Category: health

A drawing of the number 25. Making Space 2025: Day 25
fitness · health · holiday fitness · holidays · mindfulness · self care

Making Space 2025: Day 25

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Happy Holidays! Happy Christmas! Happy Thursday!

Or, if you aren’t feeling any of those things, I wish you a perfectly acceptable day with no unpleasant surprises.

I have gotten myself a bit tangled trying to write this post because I was trying to say just the right thing to everyone.

But since that is impossible, I am just going to say this:

No matter how this day finds you, I wish you ease, I wish you space, I wish you peace.

May you have a little extra breathing room.

May you have a little more peace of mind.

May you have joy in your heart – even if it is just a flicker right now.

If you want it, may have company to help you celebrate or to help you carry what needs to be carried.

If you want it, may you have solitude so you can hear yourself think, so you can find ease, or so you can choose how to spend your time.

May you know how much you are loved.

Please be just as kind to yourself as you are to others, today and always.

Please know that I am thinking of you and sending you warmth and kindness and spaciousness.

On that note, I feel like it’s a good idea to put our meditation practice first today:

In the still image from this 5 Minute LovingKindness Meditation from Unearth Compassion, what I interpret as small green tendrils are poking up from frozen ground on a misty day.

And here’s our movement practice for today:

In the still image from this from Holly R Jahn, the instructor is wearing blue leggings and a grey shirt and trying on the floor on their back next to a large white pot for a houseplant. They are side-on to the camera and they have their arms outstretched and their right leg is crossed over their left. Their left is outstretched on the floor and their right foot is placed near their left knee.

If you would prefer more seasonally-themed choices, here are a few choices:

Christmas-Themed Workouts Playlist

Christmas-Themed Mindful Drawing Video

Festive Spirit Meditation

Finding Peace During The Holidays Meditation

fitness · health

Dental health and the environment

Diane Harper2 Comments

Christmas is coming, so my mind is turning to stocking stuffers: growing up, that always meant new toothbrushes. Now that my kids are adults, the only one who still gets toothbrushes is my daughter, as she goes through them at an alarming rate.

The problem is that toothbrushes are generally made of non-recyclable plastic. I have tried bamboo and wooden brushes but they don’t have as many options to achieve the perfect plaque-removing brush.

I did find a good dental floss in a refillable container, but by the time I needed a refill, they were no longer sold except via Amazon and I’m not ready to do that yet.

It’s a very first world problem, but it’s hard to be a good environmentalist when I can’t even get the little things right..

An Asia woman in a green shirt brushes her teeth in front of a mirror. Image: Wikimedia commons
How Much of Healing Is Faith?
health · injury · mindfulness

How Much of Healing Is Faith?

MinaLeave a comment

How Much of Healing Is Faith?

The foot surgery I mentioned last month has come and gone. I didn’t meltdown or freak out, except in the moment when the physician’s assistant was trying to put in the IV port and I got so stressed out that my veins went into hiding and I started to lose consciousness. The poor PA was mopping sweat from my face, forearms and shins, as he tried to keep me awake. The surgery itself was a black box, after the anesthesiologist said the words, I’m just going to start with something to calm y ... I woke up in the operating room, while they were vigorously swaddling my foot in a dressing, thick wads of cotton batting and a tenser bandage.  

At home that evening, I kept waiting for the pain to hit, mindful that I’d been instructed to, Get ahead of the pain. There was none. Nor the next day. Or any day. There was no swelling either. The only mild discomfort I’ve had is when a shoe causes pressure or friction against the stitches on the top of my foot. I had prepared myself for immobility. Instead, after Friday afternoon surgery, I could walk around normally by later that evening on my one bare foot and one swaddled foot. If my steps were tentative, it was out of anticipation of the pain that did not arrive. I was surprised. After all of the everything around my auto-immune situation, I lost quite a bit of faith in my body’s ability to heal. With each hour that passed post-surgery, then each day, then week, now 10 days, my cup of healing faith is refilling. I wonder how much of the healing is due to my restored faith in my body’s ability to heal.   

I diligently forced myself to stay on the couch over that first weekend. With no pain to remind me of why I needed to be sedate, by Sunday night I was feeling confined and itchy to move. I rode a Monday morning loop of Central Park on Citibike. I wore a surgical boot, to be safe. On Tuesday, I wore a sturdy, regular boot when I rode the same loop. Wednesday was on the Peloton (in running shoes, not bike shoes). And Friday, a week post-surgery, yoga (with modifications to upward dog, so as not to aggravate my stitches).

To be clear, although my foot looks ugly with stitches and bruising top and bottom (be glad I’m not sharing a photo), all of this activity is pain and swelling free. I am not pushing limits. I carefully re-read the post op instructions, which clearly say, weight bearing as tolerated. I was told to expect 2 weeks in a surgical boot, followed by 2 weeks in super sturdy shoes. I was told that maybe I could think about running after 6 weeks. Was my foot doctor just setting low expectations? It hasn’t even been 2 weeks yet and the challenge now is to resist the siren call of running. I see the doc tomorrow (if you are reading this on the first Wednesday in December, when it posts). I’m guessing (please please) that he will take out the three stitches. He really adhered to the minimally invasive promise of the surgery with his tiny incisions, each of which only required one stitch. I’ve promised myself to do nothing over-exuberant until I see him.

Which is hard, because I am bursting with astonished gratitude at this moment. All I want to do is dance and run and jump up and down, to test how much better my foot feels. I can feel how much more mobility there is. How the pain that I had is gone. I can stand on my tippy toes, for the first time in several years.

I tell myself that I should moderate my hopes. After all, my toe also has a bunion and arthritis. Even as another part of me is jumping ahead, wondering, if my foot can heal like this, then what about my Addison’s Disease? Finding the balance of faith in my body’s ability to heal and being realistic about what’s possible is delicate. Some people say that faith is everything. While I believe that faith counts for a lot, I don’t think that my belief in my own healing is enough on its own.

Things I’m wondering:

  • Is faith a virtuous cycle, in which the faith in healing supports the healing?
  • Is it more than a virtuous cycle, as in, without the faith the healing cannot happen?
  • How far can faith go, as in, why does it seem to pertain to my foot and not my auto immune situation? I had a lot of faith I could be cured of the Addison’s. At first. Now, that faith has gotten complicated. How do I untangle the knotty question of whether my patience with a longer road to recovery is faith, or resignation to my fate?
  • And is this faith I’m talking about just another word for control? A veiled way of satisfying the human hunger for control over our lives?

One last wondering, can faith harm my healing? I have an answer to this one. Yes. If I use faith as an excuse to not actually follow medical protocols. I did that in the beginning with the Addison’s. Going off my medication. Against doctor’s orders. Believing that I could cure myself with infusions, supplements, meditation and a positive attitude. That didn’t work. Now I’m on my medication. Diligent and compliant. Mostly. Plus, meditation, faith, vitamins and supplements. That really works.

So, for my foot, weight bearing as tolerated. That’s working so far. I’ll see the doc tomorrow. A little girl part of me is bringing him my foot, as if it is a drawing from school, wanting him to be impressed by my healing. Pin it up on the fridge. Give my faith a boost. What if he just says, yup, this is what I expected? It changes nothing about my condition. Puts a question mark in the power of my faith.

Maybe the trick is to have faith and hold it lightly. Faith will intervene when appropriate and only it knows when that is.

fitness · health

How Much is Enough When it Comes to Our Health?

Diane Harper1 Comment

I’m facing probable heart surgery at some point soonish, and I’m finding it all very complicated.

If I were a “normal” heart patient, maybe this would be easier. I have excellent care at the Ottawa Heart Institute; the issue is with me.

When I was first diagnosed with a severe heart murmur, I was surprised. After all, I’m active and didn’t have symptoms, or so I thought. But then I was sent for a stress test and told what symptoms to look for.

My cardiologist was happy with my stress test results but I was not. As a friend said at the time, I need to learn to distinguish between diagnostic and competitive. Put another way, I should have been told to go as long as I was comfortable, not as long as I could.

I started learning to acknowledge that I get breathless when climbing stairs, that I may not faint but I definitely suffer from “brown-outs”. That constant chest pressure is not normal and cannot be explained by overdoing workouts (at least not for weeks on end). And that I’ll be lucky to hit 1/10 of this year’s modest cycling goal.

At the same time, I am still active and would like to stay that way. So how do I navigate that fine line between advocating for myself and not wasting scarce health resources before I need to? When does advocating turn into drama queen behaviour?

I may still be quite healthy compared to some other heart patients, but I also have a lifeguarding job that requires me to be very fit.

I have settled on being clearer about my symptoms with my doctor while reminding myself that early intervention may actually save the health care system money in the long run.

I feel a bit guilty, but also have an angiogram scheduled for mid-December, and an appointment with a surgeon after that, which indicates that maybe it was wise to be speak up.

This is the only Heart I would like to be thinking about. Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images from an article about the iconic band in https://www.remindmagazine.com/article/26830/heart-ann-nancy-wilson-50th-anniversary-tour/
a photo of a tree in fall colours on the side of a suburban street Christine managed 8/10 for October. How will she do in November?
ADHD · challenge · fall · health · planning

Christine managed 8/10 for October. How will she do in November?

Christine Hennebury2 Comments

I know, I know! The tension is almost unbearable!

On October 7, I made a plan for 10 activities for the 10th month and even though October included a storytelling festival, a week of rain, a week of being sick, and quite a bit of volunteer work, I still managed to do 8 out of 10 activities. 

Here’s what got done:

  • Flail along with a Zumba dance video – Rating: BIG FUN.
  • Do a yoga video that is longer than 30 minutes – Rating: Hard to stick with it.
  • Do a meditation session that is longer than 10 minutes – Rating: No problem!
  • Do a strength training session with exercise bands – Rating: Enjoyable! I’m going to stick with it.
  • Write in my journal while on the floor – Rating: My body liked it.
  • Spend at least 20 minutes stretching – Rating: Loved it! I’ve made it a regular practice.
  • Try a kickboxing video – Rating: Pretty fun. I’ll do more.
  • Plant bulbs for next spring – Rating: Satisfying! I didn’t plan all of the bulbs but I did some and I’m happy about it.

I enjoyed all of these activities and I was really glad I chose them.

I was also really glad that I had the slight pressure of having publicly committed to them.  Without that commitment, I might have let a few of them slide and that would have been a shame.

I really feel that pushing myself a little bit to get these things done added to my fun this month. 

I actually did many of the exercise-related ones more than once and I have gotten back into leaving my yoga mat unfurled on the living room floor so I can stretch whenever I watch TV – a beneficial habit, for sure.

As for the ones I didn’t get done?

I’m happy to report that I don’t feel badly about those at all. 

I may not have been able to…

  • Meet someone for a walk instead of for tea
  • Walk to a meeting

But that was because of circumstances, weather, and timing, it had nothing to do with my interest, willingness, or motivation. None of my meetings happened to be within walking distance and I ended up having to cancel my plans to meet for a walk instead of for tea because I was sick. 

So with a satisfying success rate for 10 things for the 10th month, I’m now considering 11 things for the 11th month (a.k.a. My BIRTHDAY MONTH!)

There are some repeats in here but I’m cool with that.

  • Journal while sitting on the floor once a week
  • Practice those three tricky TKD patterns for at least 30 minutes (total)
  • Try a calisthenics video
  • Continue the stretch band strength training program from October 
  • Go swimming 
  • 30 minutes on the rowing machine
  • Plan a personal retreat day
  • Rake up some of the backyard leaves (I’m leaving some for the bugs!)
  • Do a 30 minute yin yoga video
  • Do at least one 10 minute meditation per week
  • Find a way to elevate keyboard for a standing writing session

Have you got any extra activities planned for November?

Go Team 2025: Reminder – You Are The Boss Of You
ADHD · fitness · goals · habits · health · motivation · rest · self care

Go Team 2025: Reminder – You Are The Boss Of You

Christine Hennebury

Hey Team!

I know, I have probably already reminded you about this before.

And you probably already know that you are the boss of you.

But…

But…

If you are anything like me, there is a big difference in understanding it in theory and actually practicing it.

So let’s review it together…

You get to decide what’s important to your well-being.

You get to decide how to take good care of yourself.

You get to decide how you want to move, what you want to eat, whether you want to set goals, if you want to journal, whether meditation is right for you…

YOU are the BOSS of your life and you don’t have to do what’s trendy, you don’t have to be a certain size, eat a certain way, or take up any exercise or wellness practice that you don’t want to.

Sure, we all have different needs, different pressures, different capacities, different obligations, and different abilities and those things are going to factor into our decisions but one thing we can all be sure of is that we don’t need to do ANYTHING just because someone else thinks we should.

We don’t have to do any resets, any boot camps, any ‘disappear for 30 days and become unrecognizable’ *programs that people are peddling left right and centre.

You can do any and all of those things if you want to but if you don’t want to do them then you don’t have to.

Why?

Because YOU are the BOSS of YOU and your plan is your business.

So, Team, please join me in ignoring the very notion of a ‘should’ and let’s really get in to being the boss of ourselves.

It’s hard work but we can do it.

And here’s a gold star for our efforts!

Go Team Us!

A drawing of a gold star against a background of purple with red spots
A drawing of a gold star with concentric gold stars within it (is concentric just for circles? I have basically drawn smaller and smaller stars within one another.) The background is purple with red dots and is framed with black lines.

PS – Right now (9:40PM on Monday night) boss is telling me it’s time to get ready for bed. You know, I think it’s a good idea to listen to her – she seems to know me pretty well.

*I know they are speaking metaphorically but, yet, every time I see one of those ads, I think, “I don’t want to disappear for one day, let alone thirty. And being unrecognizable just seems weird.”

a photo of a bedroom window in the early morning with sunlight coming in. Reflective Fitness Journaling (Again)
fitness · habits · health · mindfulness · motivation

Reflective Fitness Journaling (Again)

Christine Hennebury

In 2023-2024, I wrote in a fitness journal almost every Monday.

About 80% of the time it worked the way I wanted it to – actually reflective, kind of inspiring, a decent record of my process/progress.

The other 20% of the time it was a screencap of the info from my fitness app. That was less inspiring (less interesting!) but it kept the habit in place.

Sometime in early 2025, despite my best intentions I stopped entirely.

I’m sure that was partially because of my injury but it was also because it felt like I was journaling for its own sake rather than for any actual benefit.

I was essentially keeping the habit in place but for no real reason so it’s no wonder the practice just kind of dropped off my to do list.

For the record, I’m not being hard on myself about this – I’m just noting what happened and I don’t feel bad about it at all.

BUT

I think it’s time to get back into the practice of reflecting on my fitness – what I did, how I felt, how I want to feel and what activities might help me to feel that way- and obviously a journal is the direct route to that kind of thinking.

I’m probably going to do some combination of a digital journal (so I can think aloud with voice dictation) and and paper journal that has lots of room for me to write, draw, and collage.

I’ve revisited my earlier posts and developed a series of questions to use as a guideline and I (once again) plan to review my previous entry when starting a new one (extra reflection? why not?)

AND since journaling often leads me to solutions I haven’t thought about before but I promptly forget them once I close my journal – I am going to keep some index cards nearby to pull workable ideas out of my journal pages to keep for easy reference.

My plan right now is to do some fitness journaling 3x per week (I think writing once per week was part of the problem before – too much to say in one entry so it became a chore) for 3 weeks and see how it feels.

And, of course, I will probably make adjustments as I go.

Do you journal about your fitness practices? Do you find it helpful? Do you have any advice to offer?

three small paper zines tucked in among brightly coloured flowers in a pot Christine plans to (sort of) plan her summer
goals · habits · health · self care

Christine plans to (sort of) plan her summer

Christine Hennebury

I always feel weird when an occasion or a season or an event has a ‘make the most of it’ vibe* and summer can have A LOT of that kind of pressure-y feeling. 

I kind of want to just let the days unfold however they unfold but I know that my ADHD brain often tries to talk me out of some very fun things because the energy cost of starting them feels disproportionately high. 

So I need a plan for my summer fun but I have to be careful with how I do it. 

If I plan in detail, my brain could decide that either I have taken all of the fun out of things OR it could check them off as if I have already done them.

If my plan is too vague, then my brain might decide that the whole thing is too much trouble.

And, in either case, my brain might decide that the plan isn’t relevant at any given moment and tuck it away so effectively that I may forget it even existed. 

Yes, every day *is* an adventure with ADHD and not always in a fun way.

I want to have a fun summer but I don’t want to get too rigid about what that entails – if perfectionism ends up in this equation my chances for fun will plummet – so I made a few zines to get myself thinking about the things I want to include in the next few weeks. 

The questions in these zines have been inspired by all sorts of things – a video I watched the other day, posts from my friends, stuff from previous summers, the prompts that Sam posted for the blog team in June – you get the idea. 

One zine is called ‘Move, Pause, Rest’ and has prompts to consider how I want to move (walks, swimming, hula hooping), how I want to pause (meditation, drawing, having tea with friends), and how I want to rest (reading in my hammock, taking naps, etc.)

Another is called ‘Passport to Fun’ and invites me to consider what I want to be sure to include in my summer. (Yes, snacks are one of the considerations.)

The final one (but it was the first one I drew) is called ‘Summer 2025: More & Less and it’s about what I want to do more of this summer and what (you guessed it!) I want to do less of.

Here’s what the zines (and Khalee!) look like from the outside:

a photo of a dog on grass with small folded paper booklets in front of her.
Unlike me, Khalee has no immediate plans to fill out these zines. Image description: my dog, Khalee, a medium-sized, light-haired dog, is relaxing in the sun-dappled grass under a tree. My three black and white zines are placed on the grass in front of her.

And here is a link for you print the zines to fill out for yourself.  (No actual pressure to do this, there won’t be a quiz or anything!) Summer Zines 2025

Please note: my zest for zines is far greater than my ability to fold and scan them in a tidy way. Let’s just say their imperfection is part of their charm, hey?

Here’s a link to how to fold zines.

Here’s hoping that my zines let me walk the line between too little planning and too much planning and then lead me straight to more summer fun.

I’ll add some photos of my filled-out pages once I’m done. 🙂

Here are some of the things that inspired me. You may want to check them out…

My friend Dani’s plan for a summer of microadventures:

My husband was watching this video the other day and it really caught my attention. I borrowed the idea of a summer theme from James:

I love Kate Bowler’s reminder to lower our expectations:

This post from Postcards From Katie has a solid list of microadventures. I do like a good list.

The Simply Well joy list for July is worth checking out. Joy? List? No downside there!

July is International Zine Month and there are some cool zine prompts in Echo Zines’ post:

And if you are feeling kind of artsy at the moment, you could give the Index Card A Day challenge a whirl. They started on June 1 but it’s the kind of challenge that you can join at any time.

*Don’t even get me started on the whole ‘you only get 18 summers with your kid!’ business. If you find that stuff inspiring, forge ahead, but to me it has a lot of potential for sadness and regret. 

fitness · health · self care · walking

Easing Back To Normal(ish)

Christine Hennebury

Thanks to a whole bunch of massage therapy (Yay for Renee!) as well as a combination of rest, stretching, and curation of my activities, my neck and back are feeling a lot better than they were two months ago.

In fact, I spent the last week at the Storytellers of Canada- Conteurs du Canada conference in Halifax – plane rides, lifting stuff, sitting for long stretches of time during concerts, meetings, and performances, telling very animated stories during my workshops, sleeping in a dorm bed, and walking for long distances with a backpack – and I had very little trouble with my back or neck.

a top down photo of university buildings and trees taken from a dorm room window
The view from my dorm room in Loyola Residence at St. Mary’s University – a very comfortable place to stay, by the way. Image description – a photo of the view from a window on the 19th floor of a building on a sunny day. We are looking down on several university buildings with lots of windows as well as the tops of a lot of deciduous trees with glimpses of buildings and houses here and there.

All of that has really convinced me that I’m ready to get back into more strenuous exercise on a regular basis.

I’ll be careful about it, of course. I don’t want to have any sort of avoidable setbacks and I think the key to avoiding trouble is to only take on activities that let me control the intensity and duration of my efforts.

Overall my capacity for exercise has slowly increased as my back and neck have been healing and I had noticed that walking the dog was feeling easier over time and my new habit of ‘walking to work’ has been very straightforward, exercise-wise.

Then, while I was away, I really enjoyed my long walks, even though they were sometimes difficult. I liked the purposeful feeling of striding* (sometimes ambling!) along to get where I was going and it felt good to be the kind of tired that comes from solid exercise.

I think that longer walks could be a good way to take things up a notch without wearing myself out and possibly putting my neck and back at risk.

Maybe I’ll start with 1 or 2 longer walks per week and see how that feels.

More reports as events warrant.

a photo of a zine cover - a workbook for a storytelling workshop
Image description: a photo of a white paper zine cover that says “The Stories We Wear (a workbook) Presented by Christine Hennebury at the SC-CC Annual Conference – Halifax, 2025” and is decorated with stars, spirals, and dots.

Yes, you’re right, it probably would have been better to share a photo of someone telling a story or of myself leading a workshop but I somehow didn’t take or request any of those – too caught up in the moment, I guess – but I am really proud of how the cover of this little workbook turned out so I am sharing that instead. Meanwhile, to be transparent about it, I couldn’t actually get to the photocopy place before it closed so my fun workbook is going out to the attendees after the workshop instead. During my workshop they answered the questions in their own notebooks.

*Meanwhile I suspect that part of the reason I enjoyed those walks so much was because I had moved walking from the ‘exercise’ category to the ‘transportation’ category in my brain so I’m going to see if I can make that happen in my regular life as well.

Novelty seeking is probably my favourite sport
fitness · habits · health · motivation

Novelty seeking is probably my favourite sport

elan.paulson2 Comments

When I was in my 20s I was asked in a job interview (to be a casino table dealer) if I prefer various or repetitive tasks. I knew the best answer was: you say “both.”

But…turns out it’s not true: while some ppl take comfort in it, I struggle with repetition. I don’t usually take pleasure watching the same movies again and again. I get bored eating the same food. I have little interest in returning to the same vacation spots year after year.

That’s all fine. But when I pick up then drop exercise classes, sports leagues, or health routines, I can be critical of myself. It has become part of my self-story that I can’t make good habits. Some days, I even tell myself I am lazy; as evidence of my half-efforts to stick with stuff, I point to a closet of barely user gear.

Then, last week, someone I know described themselves as a novelty seeker. And I thought, hey, me too. ME. TOO.

Novelty seeker positively reframes all my negative self-talk. Recently, I went line dancing, I disc golfed, and I played scrimmage soccer in one week. I am taking up cycling in mid-life. I run around making things. Truly, rather than focus on one sport or type of exercise, I have always sought various ones.

Being a novelty seeker means that I trade off becoming really good at one or a few things by doing them over and over for the joy of experiencing many new things all the time. It means I am not less active, just differently active.

I still seriously admire all the people I know who run long distances, lift weights daily, or play pickleball 5 times a week. And I can appreciate that there is likely great variety within these activities that perhaps I don’t notice (because I haven’t stuck with them long enough).

Perhaps ultimately it is less about the number of favourite sports and activities we have and more about the mindset we bring to what we do. The idea of novelty-seeking works for me. What works for you?

Composite of multiple sports balls from Wikipedia is CC0.