Tag: health

7 Ways to look after your skin in the summer months

1 Comment

11402694_10154029995463206_6845479620644147838_n

I have incredibly pale skin and red hair, some natural, some enhanced. It’s because of both of these things that I have to really look after my skin as it’s prone to burning. I wanted to share with you just some of the things that I do to help protect my skin in the summer time!

Don’t underestimate the level of suncream you need.  

I groan every time I need to pick up a factor 30 or factor 50. That said, it’s important to make sure you do use the right factor for you.

Cover up or stay in the shade!  

It’s easy to be tempted to strip off in the summer (I often do), but if it is super hot and super sunny then covering up is an option. If, like me, you don’t cope well with heat, staying in the shade is a great alternative, you’ll often find me hiding on holiday.

Drink plenty of water  

Water is great for the skin, I’m lucky that I love drinking water but if you’re not you can pick up bottles with fruit infusers to give it some more taste.

Hats may be annoying, but they’re necessary 

Yep, yep and yep. I hate wearing hats but if I’m not going to be able to stay in the shade then I don’t have a choice.

Reapply, reapply, reapply! 

One lot of sun cream isn’t enough, keep reapplying as much as you feel you need to. If I can feel the heat on my skin directly, I’ll reapply.

If you do get burnt, use some moisturising after-sun lotion

It sucks when you get burnt and I get caught out every year no matter how careful I am. In that case, I make sure I use an after-sun lotion to moisturise my skin.

Get to know your skin 

I’m covered in freckles and moles, I know where they are and what they look like. It’s good to get to know your skin so you can check for any abnormalities, you can find out more about that here.

 

 

 

Is Uni Right For You? Pros and Cons of Going To Uni

Leave a comment

my-favourite-places-to-eat-out-3

Going to university is a big decision. With tuition costs as high as they are a lot of people are wondering if university is right for them. I was the first person in my family to go to university and, for a long time, I wasn’t going to apply. I thought university was for rich kids, I didn’t think I’d fit. I thought that all universities were like Oxford and Cambridge (the only universities I knew) but I was wrong. Through the persistence of a great teacher and my boyfriend I realised I could go to uni. That said I know uni isn’t for everyone! So, I thought I’d put together the pros and cons of going to university.

Living

Pro: You have the opportunity to move if you wish – I was terrified to move to a place I didn’t know but it was the right thing to do looking back on it. It made me be independent, it made me know that I can look after myself and gave me space to work out who I was on my own.

Con: Moving back after uni is tough. I see a lot of people who didn’t go to uni who are starting to get on the housing ladder because they’ve been working and earning while I’d been studying.

Pro: Being able to run your own schedule and your own life. You can eat when you want, sleep when you want and come and go as you please.

Con: Remembering to look after yourself. I really struggled in my first year with loneliness, I wasn’t close with my flatmates. I’d lock myself away for days on end sometimes, which was really tough.

Work

Pro: Some degrees are needed to get into careers, that’s a fact. Likewise, there are some jobs where graduates are preferred.

Con: It can be difficult to work and study. Everyone knows that student loans are difficult to live on and so if you live in a city it can mean long hours.

Pro: Student jobs can pay a good wage.

Con: Student jobs can have very crappy hours.

Friendships

Pro: Making friends from all over the world is a great perk of going to university. I learnt a lot about other cultures

Con: When friendships go wrong it can be hard. When you’re away from home and friendships go wrong it can knock your confidence and make you feel lonely.

Pro: Meeting new people. Meeting new people was great for me, I needed a change and I needed to rebuild myself, which was a huge positive for me.

Con: Moving back after graduation. When all of your friends are all over the country or world it can be really hard to adjust and you do miss the.

Money

Pro: Getting a Student Loan to help while you study was great (although depending on what your parents earn and your circumstances will depend on how much help you get).

Con: Going to uni means you’re not on a full time wage. This really depends on how much you want to study because I know a lot of brilliant people who didn’t go to uni, went straight to work and have built up a good career for themselves.

Pro: Over their lifetime, on average, a graduate will earn more.

Con: If you’re not studying full time you can get a lot of knowledge and experience in your industry, all of my family did it this way!

Learning  

Pro: If you love studying then of course uni makes sense! I loved reading and learning theory and debating, it was the best part of my degree!

Con: Uni can be really tiring and taxing. In third year I didn’t really sleep much, I was very stressed towards the end and got sick because of it.

Pro: You can create your own education. There’s so much choice in terms of courses and modules.

Con: If you’re not interested in studying, writing and sitting in lecture halls uni might not be you and that’s not a bad thing! There are so many ways to progress, further your career and learn!

There’s so much more I could come up with so by no means is this exhaustive. Whether you go to uni or not doesn’t determine if you’re successful. What are your plans? I’d love to know in the comments below!

Mental and Physical Health

10 Comments

IMG_5440

I have a confession to make my lovely readers. I have not been looking after myself. In the past few months, I have been severely lacking at going to the gym and keeping up with my fitness. There’s a lot of reasons that my fitness has taken a hit, partly due to not feeling up to it after work, partly struggling with pain levels and mostly motivation. Yep, motivation, that little bugger.

When the gym was 5 minutes away and I only had a few hours of uni a week, working out was easy. If I felt like going to the gym I could just go, I could make it the first thing I did in the day and if my muscles were aching I could spent the rest of the day in comfortable clothes and blankets with and write from home. I don’t have that luxury anymore. You see I start work at 8am, meaning if I wanted to get an hour in at the gym before work I’d have to get up at 5am. I would not make it through the day if I did that.

There’s a lot of pressure at this time of year to go on a complete fitness hype. To work out all the time and join clubs to slim down, cut back on what we eat. To those of you who are motivated by things like that I salute you, but I’m not one of them. For me my body, my weight and my mood are very personal to me. The thought of being weighed in front of others, or having the pressure of a weigh-in would not do me good, I’m pretty sure it would do the opposite. Likewise, I don’t have bathroom scales in the house, because I know that I can get obsessive.

When it comes to my mental health, food can be a crutch for me. When I’m sad I’ve been known to cheer myself up with food and then be weighed down with guilt. I’ve also been known to get so obsessed with a number on a scale that I don’t want to eat. It can really go either way and I’m not willing to give the dark part of my brain something to feed on. It’s because of this I’ve started taking the measures that I did before, when I was at uni. While it’s not the same (I move around a lot less as I have to drive to work and only have a half hour lunch break) I do want to make a positive impact on my life, because I have been frustrated with myself.

I’m going to the gym with my sister and have cut down on what I eat. I’m so used to snacking because I get bored and not being able to say no to food going spare (today I passed on free Dominoes pizza, it was a proud moment), but I’m not doing it anymore. I have an allotted amount of food to eat. I want to try and stick to this. Of course if I’m going out for the day or evening with friends and want to have something I will, I’m not cutting out the things I enjoy completely.

Really I just want to get back to focusing on my health and feel good about myself, my mind and my body again. No fad diets. No wanting to be a ridiculous size or weight.  Just happy and healthy, that’s all I want to be. Also, next month I’ll be having spinal injections to tackle the pain, meaning that I’ll hopefully be getting around and able to work out a bit more without having to stop for pain!

Why We Need to Talk About Post University Depression

17 Comments

488036deafee5387346dc6342dca154e

It’s that time of year. Exams are long gone, results published and gowns ordered. We’re told that now is when we enter the ‘real world’ of jobs and adult things. While it is all new and exciting there is something that many people don’t, or don’t want to talk about, that’s the feeling of loss that comes with finishing university. There’s almost a feeling that you can’t be sad, you have a degree! You’re one of the lucky ones, right?

Post university depression is something that I’ve come across a lot online. Over the past few weeks I’ve found myself struggling sometimes and although people may just say that’s my pre existing depression, I can tell you it’s something different. You got from all the pressure and stress os exams to nothing in a matter of weeks and then from that point onwards you’re asked about what you’re going to do next, do you have a job lined up/ There’s also the inevitable, for most, of having to head back to the old town, into your old bedroom and having to stay with Mum and Dad again. Add that to not having your friends around the corner, is it any wonder it can all feel a little bit much?

Of course it’s not all bad BUT society just seems to have a filter when it comes to the impact that these changes can have on someone’s mental health. I’ve noticed that in the period straight after my coursework was handed in, a mere few days after deadlines I felt a huge pressure to get a job and know what every part of my life was going to be. I started falling back into more days spent in bed and more anxiety attacks about my future than I’d had in awhile and on top of it all the access to my mental health support was cut as soon as I handed in my last essay. With all the uncertainty, moving and, for some, not getting the result that they wanted there can be a lot impacting a person emotionally.

So, I’m writing this blog to start the conversation. To say that even though I have a job and it’s going well I still have days where I feel really down and can’t believe university is over. There are still nights when I just can’t sleep because I don’t know how to do this adult thing and I miss my friends and knowing that I just have to go to classes and read a lot. Apparently this is all normal, but we still don’t want to talk about it. I have to say if anyone feels like it really is more than just post uni blues PLEASE talk to someone about it, and if you feel you need to see a doctor (they’re not going to put a ‘crazy’ stamp on you and that’s that, trust me).

Sometimes we all need a little bit of help in times of change, you’re not alone.

 

 

image from Pinterest

Book Review: Strong Looks Better Naked – Khloé Kardashian

Leave a comment

25434370

“In every life, there is struggle. No one is immune from pain and suffering. But it won’t last. Life moves forward. The circumstances will change. This applies to both the bad feelings and the good. Nothing lasts forever. When you think about this, the only moment you really have is the present, and you have to learn to enjoy it.”

Last year while I was resting up, I became a Kardashian viewer, starting off with Caitlin’s (then Bruce) family special about her impending transition. I was surprised when I loved watching and soon started watching more and more episodes and fell in love with Khloe. Not only does she have a pretty amazing name (the only famous Khloe I know of other than the brand) she’s honest and the release of her first book came at a time when I needed a boost.

Strong Looks Better Naked is a book focusing on Khloe’s transition of mind, body and soul and her journey of not only her weight loss but also her emotional journey. Being on Keeping Up With The Kardashian’s you might think that we know everything about Khloe’s life and that the tabloids have it right when it comes to her divorce from Lamar Odom, but this book shows that there’s still a lot that Khloe keeps private. We see a strong woman, but not the personal struggles she faced.

In the press Khloe has been referred to as the ‘chubby sister’ or the ‘fat sister’ and so her weight loss got a lot of attention, being called a ‘revenge body’. The book goes through the reasons behind Khloe’s gym addiction, as something to focus on when other parts of her life were privately getting darker. Weight loss isn’t the only focus in the book, she talks about a whole lifestyle change, mentally and spiritually, giving an honest account of the ups and downs of her journey.

Think whatever you want of the family, their show, the money and all of that but when I was reading the book I felt like it was totally honest. There are some parts which I didn’t necessarily agree with, such as cutting out all dairy, and I think you need to have your own input rather than following all of the advice blindly. That said though, it is good for some general advice and has some lovely quotes alongside the chapters too. I found it to be so motivating at a time where I was having to change my life after my spine had broken and I needed to go to tough physiotherapy. I felt like I could read about someone else’s healthy releases and try them out for myself, I became more than a little in love with the gym myself.

Overall I think this is a great book to read if you’re going through a transition in your life this is a great read. I honestly had reservations about reading it but I ended up falling in love with Khloe’s story, her way of writing (as documented on KUWTK, Khloe wrote the book herself rather than using a ghostwriter). I gave this four stars ****, I really enjoyed reading, but as I said before didn’t necessarily agree with all of the advice given, which is fine. It doesn’t feel like a self help book but definitely gave me the kick I needed when I was struggling.

Sunday 7 – 7 Things I’ve Learnt Since Breaking My Spine

4 Comments

I’ve been feeling fairly emotional in the last few weeks about today. It’s been one year since breaking my spine and I just feel kind of weird about it. I broke down in tears after a particularly bad pain day, because I’m still in all this pain a year later. I just felt so fed up but then I had a hug with Ali and he reminded me of what I’ve been saying to myself for the past 12 months. I may be in pain but I’m still here and I’m still walking. What happened to me was bad enough but it could have been a lot worse! I’ve also really grown as a person in the past year, my opinion on life has changed and I’m truly grateful. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I’m glad it happened, it changed a lot and I didn’t have the best year BUT I am really proud of myself, how I’ve reacted and what I’ve learnt.

You can have all the ridged plans you want, but life doesn’t work that way.

IMG_3640

Before the accident, I had a plan of how my life would go and it would go that way. I was like I’ll graduate then and I’ll go straight to my masters, then my Phd. I’ll have a house by this time, a dog, a child, another child, I WILL HAVE CONTROL. I learnt after the accident that life can throw ANYTHING at you, there was a point where I physically couldn’t walk. Of course, I didn’t plan that, no one plans almost losing the ability to walk. It made me realise that I can’t have this idea of infinite control, so I’ve let go a little. Things will happen as they do, I only have so much control.

Stop being so hard on yourself! 

Recovery was hard, super hard. I constantly get told by my physiotherapists, pain specialists, lecturers, family, Ali that I need to stop being so hard on myself. They’d remind me all the time this wasn’t a small break, this was a huge part of my body trying to fix itself. So what if I put on weight, if I didn’t get the top grade in my class. I realised striving to be great is good but I don’t have to be perfect all the time.

The human body is a beautiful and amazing thing.

For a long time after the accident and sometimes still now I resented my body. I hated that it had broken in such a simple fall, I hated the stretch marks that had bloomed all over my thighs, I hated the fact people commented on how much weight I’d put on and I hated that I didn’t fit into any of my clothes. I had a realisation at a point that I just thought my body has been doing so much work. It’s literally been healing the main pillar in my body that hold everything together, that’s amazing.

img_6822-1

When you’re sick enough, you can cope with your hatred of needles/hospitals/ claustrophobia. 

I still hate needles, I will always hate needles BUT when you’re sick enough (like when I was in the hospital earlier in the year) you get on with it. I still don’t like hospitals (who does) but now it’s just another place I have to go sometimes. I won’t lie having my MRI and CT scans were pretty nerve wracking and claustrophobic but the people running them understood that. Basically you can get through a lot more than you think you can.

The gym is better than any therapy session and any religion. 

IMG_5884

If you’d have asked me a year ago about loving the gym I would have laughed at you, now I’m stressed when I CAN’T go. The gym is a love and an obsession and I can’t wait to get back into routine and slowly keep building my muscles and be in so much better shape than I was a year ago.

It’s ok to have days where it all feels like too much. 

You’re only human, you need these days, it’s okay!

The people who stick around are the ones that are meant to be there. 

img_6433

My relationships changed a lot after the accident, I lost a lot of people and I gained some others. More than anything I learnt that the people that are meant to be there will be. I also learnt that some people are in your life for a certain amount of time and that’s okay too. I’m a firm believer in everything happens for a reason.

Remembering the good.

Leave a comment

0d526d0815f94b767c3f1aa42cb00ffc

If you haven’t guessed already I love pictures like the one above. I love words and slogans and nice backgrounds. I guess it’s because sometimes I don’t have the image that says what I want to say or sometimes I don’t have the words to say how I feel. It’s because of that I use Pinterest a lot because sometimes the words I need are already there. I don’t use the quote I picked today because I think I’m this brave, strong person. I’ve always said I’ve simply got on with my life the best I can.

I’ve thought a lot about the accident in the past few days, about my spine. This isn’t because I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, more because I’ve been in pain again and there’s nothing more frustrating. When my doctors say the scans look normal and my physio says there’s not much he can do and yet I’m still in pain a lot of the time. When I’m in the awkward part where I still can’t walk too far or stand up for long periods of time and have to explain that I’m recovering from a spine injury. When I have to call venues and explain why I need a seat and they have to decide if I’m ‘disabled enough’, because I’m not officially registered as disabled but at the same time I’m still struggling so much. Don’t get me wrong I do not want another label at all, but sometimes it’s what other people want so I can get the help I need at concert venues for example.

So while I was feeling pretty down about this yesterday, I had a conversation with Ali about how I was feeling and why. He reminded me that while the accident was shitty, awful and did change a lot of my life, a lot of positives came out of it too. I was reminded of these again when I went to see Joe tonight.

  • I’ve got a new appreciation for my body when it’s healthy
  • I’ve gotten better at taking me time and not doing things I don’t want to do
  • I’ve learnt a lot about friendship
  • I’ve got a much better relationship with food, portion sizes and exercise
  • I met Alice, who has come to be a great friend and support to me, I would never have set foot in a gym if it wasn’t for the accident
  • My relationships gotten stronger
  • I have a new sense of understanding when it comes to physical disabilities
  • I got a job I love that I might not have applied for if I hadn’t been spending so much time online when I couldn’t move
  • I got a lot of reading done
  • As a result of the reading I finally embraced feminism and found a new passion

There’s a lot there and I think, as with anything that changes your life when you don’t expect it, there’s a lot to deal with. Sometimes I forget all the positives because I’m just having a down day, that’s all. I worried about writing tonight’s blog because I have had people in the past saying I think too much about my spine, that it takes over my life. Then I shook the thought off because of COURSE breaking your spine is going to have a huge impact on your life, it changes everything for at least the first year – two years after it happens. I no longer care about the ignorant or negative people who don’t try and understand or make throwaway comments because my spine and how I handle it is a part of my life. The good, the bad and the ugly.

STRESS and what you can do about it

3 Comments

c4d91b91f1bfebfe7dc9cb5c0740614f

Today I woke up early with butterflies in my tummy to go to my doctors appointment. I’ve been so nervous about getting these test results back after being ill on and off for the past month.  The good news is that it’s none of the things they were testing for like Crohn’s, Celiac disease, Diabetes and general bowel disease. The not so good news is that my body isn’t dealing well with the stress that I’ve been under and it’s made me sick. I read somewhere once that we shouldn’t talk about stress, that it was a very british thing to say when we are and we shouldn’t do it. I thought about that for a long time and I think it’s part of the reason I don’t like telling people I’m stressed, I don’t want to seem like I’m whinging.

After hearing from the doctor what being stressed is doing to my health though (and this isn’t the first time), I realised this IS something that needs to be spoken about. Especially with students, I’m in my final year at university and the stress is unbelievable. There is so much pressure to do well, work out what I want to do, find jobs, apply for jobs,  socialise, enjoy all the ‘lasts’, apply for postgrad schemes. On top of all that I have my spine stuff and my mental health. As my mentor said to me, it’s no wonder that I’m getting stressed out at the moment.

So I did what I always do, I wrote a list of things to help me deal with stress and hopefully some of them can help you too

  • Write things down, what you need to do, things that are worrying you, things to look forward too. Everything is a lot better when you write it down. I usually do it in fun colours.
  • Be honest with the people around you.
  • Learn to say no, when things are too much or you don’t want to do them. Saying no is ok!
  • Listen to your body! That’s probably the most important
  • Find a stress reliever, I always feel better after a workout if my spine would let me I’d be in the gym every day.
  • Try and get a good nights sleep.
  • Whenever you can, be around people who make you feel good!
  • Treat yourself to something you want
  • Allow yourself to be a little selfish.

I plan on doing all of these on my week off to try and recharge my batteries and get ready for the final 6 weeks of lectures (!!).

Let me know what some of your stress busting tips are in the comments.

Maybe life’s not fair..

Leave a comment

When we’re young we get told life isn’t fair and as we grow older we realise this. there are things that we can’t control that we wish we could, illness is one of those things. You can help with some to prevent it or sooth symptoms but there are others you can’t, and mental illness is the same. I’ve learnt a lot in the last few years about myself and the illness that I have. I’ve thrown myself into research to learn more about the science behind it, recent research and theories to try and have a handle on something that I didn’t choose to have.

Ask a group of people with a mental illness and none of them would have asked to have it. It interrupts life and sometimes for some of our friends it takes theirs. I’ve thought a lot recently about this, about health. As much as I try and treat my body right with certain foods and getting fit and healthy I can’t do much for my mind. Sure I can surround myself with positive people and listed to my mind and my body but other than that if I’m having a low there are a lot of times where I have to wait it out, live with my depression or the anxiety attacks I sometimes have.

That said, ask that same group of people if they could flick a switch and it would have never happened and it will never happen again, it would be a much harder decision. Don’t get me wrong, in the last 6-7 years my illness has made my life hell and has taken things away from me, but it’s also given me things too. I’ve had depression since I was a teenager, so I don’t know what it’s like being an adult without it so sometimes I wonder, would I be as empathetic if I’d never had it, would I be as passionate and would I be so grateful for the little things in life. I don’t know. But I do know, because of my illness, that I have the best possible people in my life who pick me up and who know when I need the day or when I need a kick up the ass. Through lows and highs I’ve got great writing ideas or lyrics I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of, I’ve connected with amazing people and can be blissfully happy by the tiniest of things like waking up in the morning and feeling ok and other things too.

Why am I writing this? For a few reasons, one because I didn’t feel so great in my mentoring session today and we talked for a long time about depression, how I feel about it and the fears I have. There is fear, fear that I might go back to a dark place like I was at school but my mentor pointed something out to me. At 15/16 I had no experience, I hadn’t been diagnosed and I didn’t have a good medical team. I didn’t have a lot of information or ways to recognise my feelings and try and combat them before they got too bad, I had unhealthy ways of dealing with my feelings. In the last 3 years especially I’ve done well to get as far as I have and while the fear won’t go away, if I take note I’m in a better position than I was when I was 15/16. I have a voice and I have you guys too, who can cheer me up on Twitter to no end.

34219_464158193205_4515223_n

Taken on my 15th birthday, I was happy here and hadn’t really experienced bad depression yet. 

People may call me names like a nut job, loon, or make snide remarks about being unstable and therefore unable. I’m getting to the point where I’m starting not to care and their hate makes me more driven. This illness may never go away but that doesn’t mean people will always be ignorant, which is why I write things like this to educate, to explain. I’ve written before about my story (the short version, maybe one day I’ll write it in detail) before and I’ve always been open on here about my highs and lows. I think it’s important to remember, for anyone who has an illness, that this is just a part of you, it does not define you. 

So no, life might not be fair and there are thousands of people in the world who live with my illness every day, but we aren’t alone. We might feel like it when depression grabs us and drags us under for a few days but at the end of the day there are so many others out there who are at all different stages of their illness and recovery. Don’t be scared of being you.

Workouts and Willpower

1 Comment
IMG_5884

Work it!! 

For the last 6 weeks I’ve been trying really hard to get fitter and healthier. As soon as I was told that I was allowed to attempt a little more exercise I wanted to work on it. I went to physio religiously and only missed one week because I had the sickness bug and wasn’t allowed to. I’ve never really had the kick up the butt I needed before, but after the accident I had a huge appreciation for, you know, a working body.

Now I’m at home it would be easy for me to say ‘oh well! I’ll just start again in January!’ and then eat everything, ignore my routine and then cry in January. I refuse to forget my progress. So, a few weeks ago I called the biggest gym enthusiast I knew and asked if he could be my gym buddy once I was home. This morning I was picked up by my Gramps and we headed to the gym for my induction and his work out.

It is very weird that my Gramps is so much healthier than me and while I was being shown around, he was on all the machines! Eventually I got started and we were doing some of our exercises side by side. It’s nice because we’ve always been super close, to the point where I wouldn’t sleep as a toddler until he’d come home from work, so having this to do just the two of us was nice. Hopefully I’ll get at least 2 more sessions in before I go back to London.

I left feeling energised and really proud of myself. No one forced me to go and work out today I wanted too and felt so good after. My new gym buddy was pretty pleased too. If 16 year old me had been told I’d love the gym she would have fainted (I’ve never been sporty at all, riding was the only thing and, well, you know how that went).

Now, the other thing I need to work on over the holidays is not over indulging on sweets, chocolates, my Mum’s amazing cooking and my sisters delicious baking. Over the past few days I’ve been very good. I’m using my app and still eating my recommended amount of calories but it is hard. I don’t want to just not eat but at the same time I don’t want to seem rude. It’s a tough balance and on days like today sometimes I don’t want to eat because I know I’ve done so well, then I quickly remind myself that I’m not getting into that cycle again. I’m doing this the healthy way or not at all, hence why I won’t have any scales in my flat.

IMG_5880

Mine and Summer’s Gingerbread House…looks so yummy!

My willpower is being pushed to the limit but so far, so good. I feel healthy, happy and actually really accomplished that I’m sticking to something I’ve found so difficult in the past. Unlike a lot of the ‘new year, new me’ types that will head into the gym January I’m not doing this to lose that big of extra weight or because I ‘should’, I’m doing it because I’m really proud of my body. After all the healing and growing new bone after so much damage (some of which may be permanent) I’m going to treat it as well as I damn well can.