Hello and thanks for taking a look.

In an ever-changing world, a constant remains in the body’s ability to develop, adapt and heal itself. Whether it’s genes and hormones regulating growth and metabolism or the dynamics of homeostasis supporting your internal balance or inflammation responding to injury, while cells regenerate: the body is a remarkable thing. Just as impressive is the fact that no matter how old you are and with the right approach, you can improve your health and fitness in different ways: meaning as you age, your ability to deal with natural change increases greatly. We all know this, yet physical and mental health can be challenging things to think about as we try and deal with life.

So, if you’re reading this, you may well be dealing with some kind of health struggle. A trial of sorts taking its toll and whether physical or mental-health related, the trope of climbing a mountain seems apt. Whether it’s a disease or an injury, a disorder or condition: it’s relative to you pushing your way through while battling with health can be a full-time job impacting other roles in your life. By the time we reach middle-age, these things can feel more pronounced.

‘When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask: ‘Compared to what?’

Sydney J. Harris

It seems so, and in a demanding world the pressures faced have multiplied in diversity as much as anything else, with the accompanying stressors proving difficult for lots of people to manage. Of course, we saw this writ large in unprecedented terms with the pandemic and the effects continue to resonate physically, emotionally and financially, for some. In turn, it applies to education, especially: one of the many areas to feel an impact where the disruption exposed the fraught links between stress and learning, a fascinating topic so often taken for granted. Fortunately, we live in an era of incredible knowledge and for many: access to resources allowing us to process, integrate and heal from our issues.

For others, it’s not always possible and at times, we’re left assessing the values and behaviours shaping our lives with questions like: should I exercise today or get back to it, next week? What about the food that’s never really good for me? In the end, it’s about moderation and a strategic plan while the days and weeks accumulate into relationships with ourselves. It’s our short-term thinking battling the long with the burden of results bearing down constantly and how we deal with it, tells its own story.

‘Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship’

Benjamin Franklin

So, recovering from a health or fitness setback is no small thing either, as the battle to restore balance in the body is as much of a journey in the mind, too. That’s nothing new, but over the years, research continues to support evidence-based approaches to mind-body thinking, as it becomes increasingly apparent that a multi-layered perspective has a place in our lives. It should do, too, where so many influences shape our thoughts and feelings and where all too often, our best interests don’t even register as valid.

Finally, I’m not a counsellor or a therapist; I’m just a landscape-loving writer in his fifties with experiences that may or may not apply to your own life. As a result, the fifty-five long and short-form articles are psychological and physiological as well as philosophical and sociological while thoroughly researched and hopefully objective, too, which helps in the absence of authority beyond an old Level-3 qualification, in personal training. Also, while some of the curated images on the site have been generated by artificial intelligence, no AI software has been used in my writing, at all.

I hope you find them interesting.

George