really comes into your whole overall wellness. Absolutely. It can impact with probably every one of these steps I'm thinking. Absolutely. And that's the thing, that saying you are what you eat, that's actually true. Because when we eat food, we don't just in one hand out the elbow. We actually assimilate that. So we're creating cells from it. In fact, every second, we replace two million cells in our body. We're pretty efficient. Fun fact. We're pretty efficient. Yeah. What a thought. But we're replacing it with our food. Yeah. So when you're thinking about what you're eating, what do you want to be building your body from? And it comes from our food. Interesting. Two million. Now number three to overall wellness. This looks lovely, this picture. I know it is. It gives you that peace and quiet. But it's actually hydration. And this is one that tends to get neglected a little bit. It's like, oh yeah, I know, I know I should drink water, but we're not doing it. And the thing is, every function in our body requires water. Even our lungs require water in order to breathe correctly. So every function in our body needs hydration. And the average person, I think the latest statistic I saw last week was 90 point something percent of the Australian population are actually dehydrated. That's a huge amount of people that need to have more water in the system. And there's a simple mathematical equation you can use to figure out exactly how much water you need to have. So you might want to jot this one down. Okay, I'm ready. Zero point zero three three times your body weight in kilos is how many litres of water you need per day just while you're sitting here doing nothing. Wow. So imagine if you are active. Exactly. Exactly. It's funny that you say that because the other day I just got home from work, went on a walk, came back and I had this headache. And I don't drink as much water as I should. I know that. But this day I was just doing stuff and I wasn't really paying attention to my water intake. And after two cups of water, the headache just disappeared automatically. It's like your body sends off signals. Yes, yes. There's so many signals that the body literally cries out for water. But we don't always register them because we're so busy. Yes. Or we can mistake it as hunger instead of thirst. I have heard that. Yes. If sometimes you're hungry, have a sip of water and see what it does to you. Yes, yes. So what impact can dehydration have on your overall wellness? Essentially if you're dehydrated, number one, your mental capacity goes down. So your ability to be able to think, to concentrate, to work, to even problem solve. It's sort of, it landslides down really dramatically. And your body goes through almost like a system of delegation. So it looks at it going, okay, so can we take some water from your hormones? Can we take some water from here? Okay. Can we take water from all over the place? So it kind of, it shunts it to where it's really needed, as opposed to, you don't want it to pick and choose where it goes in your body. You want it to be everywhere. Yes. Because at any given moment, we're at least 75% water. So we need to have lots of that. To keep replenishing, don't we? Exactly, yeah. Very interesting. And the average person, just in everyday function, loses about eight litres of water a day. That's why we need to replace our body weight in ounces of water a day to top up what we lose. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Okay, moving on to number four. Yes, breathing patterns. Now this is another one that over the years, number one, I was guilty when I was first in the health industry of not addressing this with clients because I didn't understand myself, the massive impact that breathing is. But essentially, if you think of it like a totem pole, breath is like the very top of the survival totem pole because every function underneath that runs off your breath being optimal. Yep. So the average person, depending on their height and size, should be breathing between eight and 12 times a minute when you're using your lungs and diaphragm and the correct order and to the correct capacity. But the latest statistics for Australians is 22 to 30 times a minute. So number one, your body thinks you're stressed. Yes. And number two, you're not utilizing everything correctly and when your breathing is out, your metabolism is out, your brain capacity is out, your hormones are out. I would never have guessed that. Yeah. It's one of those things that... You don't concentrate on your breathing, do you? No, that's it. And we kind of take it for granted because we just do it. But yet we know if we stop breathing within a few minutes, we die. So we know how important it is, but it's one of those ones, a bit like water, where we just go, oh, yeah, I know. But we don't realize the ripple effect that can have on our health. And so how do you keep track of that? Because I can't sit there and count my breaths per minute. Yeah, exactly. So are there tools that we can use? How do we...? I generally recommend having a breathing assessment. Okay. So someone like myself or someone who's a check practitioner, all that's trained in those areas of health because, I mean, I've had people that have come to me from all sorts of specialists are like, what? Never had my breathing checked. Your breathing checked, yeah. So it's one of those ones where it does need to be addressed. And I mean, we can do a simple test right now to see if it's really lying. Okay. So place one hand on your stomach and one hand on your chest and take a really big, deep breath in. Now, did your stomach rise first and then your chest? Oh, I didn't think of that. I need to know these things before I can. And some people notice that just their chest rises or they go together or it's all kind of lying. I don't know what happened here. So that's your first self-check-in. Okay. Most people are chest breathers. So it's the first point of check-in. So if your chest rose before your diaphragm, so your stomach rose. So if you watch little kids running around, they're always breathing with their bellies and that's how we're supposed to breathe. So when does that change? I think it's through modern stresses. Oh my God, we're late. Hurry up. So much to do. So we're in that go, go, go fight or flight all the time. So it becomes the pattern. It becomes the habit. And we can create these faulty breathing pathways essentially and we have to go back and sort of reset the system. Okay. Interesting. So as we move on now to number five, if anyone does have any questions or personal experiences, no doubt there's a lot of people out there just thinking of their actual lifestyle and what they're doing and how that can be improved. Please feel free to type it into the chat box because I do have an iPad next to me and we can ask Michelle those questions live. Okay, so moving on to the next one. Thoughts and emotions, as I said, before ties in together and this is another area of health that's really important because the same goes, your body believes what your mind perceives. Okay. The average Australian woman in particular over 90% of her daily thoughts are negative in nature. We've already screwed ourselves over before we get past the thinking phase. So that's the thing when we have those negative thought patterns, it actually impacts our health because it impacts how we feel and our body can't differentiate that. So if we're telling ourselves that we're not good enough or we don't deserve that new job promotion or that relationship or whatever it is, the body believes that. So think of it a little bit like the brain is the parent and your body is a child. So you know when kids were like that young, you could tell them anything they believe in you. They believe in you. Yeah, it's like that because the body can have a ripple effect into your health as well. And so your mental capacity, as generally speaking, they say it's your biggest bang for your buck when it comes to your health, getting into Grand Central Station because it has a massive ripple effect on the rest of your body. Yeah. Very powerful, isn't it? It is huge. Oh, it just all sort of reacts with one another. Everything is just so intertwined when it comes to the human body. So what sort of advice do you have for people out there, you know, especially women? And I think a lot of this comes from society and the whole, you know, people need to have it all. There's, you know, work-life balance for both men and women and that obviously has a huge impact in your overall wellness. What's the number one thing that you go out because telling someone to think positive isn't going to always work, you know, like to smile, you know. So how do you control that within yourself? I think number one is finding what I call the dream team. And these are people that are your support network. So it might be your partner, family, friends, work colleagues, a coach, a counsellor. Because if we think of our thoughts and our emotions a bit like, you know, a child that's got a heap of toys, when they shove them all in the closet, eventually they're going to spill out. And it's like a pressure valve. We need to release that and we need to express that because our emotions, like I said, our body can't tell the difference between it being like a physical trauma and an emotional trauma. So it is important to address. So I think actually registering that you need to share it and there's no right and wrong in it. It is what it is. I think we're too ready to judge ourselves and we're so critical of ourselves but we would never speak to our mother, our father, our children, our best friend that way. We'd be there supporting them, giving them advice. So I think if we think of ourselves like our best friend, then what advice would you give them? And that could lead to what do you need to do to help yourself forward from that position? Great. Now we have a quick question from Jennifer, just in relation to stress. Any tips for time management skills? I think a lot of people out there, they get into the situation where they can't effectively manage their time and it's something that obviously controls your entire day. It's the one thing you can't control in life. So how do you manage that to the best of your ability in order to de-stress and pay attention to these 10 things? Yeah, I'll share a little bit when we get to the stress slide that's additional. But to answer that question, a lot of people go, oh it's just priorities. It's not your prioritise. And to a degree, that's true. But there's lots of things that we're responsible for. We're responsible for our families, our children, our work. So I think what we have to do is go through our diaries or our schedules and look at, okay, what are the things that I can't change? So for example, the times you have to work, the times you have to do things with the kids or the families, block out all of those commitment times. Then look at what do you have left. And then you can see right, what do I need to block out for me or for projects or for family and start to prioritise. I think one thing that works really well for women in general that are very busy is to block out whether it's self-time, like an appointment. So if you had to go the dentist, you'd book that in. So why not book in that appointment for yourself to sit down for half an hour and read a book or to do the job that you needed to do. So if you look at changing your rhythms, it can look at how you structure things. Okay. Great. Thank you for that question. We'll get through to some other ones as we move on. Tony Arena is online. Hi, Tony. Hi to you as well. Tony is a big time supporter of Redback. Awesome. So this, this, it looks like somewhere that I would like to be. Oh, yeah. Because I'm here with you. I was in a great time. But maybe later on in the day. Yeah. Okay. See, once again, another one that we tend to brush to the side and say, yeah, I know I need to get some sleep. But I'm sure you know, people that are up till midnight, one, two, three a.m. and then they're up at Spoggy Farts ready to go again. And we just keep pressure on and we just keep going and we forget that sleep is free. And there is nothing on the planet that restores the body like sleep does. No coffee, no pill, no shake, no potion, nothing replenishes and restores the body like sleep does. And the thing is, our body actually has a very set criteria for how it organizes its own rejuvenation. It's got set times that it's doing specific organs and specific things. And if you miss that, you can't make up for it. So for just a basic outline between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. is our physical repair and between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. is our psychological repair. Okay. So most people are missing that big part which is the physical repair and we don't make up for that later. So if we were to nap, I know I'm funny, but if we were to, it's not actually going to replace it because our hormones aren't in the correct state. They have to be in the right state and it doesn't matter how many lights and technology we have nowadays, we're still hardwired with the sun and the earth and so are our hormones. Is that where the whole body clock terminology comes from as well? Because I just thought it was like, oh, your body wakes you up at certain times. No, it's your body hormones. Yeah, but you actually have time. Yeah, exactly. Your body's like, I'm done. Let's go. Come on, get up. Well, that's interesting. We have a question from Sanjay. Sanjay sleeps 8 hours every night but still feels sleepy during the day. Is it sleeping pattern or diet? That's an issue there. So when it comes to individual analysis, you need to look at all areas because it might be, it might actually be a sleep problem if you're not getting into that deep state of sleep, especially if you're stressed. It might be dietary. It might be hydration. It might be a hormonal imbalance. There's so many different variables and that's where there's no two people that are the same. So I always encourage everybody to have an individual analysis because what's right for one person will be completely different for somebody else. But I'd look at all of those areas and see, well, what sticks out initially to you? You're going, oh, my diet's not so great. And that can have a huge impact on sleep, too. Definitely. So yeah. What about, so, John, you know, waking up at 4.30 a.m., how does that affect your psychological repair? Yeah. Our body can actually handle not having enough psychological repair more than it can handle not having enough physical repair. But with saying that, if every night that happens, you know, by the end of the week, you've missed out on hours of repair. So it might be that you need to factor in some other down time. Some people find if they go to bed, wound up. So they've done heaps of work and then, quick get to bed. You know, their brain hasn't had an opportunity to wind down. Their body hasn't had an opportunity to wind down. And we tend to have lots of technology in our bedrooms. Yes. iPods, iPads, iPhones. I've heard that's been quite bad. It's huge. The electromagnetic pulse from that prevents our body from going into a deep sleep and it can wake people up. So I'd look at what's in your bedroom because you might find if you get some technology out of your bedroom, that might rectify that problem like that. Great. Yeah. Okay, let's move on now. This looks nice. It does. Relationships. And this is another area of health which is generally overlooked because we kind of just take it for granted. It's just something we have. But we forget that human beings wear social creatures and we actually need interaction. I mean, that's why solitary confinement is one of the worst punishments we can have for criminals because we need interaction in order to be healthy. So there's the obvious relationships you want to look at. Your partner, your children, family, friends, work colleagues, they all impact us and it can be in positive ways or negative ways. But we tend to overlook how the relationships in our life are impacting us. And it is said that the top five people that we interact with, we become. I have heard that before. Yeah, it's pretty powerful. So it's something to think about. Who are you interacting with and are they building you up? Are they supportive? Are they looking after you and vice versa? Or are they tearing you down and belittling you? What are you surrounding yourself with? It's a really, it's an important one to look at all of those relationships in your life. And what about for people who, because I know these days there's a lot of emphasis on people working from home, you know, different offices, different types of work environments, what sort of impact can that have on our day-to-day lives and our relationships. And how do we sort of find ways to make sure we are surrounded by not necessarily, you know, 40 or 50 people a day, but still making up for that in different areas of our life? It is very true because I find, and I've been there myself when I've done a lot of work from home, that you can feel very isolated and it can have a psychological component to it which can become a stressor. So it is important to make sure that you do get out of the house and interact. And sometimes some people find it's as simple as just going to the supermarket and, you know, interacting with some other people because... I think you're at the cash register talking to a lady in half an hour. But we do, we need human interact and we need touch. I mean, there's a reason why we hold hands with our partners and we cuddle our children because we need that intimacy. We've got those fibres in our skin that crave that human interaction. So it can be very detrimental for us if we don't factor in, you know, catch-ups with our friends and families and partners as important because it does have physical and psychological downfall if we don't look after them. Okay, great. So any questions or relationships feel free to ask us. We'll get to those shortly. Now we're moving on. I think a lot of us can relate to this image here. Have we felt like this before? Let's ponder that. I think we've all felt like that at some point. The funny thing is most people only relate stress to that slide. That feeling of being wound up. You know, life's gone to shit. Or the moment is, oh my God. You know, that actual stress feeling. But that's only one of many ways we can experience stress. Oh God, there's more. There's more. Well, even just all the 10 steps that I'm going through here, all of these can actually create stresses in your system if they're not addressed because your body can't tell the difference between stress. So whether you're running down the street because a zombie is chasing you or you're stressed because of a work deadline, your body actually perceives it exactly the same. It cannot tell the difference with what stress is. It's just stress to the system. Oh, that's quite scary. Yeah, exactly. So stress can impact us through all of these topics and more that we've been talking about. It can be, you know, stimulant stress, digestive stress, fungal stress, sleep stress. There's all different ways that stress can impact us. So having a bit of a checklist and going, okay, here's some areas of stress. Where can I alleviate stress from my life? So for example, with the questions about is nutrition impacting my sleep, potentially it could be because the stress of nutrition has a massive ripple effect like all areas of stress can. And the consequences of stress and not being able to deal with it effectively, what are they? Well, in Australia, stress is the number one reason people see their doctor. So stress and fatigue, so being overwhelmed, feeling overworked, just that stressed out feeling, it has a massive impact because then it degrades the body. Because think of it like if we look at that primal instinct within us, stress was there for a survival mechanism. So if we were running from a sabertooth tiger or something, but nowadays we're constantly running from a sabertooth tiger with our deadlines and pick up the kids and get to soccer practice and I've got another work deadline and there's so much stuff on the go that we're always in that state. So it wears the body down. So aging processes happen and stress is the number one cause of any illness, disease and ailment that the body can have. Wow, very fascinating. Now moving on, we've dealt with the stress. Now this is something that probably causes more stress than any one of the other steps. Yes, work and finances. It's a big one. In fact, nowadays money represents our primal instinct. So our primal instinct is for food, shelter and water. But because money provides us with the capacity to have those things, nowadays money in our finances is all related to that primal instinct and I see with all of my clients and the people I coach, there's two ends of the spectrum. There's people that might be struggling with their finances and the issues that come from that. But there's also the other end of the spectrum with people that seemingly have enough money but there's all of the issues that come from that as well. So it has to be looked at in all those sorts of ways because money is a big deal nowadays. It really is and our work not only is it something that provides us with income but it's something that we do every week and so many people hate their job and they don't love what they do and it causes more stress. So looking at your work, do you love your job or is your job doing you? There's so many things to look at when it comes to your work and your finances because it once again plays a huge role in your actual overarching health. I think you spend so much time at work more time going back to those relationships and what you were saying about these people who you spend time at work with you spend more time with them than what you do with your friends or your family and if what you're saying about those five people we surround ourselves with and you don't like those people then ultimately that's going to just all blow up one day, isn't it? That's right and it's just like that ripple effect it just expands out. Yeah, exactly. So moving on from money this is interesting I think this is one that's quite underrated by other people. And this is actually my favourite one it's what I call being true to yourself and this has so many meanings to it because nowadays we feel like we have to fit into a mould or wear masks or the facades to get through and we don't really know who we are who our authentic self is and if we do know we stifle it and we put everybody else first so for example something I get all of the people that I coach to do is what I call core values it's knowing who you are on a really deep intimate level and some questions that I ask might seem quite straight forward but people are like I should know this? Why don't I know this? So it's one of those things where it's learning how to get intimate with yourself and really know the person within because at the end of the day that's the biggest relationship you can ever have you know this is a relationship we have 365 days a year that we can't even escape that so we want to make that a positive relationship and we want to get to know what do we truly stand for what do we really want in life so that we can make sure we tick off our bucket list because the last thing we want is to get to the end of our life and be going I wish I did this I wish I'd done that I don't really know who I am so knowing who you are and being true to that person within that's very uplifting and very enlightening Yeah definitely and I'm interested in your thoughts with this because I hear it more and more and I see it more and more what role is social media playing on this because I feel like people are slowly and I think there's so many benefits that come along with social media but I start even with my nieces and my nephews who are so involved in this now I can see it becoming quite negative when it comes to your true self Yes so like you said there's the positive side of it you know we get to interact with like everybody on here today but then there's the negatives of it where people are hiding behind phone screens or computer screens and they feel that it's okay to say whatever they say and put other people down I think number one it's teaching people especially children that top five thing again who do you want to surround yourself with because obviously nobody wants fair weather friends we want that realness we want that true genuine connection with people so I think it's learning to disconnect in all honesty put everything down have no technology Tuesday have those things where it's important to shut off so I think it's important to make sure people learn that yeah all that stuff's there and it has its place but don't allow it to take over have shut off time have shut off time and guidelines as well for each family it's going to be completely different so it's figuring out what's going to work for you now we've gone through those steps that's 10 right we're going to just wrap up now just with how we can self assess and go through that please ask any questions that you like and we'll get to those in the next few minutes but also feel free to complete the feedback survey which is on the tab next to the power points it's great for us to get this feedback and it also allows you to opt in to receive some more information and insights and educational material from Michelle as well so we've gone through the tech checklist now that's all well and good we've got these ideas here and they're really high level but how do we put them into every single day and how do we self assess and how do we make sure that we're doing it all right yes and essentially that's what I put in my book the mastery of wellness is you can go through all of those steps and it actually plans out how you can self assess but I think you can just do it in a simple way like you can jot down those 10 areas and be really honest with yourself and go I'm actually going to bed at like 12 o'clock every night pretty sure that needs a bit of assessment there something I can work on be honest with yourself that's the first step because a lot of it goes I've got nutrition down pack I've got this down pack but you know you're only lying to yourself exactly exactly so we do need to be honest with ourselves and go okay where do we truly need to start with it and I think that's our start point so some people will have plenty of those steps sorted and there'll be a few that jump out to them and that should be their start point and I think it's important like you said to take that time out and to block that time in your diary to self assess and you know this isn't something that think of it like another appointment in your life and that's that important because what are besides you know you spoke about health but what are the repercussions if we don't look after our overall wellness and take into account every single thing that we've just spoken about see that's the thing because we just go oh yeah health I'll get to it because you know work has demands family has demand you know life is demanding nowadays but the thing is if we don't have our health then we have nothing we don't have the mental and physical capacity to do our work to the level that we want to need we don't have the capacity to be present with the people that we love and we hold dear because we're too exhausted or we have no energy or we're just not really there and we've all experienced that where we're in a room but like where we're checked out and we don't want to live life like that and most people think that it's normal to live with aches and pains and ailments and discomforts and all sorts of things and it's not it's not how the human body was designed so I think it's all about making sure that we we go back to connecting with ourselves and just on that we've got a comment here from Sanjay so a person plays different roles in his or her life by going through these 10 steps they can help you but how do you deal with your external environment that makes you stress so if you do have those people or those things in your life how do you deal with that in a manner that's probably not going to cause you more stress Yes and that can be tricky depending on what the actual situation is like is it a home environment or a work environment because how you might handle those might be a bit different and I think honesty is the best policy in all honesty you know if there's something going on with someone then confronting that and going okay what can we do to make it better and not in a demeaning way but acknowledging something's not right and that it needs to be addressed so I think first and foremost we tend to look at the stuff that we can't control but why don't we start with the things that we can control we can control our own actions we can control what we do so a lot of people get stressed like oh my god it's raining today or you know I'm stuck in traffic I'm never going to make it like there's lots of things that are out of our control put them to the side let's focus on what can we actually control and start from there because sometimes it might be our external environment that's stressing us but if we check in with those 10 things and alleviate a lot of those stresses maybe we have enough capacity to handle those external stresses better Yeah definitely and I think like you said so easy to stress about things that are outside of your control but if you do take a step back and realise that well you can't change it so there's no point to stress How often should you check in with these 10 things then? I think it's once again very individual some people find they need to check in weekly to get the ball rolling and to be really honest with themselves and get started on getting healthy and then from there it might be monthly six monthly I wouldn't go any less than six monthly and even for myself I sit down with myself and go Michelle let's get real what do we need to work on because we're all human we all have areas that we want and need to improve on to get to that next level of health and wellbeing because it has that ripple effect through all of our life and I kind of think of it like walking up a flight of stairs each level has another step of health towards it and it gets us bigger and greater towards ultimately how we want to be and live our lives So we've had a few questions regarding the actual event today so the event will be recorded and you will receive a copy of the recording within 48 hours into your inbox do you have any handouts or anything like that that we can put along to a company to give people some more thoughts and inspiration about doing this and having their own checklist? Yeah definitely definitely and something that I do for a lot of businesses as well as I offer them a delivery strategy session so we can sit down and talk about what are the areas that you might need to work on in the business for everybody there because the health of the workers impacts the business and then the same for individuals I offer that on a one-on-one basis as well so if someone really wants to take that in there they can contact and organise that strategy session Right and those details are in the feedback survey as well but any other questions the last one see event is over and we can get straight to Michelle but I think it's a great idea even for bosses of small business or executives of large corporations to think about the overall wellness of their entire workforce and start to invest in this sort of thing as well because like you said it does impact every single aspect of the business and you know you could have the highest performing employee but they could be going home crying every night because they don't have that overall wellness and they might be performing really well but imagine how much better they could be performing if everything was in play and I also think it's really important for companies and businesses to look after everybody nowadays because there's so much pressure on all of us but I think if we all just band together and support one another then we can have the levels of health and happiness that we want both in our professional lives and our personal lives one more question that I'm going to ask that's just come through so colleagues keep saying that I am stressed but how could I tell them that they're making me stressed my job has so many deadlines and I count on them to give me their reports on time they love to do this huddle-cuddle thing that you know could turn into bitching sessions that could easily go from 10 minutes to 20 minutes and when I said I had to go as I had no luxury to stand there and they just seemed to that bitching they would give me a cuddle and pray and meditate for my well-being which is driving me crazy so it seems like a new situation that I feel stressed just thinking about that have you tried honesty is the best policy with that because I mean it sounds like they have well intentions and they may do and they may not do with their huddle-cuddle aspect because that goes two ways sometimes with women but I think maybe you need with them that you know what you guys can play a part at helping me to de-stress so maybe put the responsibility back on them a little bit and say you know what if you really want to help me here's ways that you can put it back on them get them to help you out more and you know give that a shot I'd start there because it can be a bit challenging with all of those interrelationships at work but yeah I'd go with that to start off with and see how that goes let us know how it goes yeah so thank you everyone for joining we've come to the end of the 45 minutes but I've learnt so much I'm going to drink a lit of water I'm going to make sure I get to bed on time and I'm going to try and check in with my checklist to make sure that I also can have overall wellness final thoughts from you Michelle well I have that little slide up that you can probably all see and I think this quote is something that we can all contemplate essentially so I'll just read it out for all of you what is your health worth could you earn a living without your health could you play and enjoy your life without health could you go anywhere in the world and buy health and what price would you put on your health if you could sell it the next time you think you're too busy or you feel too financially short ask yourself this question in all seriousness what is my health worth to me and on that note we'll leave it there thank you everyone for joining yet again a very very interesting way to spend 45 minutes and something we can all learn at least I think 3 or 4 things from and take away into our everyday life the event will be recorded so keep a look out in your inbox and also if you have any questions or would like to hear more from Michelle please feel free to contact us directly otherwise thanks again for joining our business skills event bye for now