Tag: health

Two Feet on the ground…

As Dolly Parton once sung we are all “working nine to five” or at least five thirty, six ish depending on what time the boss leaves the office. Here at the world’s silliest blog we work whatever time we like, heck half the staff are passed out at their desks fast asleep most of the day. Like a good Mexican restaurant we let them siesta for as long as they like. As long as they walk into the editor’s office with great ideas every week they can come in at ten past nine and leave and quarter past nine for all we care. Ideas are what keep this fine publication ticking along week after week and the sponsors happy. If we had any… Hint to potential investors if you want your free t-shirt you are going to need to actually spend money.

With the chief out of the office on some quest to show he’s still young by putting his body through the wringer and seeing if he can still compete at the top-level of amateur sport. Which is what lead us to write this week piece. With all our competitors writing about self-care at present it was only reasonable that we jumped in the paddock and marched along to the feed trough with the rest of societies sheep. So self-care what is it you ask? So did we, we asked a lot. There were some disturbingly bad answers on google as to what selfcare is so before your minds wander into the proverbial gutter we’ll put it out there.

Noooo self-care is not playing with yourself for pleasure. It is exactly what it sounds like. Self care is taking care of oneself. In a general sense, self-care refers to activities undertaken with the intention of enhancing energy, restoring health and reducing stress. There are many ways to do this and self-care is something that can be personalised for every individual. Well that’s what our good friends at google tell us anyway once we did a quick search.

Whether that be caring for your mental health, physical health or purely pampering yourself in order to feel a little better. That’s what we are talking about when we talk about self-care here at A Mind of Its Own. Not enough people take the time to look after their health in general. They go through the motions and complain they are time poor or just too busy to find time to do the things that would make them feel so much better each day if they consistently did them.

The big dog (Our Editor and Chief) is a classic example of inconsistency when it comes to looking after himself and doing what is right for his mind, body and soul. We asked him what his routine looks like when he feels he is his best compared to the days where we all run for the hills knowing what he is like when he hasn’t had enough sleep or isn’t taking care himself like he should. As a man who suffers anxiety and depression he knows he is best when he has a routine, sticks to it and he makes time to cover something from the mind, body and soul.

Speaking first hand around the office he is the first one to point out that ten minutes each morning meditating is a great way to start the day followed by forty plus minutes of exercise, a good breakfast of eggs and toast and you are ready to rock n roll. Your mind is clear, your body feels healthy and most importantly your soul is happy. As wise as he is, he is also the first person to point out to you that what works for one may not work for the other. We are individual beings and whilst we may share body types, blood types, skin colour and various other things we are all very different and therefore our bodies react differently to exercise, meditation, massage, treatments etc. Therefore you cannot prescribe one regime for everyone.

The best coaches in the world work out how to motivate their athletes, they deep dive into what makes them tick and from their better understand that what motivates one may not motivate another. While there are generalities that can be passed from one individual to the next it is all about that single being and what works best for them. While teams sports are all about the team goals in order to reach those goals and objectives you need to get the most out of the individuals as they a brought together as a team.

As you get older and some of you wiser perhaps, you tend to know what works for you and what doesn’t, yes you may have to try a thousand different ways and things, but eventually you will get there and work out what is best for your mind, body and soul. It does become more and more important the older you get to ensure you are looking after yourself. The lessons you learn about yourself will help you through all facets of life including love for all our fans still searching for the one. It’ll happen and you’ll know when they are the right one just don’t forget to put a ring on it when you do meet him or her.

So from the team at the world’s funniest, friendliest and most sympathetic blog, take some time out each day to look after number one. I can guarantee your number two, three, four and perhaps five will appreciate it. You’ll find not only will you feel fresher, fitter and friskier well we don’t know about the last one but you’ll feel better as you go about your normal routine looking after everyone else as a lot of people tend to do. Starting your journey could be as simple as taking yourself for a walk followed by writing down your thoughts and feelings. So until next week… Au revoir!

Are you still having fun…

With Thursday the 13th of September being R U Ok? Day, we asked our editor and chief if he’d sit in his seat and discuss anxiety and depression with our readers along with telling us how much talking and writing about it has helped him over the past couple of years. As they say a single conversation could make someone’s day, their week or their year. It’s ok to talk and more men and women need to be educated that is ok. SO over to you chief fire away and don’t bore the readers too much please…

Well with that introduction I’d better ensure to make this an easy, breezy read for the folks at home. If you had of asked me to write about this a year or two ago the answers would have varied from Aww hell no to a few expletives followed by a staunch no. The fact that I am now able to sit here and talk about it is a testament that if you can find that one person and start opening up, the more you do it the more you become comfortable doing. In saying that I still struggle to speak with people about my anxiety and depression that I don’t really know or that I am not comfortable with. Even writing this now has a me a little anxious as to what people may or may not think.

Like thousands of men and women across Australia and around the globe I suffer from anxiety and depression. I have my good days and yes I certainly have my bad days, my wife will be happy to attest to that. The good news is they are coming few and far between, I won’t lie and say it was easy to get to this point but I will say that it took a lot of hard work and honesty. Firstly being honest with myself and secondly being honest with those that I care about and love. Being honest and admitting to myself that there was something wrong and I needed help was probably one of the hardest things I have had to do in my life.

No one likes asking for help especially when they often can’t put their finger on exactly what the problem is or why they are feeling that way. So when people used to ask me what was wrong or why i was being quiet I would often just say nothing and try to disappear into the background. I tried changing the topic and more often than not I would ask questions and listen so I didn’t have to deal with my own thoughts and feelings. We all have days when we are feeling a little blue so I put a lot of what I was thinking and feeling down to that. At the time I was living in Brisbane, a long way away from my family and close. Yeah I had some good mates around me but none that I was comfortable talking to at the time.

It wasn’t until I started to display physical symptoms that I knew I had to do something, I had to see someone. I remember one day sitting on the floor of the bathroom feeling nauseous, there was a tightness across my chest and I was actually physically sick and I couldn’t control my thoughts. It was something I had never experienced before but it was something that would happen to me more and more over the following months until I saw someone. Now I would love to say that I plucked up the courage and went of my own volitions however I didn’t. I was given an ultimatum but it was the one that I needed and deep down I knew it was for my own good.

With my decision made I then struggled for some time as to who do I go and see, do I get medical help, do I go straight to the psychologist or psychiatrist, do I talk to friends, family. What do I do? It was daunting, I searched online, I read articles but at the end of the day it was a conversation with my father in law that changed it all. You see we don’t often get to see what goes on behind closed doors. We don’t ask questions that are personal and as men we just choose not to talk about our feelings. Its ingrained and beat into us from birth, strong men don’t talk about their feelings.

This one conversation though set me on the right path, through opening up I learnt that I wasn’t alone, I wasn’t the only person to go through this and there is nothing wrong with asking for help and knowing that it is ok to talk. Now my journey to seek the help i need may be different to a lot of people. I had a Skype call with one of the nation’s top professors of Psychiatry who then pointed me in the right direction and made recommendations. From there I saw my physician and on that back of that we setup a mental health plan that suited me.

My next hurdle along the way was having to take medication, it got me down and made me even more anxious that I needed to take a tablet each day to ensure my highs and lows were kept in balance. It honestly made me feel miserable but what it did do was allow my brain to slow down and process things a lot better. The more I researched what I was taking the more comfortable I became. I would talk about it in my session with my psychologist and together we began forming a plan to put in place the strategies and techniques to allow me to cope with my anxiety and depression if I ever came off the medication.

Over time my dosage has been adjusted, slowly becoming less and less as I become more and more comfortable with my own thoughts and feelings. How I manage and process them has gone from one of confusion and often being overwhelmed to now being ok with them and letting the thoughts and feelings come and go as they please. I’ve also learnt that talking about my anxiety and depression or writing about it has helped me a great deal. Being ok and realising that it is not a weakness but a strength, a strength that shines through in the day-to-day battle with my mind and thoughts.

The uneducated will make comments like what have you got to be sad about or are you suicidal. A lot them won’t even attempt to understand and will shy away from people with mental health issues. The truth is that mental health issues affect everyone differently, yes it does overwhelm some people to the point they want to the pain to stop that’s the sad truth but they are often the people who need our help the most. They are the people who just having a conversation with them could make their day. It could save their life, the problem is a lot of people still feel the shame and stigma that comes with mental health.

Conversations have helped me over the past couple of years, just having them has opened up my eyes to the world and to the fact I am not alone in my struggle. It has helped me understand my mind, understand my anxiety, understand my depression and most importantly understand that it’s ok to not be ok. It’s ok to talk, its ok to ask for help. It’s ok to put yourself out there and be vulnerable. Take a leaf from the young females of the world they put themselves out there on social media on a daily basis with there blogging and fashion posts but they are allowing themselves to be vulnerable often for a good cause.

I’ve been humbled this week by several people reaching out to me and sharing their stories and asking for help. Whether they were inspired by me finding my voice and asking for help or not is irrelevant the fact they were able to speak up and say there were struggling made me both proud and humbled at the same time. They were taking the steps to find their feet once again and work on themselves. Most importantly they were learning to love themselves once more. The biggest part of any healing process is accepting that you are going to be ok and who you are.

So it is to all those who are struggling in the world, you are not alone, there is a good chance the person sitting next to you right now is going through the same thing or has already been through. Do yourself a favour and ask people are you ok? What you give you shall receive tenfold as the old saying goes. Pay it forward, look after yourself and take care of those around you. It’s ok to talk, its ok not to be ok, and most importantly it is ok to ask for help. From myself and the team here at A Mind of Its Own, R U Ok? Start the conversation even if it isn’t for you.

Limelight…

What a week it has been, we’ve been jetting about this amazing land of ours for our job that actually pays the bills. Adelaide and Canberra have felt the presence of the Mind of Its Own team this week in our travels. We’ve tasted the wines of South Australia and got to hang out in the halls of parliament with some of the MP’s. OK it wasn’t the halls but the flight from Canberra to Sydney on our way back to god’s country. Ah that would be Northern New South Wales. OK, OK enough fibs we caught a glimpse of them from cattle class where we barely had any room to move and our knees were up around our ears. Oh and not to mention our beers were overpriced for the portion size.

We did however get to spend sometime at the War Memorial checking out there new exhibit ‘From the Shadows’ focusing on Australia’s special forces past and present. We can safely say it was a very humbling experience walking the halls of the memorial dedicated to the men and women who have fought to protect our country. Ok so maybe not so much protecting our shores, there was a brief period where Japan was knocking on our doorstep during world war two but for the most part we have always gone to war on behalf of the crown or to support our American brothers across the sea.

So after our visit to the nation’s capital and the city of churches with exhausted minds and tired bodies we returned to our place of peace to enjoy some time away from the office. Hence why your weekly edition is so late. Apologies to our supporters, we may be late but we have finally got here for you. So this week we wanted to look at Anxiety and sport particularly with finals just around the corner across multiple sporting codes. From our elite athletes to our amateur sports men and woman, being a part of a finals campaign is something that whilst exciting can often become very overwhelming.

Whilst athletes at the professional level will have access to sports psychologists, your everyday joe playing in their local competition during finals time does not. Often when it comes to big games, whether it be semi finals or a grand final it can be overwhelming for people who have never experienced the pressure that come with a finals campaign. Even those who have played finals year in year out can still experience pre-finals jitters. Speaking from experience we know that it can be an anxious time as you wait for your game to start.

More often than not athletes will play the game over and over in their heads before they’ve even stepped on the field or court. The anxiety that builds up before a game can see even the best of athletes run their race before it starts. Within sport there are two main types of anxiety in Sport, trait anxiety and state anxiety.

Trait anxiety is more general and enduring, suggesting a predisposition to anxiety in all areas of life, not just in sport where as state anxiety is transient and specific only to the particular situation an athlete finds themselves in.

They display themselves differently in each individual. From the athlete that spews before each match to the basketballer on the free throw line whose mind is his greatest obstacle. In training they make every single shot, never miss, but during the game they struggle to overcome the anxiety that builds every time their feet touch that line.

So to our amateur athletes across the country experiencing any of the following symptoms just remember that it is a natural to feel these things and the best way to overcome it all is to discuss it with coaches and teammates. Some of the symptoms you may feel could include the following…

  • Cognitive symptoms relate to thought processes, including fear, indecision, poor concentration, loss of confidence and defeatist self-talk.
  • Somatic (physical) symptoms include muscular tension, clammy hands and feet, increased heart rate, sweating and butterflies in the stomach.
  • Behavioral symptoms relate to patterns of behavior, including inhibited posture, fingernail biting, avoidance of eye contact and uncharacteristic displays of introverted or extroverted behavior.

Here at a Mind of Its Own, we’d like to say, good luck to all those participating in the big dance throughout September. And for those that aren’t there is some quality viewing as all! The football codes are entering finals time, netball oh wait that’s done the Sunshine Coast Lighting took that title, there’s some golf tournaments, some over paid tennis players running a court, table tennis tournaments from south-east asia and home-grown lawn bowls finals and all your other favourite sport can be found across the channels you pay for with your fox sports package.

Remember why you started to play the game and remember to be nice to those that officiate it. But most of all have fun out there whether you play at the elite level or amateur so you can taste those sweet victory beers without the scrutiny of the media or your sponsors. It’s all about the enjoyment and we all make mistakes. So until the next time we grace your screen, peace out and enjoy September…

I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…

An open letter to the politicians of Australia, well we’d like to send you one but politics just isn’t our scene as our readers will tell you. We’ve been there tried that and unfortunately we just didn’t get the tee-shirt besides the fact that it would be foul-smelling and stained with tears of our Aussie battlers far and wide. So without further ado we welcome you to this week episode of Australia’s premier blog about life, love and all things real. Ok, ok so this weeks blog is more about searching for love and the things that people will go through to find it.

As this writer sat down last week with his wife to relax after a hard days work in the office ensuring the executives all get there bonuses off the back of the worker drones. The TV was set to channel 10 perhaps the Project was on or something else. We probably had our head buried in a book or were taping out an installment of this blog. Any who reality tv made its way onto the television before us.

So it’s not a new addition to their line up however it is the first time this writer has actually sat through a whole episode and in this case more than one episode. And it is all thanks to one man, one man who has cemented his place in Australia’s sporting history. Perhaps not through his sporting prowess, but certainly through is Aussie Larrikin, down to earth, salt of the earth, surfer boy ways.

Hailing from Australia’s undisputed home of esky lid riding or bodyboarding for those in the biz, that’s business folks. Nick “Honey Badger” Cummins, who was clearly a private school kid seeing as it seems to be a sport for the toffees and only only private school kids seem to play it these days was a former Wallaby, Western Force and according to the Internets sole authoritarian website Wikipedia which is a source of truth for so many high school kids assignments, he also played for the Coca Cola Red Sparks in the Japanese league. For those of you overseas or who just aren’t into sports they are all Rugby Union teams.

Just quickly it’s the game where big men pile on top of each other or get into these things called scrums that look like they are sticking the heads up each others backsides looking for god knows what. They certainly aren’t going to find the god particle up there.

Enter the Bachelor all 99kgs and 189cm of the man affectionately known around the world as the Honey Badger. Not your typical choice for channel 10s premier reality show in which the contestants go looking for love in all the wrong places or in this case women. After last season of the Bachelorette where we saw Gold Coasts Sophie Monk the undisputed queen of the bogans looking for love it should have been no surprise that the boy from Port Macquarie is on our screens.

If you have no idea who the Badge is, you needn’t look too far. Turn on the idiot box and wait for one of those Tradie underwear advertisements to come on. The bloke with the moustache and curly hair with is ears taped back, chiseled like a Greek god who is spouting Aussie phrases. Funnily enough its it’s his use of these colloquialisms and his often brutally honest jokester approach that has made him a hit In a world where athletes with big personalities seem to be repressed.

The Honey Badgers use of colloquialisms to describe situations and or feelings whether they be his own or those of one of the female contestants vying for his love and affection makes the viewing of the Bachelor all the more worthwhile. If you don’t find yourself laughing at his Larkin self you’ll certainly find yourself laughing at the cringe worthy women who are somewhat slowly helping to undo all the great work women have done around the world for women’s rights.

Don’t get us wrong these women are being treated by the Badge with the utmost respect but respect for each other seems to be lacking. Often just moral decency for fellow human being seems to disappear but what can we the public expect when you pit affection starved women against one another for the love of a honey badger. At a mind of its it’s own we can only hope he can tell the difference between a honey pot and a honey trap as a lot of these women seem to be on the show for one reason and one reason only. FAME…

Watching on you see the girls who are there for themselves and have found an opportunity to put themselves in the limelight and then there are the crazy ok there is one who is almost bordering on stalkerish behaviour. The rest are there to see what happens and no doubt looking for love themselves. It wouldn’t make good viewing if there wasn’t drama but “Holy Tamora” as the Badge would say some of these women are busier backstabbing each other than a one-armed bricklayer in Baghdad.

The team at A Mind of Its Own are as nervous as a bag of cats at a greyhound meet for the Badge in his crusade for love. We can only hope this Aussie Legend find the right woman and crosses the line for a bit of meat. That’s short for Meat Pie aka a try another one of Badges colloquialisms used frequently in his interviews from his football days.

Gone are the days where you have to work hard to find your significant other. Courting no longer exists and chivalry is whilst not quite dead is often on the couch where you made it sleep. With technology we have become lazy in our quest for love. Online dating, online matchmaking, hook up apps and even complex algorithms that will supposedly spit out your perfect match within minutes of your application. So with all this available at your fingertips and the risk of being catfished by a big balding, sweaty guy in a foreign country why would you go on a reality show searching for the one?

It’s a question that will no doubt be put to the Badge as he continues his hunt for the honey of his life. In the meantime like us you should sit back, relax and enjoy the laughs with the man as he attempts to whittle down 30 girls to just the one. We could have saved him the hassle and got him together with Sophie they’d make a great pair and both of them are rather funny.

So from A Mind of Its Own if you are looking for love these are the places you are likely not to find it. Firstly tinder is not a place to go looking for love, secondly bars and clubs and thirdly reality tv shows. There are plenty of fish in the sea just dive in and start fishing. We are all scared of rejection but what’s more powerful fear of rejection or fear of ending up alone?

Don’t be the captain that goes down with the ship, take a risk or two, knock a few people out of the lifeboat…

Abandon Ship or Abandon All Hope…

Like discovering a new planet or species of animal, all discoveries require research, so for this week’s episode the team at A Mind of Its Own pulled on their gym shorts donned their singlets that barely cover the bulging beer bellies and laced up our best pairs of dunlop volleys in order to head out and get some much needed exercise. Like a bunch of clowns we jumped into the Tarago and headed off into the Sun, towards the surf and sand, the glitz and glamour of Australia’s home of the cashed up bogan. Welcome to Ipswich!!! Just kidding we are back again on the gold coast looking like a 70’s NBA team with way too much skin showing for middle aged white males.

First of all if you are searching for a McDonalds, KFC and Hungry Jacks what you may have noticed is there is pretty much one on every major street corner. What you might have also noticed is gym’s have become the health junkies fast food franchise. We’d do the maths and give you the average amount of gyms per suburb but it’s just passed whiskey o’clock and our brains only seem to work between the hours of 9 to 5 without the aid of alcohol to drive our cognitive patterns. If it’s after 5pm our filter packs up for the day, our sense of humour comes home to increase the hilarity and our caution to the wind disappears altogether like last nights vindaloo down the dunny in the wee hours of the morning.

Like Roxanne putting on her red light, the gyms are lit up for all to see. There bright advertising invites you to come inside and transform from flab to fab. The reception is generally manned by a beautiful person to show you exactly what can happen if you too come in and spend time sitting in other people’s sweat after they forget to wipe down the machines. As we watched the hard earned pineapples leave our wallet and fly across the counter into the male models chiselled hands, a row of pearly whites flashed a knowing look our way. We began to wonder what drives people to come to these testosterone filled, bloated ego dens. We half expected to walk into the changerooms and transport into an American football locker room with blokes flicking each other with towels and the coach handing out steroid injections.

We’d entered the belly of the beast, there was no turning back now. We needed to soldier on and stop making excuses as our team of unwilling beer guzzlers was lead up stairs to the gym floor. With our tails between our legs we’d have just as soon as run back down the stairs and all the way to the safety of the NSW border then be in this hell. We’d entered a land never seen before… Everywhere we looked, we saw people with no necks and ladies with bigger guns than some of the Australian Navy’s warships. Mirrors adorned the walls with people staring at themselves as they ensure there form was correct. Form you ask? So did we after we questioned how vain all these people were.

Have you ever wondered why a lot of people just refuse to go to the gym these days? Well at a mind of its own we think we’ve found the answer. Enter any gym around Australia… First of all if we got you there you’ve no doubt noticed all the mirrors, what else have you noticed? It’s the dudes with tattoo sleeves bulging muscles, skinning legs and no necks right? Or the older ladies with bolt ons, makeup that looks like its been applied with there tradie husbands trowel and the orange glow of their skin? Or is it the looks you keep getting everytime you go to use a machine that one of the roided up egos has been alternating between when he or she is not staring at themselves in the mirror wondering how they’ll go this saturday night trying to pick up. And some of these people could quite literally pick up other people and throw them around a room in a fit of aggressive passion.

Like crotchety old men we are pushed towards a bench and told to lift some weights. The term “Do you even lift” gets thrown around a little too much and the muscle men in front of the mirror laugh and shake their heads as we strain to get the bar and the meager 5kgs on either end moving in a repetitive nature that the trainer is happy with. By now he is starting to lose his patience with our un-coordinated lack of ability to do anything that resembles bench press. Finally though he wins through and like true professionals we find the exercise for us.

Who knew bicep curls and drinking were so closely related. As we lifted heavier and heavier pretending we were lifting stiens of Germany’s heaviest, sweetest ales to our mouths. The hour session continues to drag out as we move from station to station still perplexed by how serious people are taking their workouts. There are guys throwing around weights channelling their inner Arnie, young ladies who have almost done an hour of nothing but squats as they work their glutes into a Kim Kardashian frenzy for the perfect bum.

Triangles flex in front of the mirrors forgetting leg day for the 100th session in a row. There skinny little legs starting to bow at the strain of carrying around there large muscled upper bodies. The serious gym goers grunt out a session, sweating as they push themselves harder and harder through each exercise while the plastics do just enough to keep there figure and slight tone while trying to wear as little as possible to attract looks from all around. The trainers laugh at their own jokes and talk about their weekends while pushing clients to breaking point. Creepy guys watch on as girls try to work out in peace, no wonder a lot of women go to Fernwood. And then there are the other guys. The ones who just want to maintain their fitness and do it without losing their dignity.

Finally done it’s like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders, in this case it literally has, all those weighted lunges can’t be good for your knees, back and any other part of your body. That deep burn you keep hearing about isn’t so deep as you feel it begin to radiate through your entire body like an oil slick spreading from a crashed tanker. Walking out feeling like we’d been run over by Optimus Prime and the entire Autobots entourage. The pain pain was only going to get worse as we soon discovered. Two days later… enter DOM no not a bloke named Dom who we had a disagreement with whilst at the gym sitting in his sweat but delayed onset muscles soreness or DOMS. It’s the pits and we are starting to see why people hate the gym.

Ok so the gym might not be for everyone, or more importantly gyms on the Gold Coast might not be for everyone. If you like looking at yourself in the mirror, have ridiculous tattoos, drive a car like your part of the fast n furious crew, have no neck and think you are super good looking then the gold coast gym scene is definitely for you. If you want to go and work out without having to deal with all this we suggest you do during the day before lunch or after lunch before work finishes. Or you could always just install your own home gym and be done with the machine hogs.

As we sneak away from yet another session in the gym where our arms and legs are burning and our egos are feeling a little shattered. We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s installment of a mind of its own, no roid rage was endured or encounter in the making of this blog. We hope we haven’t offended any gym frequenters in our take on Gold Coast gyms. If we have you’ll get over it before the next set is done. For another week it’s over and out and from the team at A Mind of Its Own, you do you champ.

20 Dollar Nose Bleed…

Well, well, well we meet again my old friends. It’s a new week and the chance for you to once again bask in the brilliant stylings of a Mind of Its Own. This week we threw out to our fans and just like the writers at this here blog none of their suggestions were remotely serious. Expect perhaps this writers wife who wanted a piece all about herself. Instead I’m proposing she lends us one of her blogs and we’ll post it on our amazing platform? Or she can come and write a silly piece for us.

As for the other suggestions our view is simply this. We agree you shouldn’t have to pay for cheese on a kebab particularly after 1am. Fatboy Slim is the best DJ ever! Purple cucumbers or eggplant as its better known is the tastiest vegetable and public figures! Perhaps we’ll leave that to the Healing Well Co to cover. It seems like a topic they are quite passionate about it. But in public figures defence, they are figures and the are a part of the public. So I guess in some ways we are all public figures???.

So despite all the amazing suggestions we decided to go with something that crashed into us like a stereotypical Asian driver. For a country surrounded by the sea we don’t often take the time to look at beaches as anything more than a place for us to get bronzed bodies, hang ten and cool off especially in summer. Have you ever taken the time to stop and think about how you feel after you’ve taken a dip in the salty seas or are behind the wheel on your way home after a day at the beach?. So the question we thought we’d try to answer this week was whether the ocean actually has healing abilities or is it just a placebo effect?

From a scientific standpoint or medical opinion we’ve been told by (Google, Wikipedia and various other reliable sources) the internet that the ocean can we a double-edged sword when it comes to dunking yourself with open wounds. Whilst the sea is rich in mineral salts such as iodine and sodium therefore making it a natural antiseptic you do run the risk of picking up a bacterial infections. That being said we have discovered that there are similarities between seawater and human plasma the only difference being humans have one extra molecule of iron and seawater has an extra molecule of magnesium other than that it is a staggering 98% identical.

Besides being somewhat good at helping to heal wounds are there other qualities this readily abundant source of magic has? And why do we not listen to our ancestors and naturopaths who have been spruiking the oceans qualities for years like that guy in the cheap suit out the front of a Goldmark or Prouds at sale time? The Egyptians (ancient) not the modern-day guys and girls, the Greeks again ancient, the Romans all recommended the use of sea water in hot baths as a way of healing the mind, body and soul for centuries.

In fact according to several sources it was Hippocrates who first used the word Thalassotherapy (from the Greek word ‘thalassa’ meaning sea). What is that you ask? Thalassotherapy is a therapeutic use of the seawater, its climate, and marine products like algae, seaweed, and alluvial mud used in the healing of the body. So if it’s good enough for some of the great philosophers of the ancient world why do we not utilise its great gifts more often. Approximately 70% of the earth is covered by oceans/water around 60% of the human body is make up of water coincidence? We here at a mind of its own tend to think not.

We picked out 4 key areas in which being in the ocean or around the ocean can improve your overall well-being. With that being said once you read through this there is a bigger picture to look at and once again we urge you all to look after our oceans and its inhabitants. There is no point A Mind of Its Own telling you about all these great properties if all we continue to do is pollute it and damage it for the generations to come. As is often said around the office… Do the right thing! Be a man! Or woman!

The Oceans Effects on our Immune System…

Seawater or the ocean as we prefer to call it contains vital elements, vitamins, mineral salts, trace elements, amino acids and living microorganisms that can produce antibiotic and antibacterial effects to help promote a healthy immune system. Relating back to our earlier comment about plasma and seawater sharing similar properties, components of seawater, are easily absorbed and utilised by the human body while swimming. If you want to take up smoking we recommend sea mist as it is filled with negatively charged ions, or molecules that attach to your lungs which also boosts your immune system. According to several naturopathic doctors in addition to being good for your lungs swimming in the ocean opens pores in the skin allowing greater absorption of sea minerals and the expulsion of disease-causing toxins from the body.

Blood flow or Circulation for those more focused on the medial side…

Swimming in the ocean reportedly may help facilitate the circulation of blood in the human body, surprisingly we didn’t find anything about it helping out our four-legged friends. Now for those playing along at home your circulatory system which is made up of the heart, capillaries, arteries and veins in case you didn’t know. Carries oxygen-rich blood from your heart around your body, then returns blood to your heart again. The main purpose of thalassotherapy, or seawater therapy if you prefer to make it easy, is to increase blood circulation. Swimming or bathing in warm seawater has been proven to improve circulation by restoring essential minerals depleted by stress, a poor diet and environmental poisons.

Why pay for all those expensive body scrubs and cleansers when you can by Sea Salt at the supermarket …

Magnesium in seawater may help to hydrate and improve the appearance of your skin. According to a study in the February 2005 edition of the “International Journal of Dermatology,” bathing in a magnesium-rich Dead Sea salt solution helps promote skin moisture. People with atopic dry skin, or dryness on the skin’s surface, submerged one forearm for 15 minutes in a bath solution containing 5 percent Dead Sea salt and the other forearm in regular tap water. Researchers discovered that the salt solution improved skin hydration and significantly reduced skin inflammation symptoms such as redness and roughness when compared to tap water. Observed skin benefits were attributed to the high magnesium content of the Dead Sea salt. So why not just go for a swim everyday if you can. If you can’t buy up the dead sea!. I’m not sure table salt will work the same but we did a little research and Epsom salts or Himalayan rock salts are the next best thing to Dead Sea salt.

The Mind and body overall…

As we previously stated the ocean has been used by many for generations to improve overall health and well-being. Swimming in the ocean activates the body’s healing mechanisms to fight conditions such as asthma, arthritis, bronchitis and inflammatory diseases, as well as common aches and pains. Magnesium-rich seawater purportedly can also relax your muscles, reduce stress and help induce sleep. Magnesium is known depress nerves to relieve nervous irritability for an increased sense of calmness. So more on our mental state you ask? Oceans can bring a mental shift in the way we perceive our lives, teaching us about calmness, depth, intensity, harmony and open-mindedness.

Even walking on the bare foot on the sand is said to neutralise the impact of free radicals in our bodies as sand contains minerals required by humans on a daily basis. So perhaps those trips to the beach you keep putting of as you don’t want sand in the car or the kids are too much of a hassle to pack up in the car to get there should become a thing of the past. The ocean is amazing in more ways than one. The fact that this powerful beast has a soft sensitive side to it shows the symbiosis of nature.

Here at A Mind of Its Own we are sold that the Ocean is more than just a place for sports, tanning and source of food. The more time we spend on the shores and the seas surrounding this great land the more we are convinced that the ocean can heal anything alongside other methods and practices. So to answer the question of actual curing abilities or placebo effect? You be the judge, take the time and head to the beach. Until next time we’ll leave you with a little quote from our dear friend Plato. “The sea cures all ailments of man.” – Plato.