Wellbeing & Resilience: 20/20 Wellbeing in 2020 By Zoe Lewis

20/20 Wellbeing in 2020

ZOE LEWIS, JUSTICENET

I’m embarrassed to admit that last year I was hospitalised as a result of my determination to do chin-ups. No, I didn’t fall off the gym equipment and knock myself out… I actually pushed myself to the point of developing exertional rhabdomyolysis. (You can Google it if you’re interested.)

After spending hours researching online, I discovered that “rhabdo” is seen as somewhat of a badge of honour within some fitness communities. I even came across a cartoon character called “Uncle Rhabdo”! Reported cases of “rhabdo” have significantly increased in recent years, which is thought to be partly due to our obsession with fitness extremes.

However, there is something else on the rise as well – obesity. Given that two thirds of Australian adults are overweight or obese, it seems we are living in a time and place where health extremes at both ends of the scale are thriving.

With this in mind, I wonder whether perhaps, as we progress towards the end of 2020, we might start to think of our 20/20 wellbeing like 20/20 vision.

It surprised me to learn that 20/20 vision is not perfect eyesight. Rather, it is about whether or not you can see clearly at 20 feet what should normally be seen from that distance. For many people with 20/20 vision, corrective lenses could still improve their overall vision quite considerably, but it isn’t usually considered necessary as the person still enjoys quite good vision.

So perhaps we could adopt a similarly moderate approach to health and wellbeing – aiming for reasonably good rather than striving for perfection.

If you read about health and wellbeing as obsessively as I do, you will find that there are a growing number of blogs and articles about the detrimental effects of pursuing greater health and wellbeing with too much gusto. It can cause eating disorders, fuel the harmful effects of perfectionism and anxiety, or just make us worry about yet another thing.

Two litres of water. Eight hours of sleep. Ten thousand steps. Ten serves of fruits and vegetables. The last thing the legal profession needs is another list to get through.

It is easy to think of our health and wellbeing as a checklist of numbers such as these. And whilst sleep, exercise, hydration and nutrition are all essential components of taking care of ourselves, a recent debate with colleagues about whether we might in fact be drinking too much water, made me wonder if maybe we have rather overcomplicated things for ourselves.

Both of my grandmothers were healthy into their 90s despite never eating kale – or suffering through chin-ups.

True wellbeing doesn’t need to involve the perfectly balanced meal, the perfect gym attire, or the perfect meditation. It’s about finding personal, sustainable habits that really nourish us, inside and out.

Otherwise, we risk making ourselves into a project that is never quite good enough. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that this phenomenon amped up during our period of lockdown – some people perceived that they had a lot of extra time to dedicate to this goal and so pursued it more doggedly than ever.

The truth is that seeking out expert, scientific instructions for every aspect of our lives can turn us into obsessive control freaks (well, more obsessive control freaks…). It can also leave us focussed on the wrong things, such as being thin and looking good in yoga pants, rather than having beneficial levels of strength and fitness.

And it can leave us feeling excessively responsible for our health and wellbeing. The truth is, no healthy habit will prevent us from ever getting sick or guarantee us a good night’s sleep. All we can do is stick to the things that work best for us, as much of the time as we can.