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Mark Stevens

HealthJune 15, 2021

Definition And Essential Functions Of Stem Cells

By Mark Stevens

In recent years, stories about stem cells have been dominating the news. If one of your friends or family members is suffering from a…

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HealthJune 10, 2021

How To Care For A Parent With Dementia

By Mark Stevens

Caring for an aging parent can be challenging, especially if they are suffering from conditions that affect their cognition and behavior, such as dementia….

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Health, WellbeingMay 26, 2021

4 Useful Tips For Enhancing The Effects Of CBD Oil

By Mark Stevens

Today CBD has become a household name. A great number of people are ready to spend a lot of money on this new trend…

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HealthMay 24, 2021

5 Things You Should Avoid Doing In Public To Protect Your Health

By Mark Stevens

The COVID-19 pandemic probably taught the world more about pathogens than all the basic health classes people ever attended. Many may have learned from…

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HealthMay 17, 2021

How CBD Works To Improve Your Health

By Mark Stevens

With the growing popularity of cannabidiol (CBD) in the natural wellness community, you’re likely to encounter numerous claims on the Internet about how it…

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HealthMay 7, 2021

Personal Injury 101: What To Do If You Suffer A Personal Injury

By Mark Stevens

It may happen that you use a defective product and get hurt; or are bitten by a dog and rushed to the hospital; or…

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WellbeingApril 27, 2021

How To Move Forward From An Addiction

By Mark Stevens

We live in a society that is often incredibly judgemental. As a result, certain life events or struggles are often viewed upon in an…

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HealthApril 1, 2021

Medical Negligence Is More Common Than You Think

By Mark Stevens

When thinking about medical negligence (or clinical negligence), failed operations and poor care of a patient comes to mind. This term is used when…

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HealthMarch 29, 2021

How To Avoid Unexpected Health Bills

By Mark Stevens

Everyone has heard at least one horror story about a comfortable, well-off family who was made bankrupt by unexpected medical bills that decimated their…

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HealthMarch 19, 2021

6 Surprising Benefits Of CBD Oil

By Mark Stevens

There has been a lot of buzz regarding the legalization of marijuana and the possible health benefits that surround it. Even though many states…

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Belonging . I'm feeling a little lost today. Like Belonging . I'm feeling a little lost today. Like I've lost my place in the world, my #purpose. My role in life is changing. I'll always be a mum, but what's required of me is changing. My kids are older and they don't need me as much any more, or certainly not in the same ways. I don't know where I belong any more. . Since the pandemic I feel I have changed. I am no longer the person I was, no longer carefree and fun. I feel like I am the boring friend. The one on the outskirts. The one surplus to requirements. The one who's last to get the joke, the one not drinking as much, not as fun, not as outrageous, or chilled out. The sensible one.I don't know where I belong any more. . I get like this from time to time - and I now know thanks to tracking my periods and #hormones - @menopause_doctor Balance app is a gamechanger - that this week is the one. That rocky week where my moods and emotions get the better of me. I have been riding on a bit of a happy hormonal wave since my holiday, but I can feel it crashing. It helps that I recognise it. And I try to ignore it, but I'm not sure that's the answer. . My feelings are valid, but likewise I know they try to deceive me and twist my mind and make a deal out of nothing. I overthink, I analyse and I make it worse, but this too shall pass. . Perhaps I am now the boring one. Perhaps that is my new role in life. Or perhaps fun me will come back. Chilled out, don't give a damn, kick back and relax me might still be in there, buried underneath the angst. . I'm fine BTW. No need to worry about me. Like I say, I know and recognise these feelings. Give it a day or two and I'll be good. Anyone else feeling like this though? That the pandemic has changed you? Made you question who you are? Your place in the world? Your purpose? Your role as a mum, wife, friend?
MINDSET SHIFT . I think you have to be really care MINDSET SHIFT . I think you have to be really careful when you discuss changes in diet, #weightloss, in fact anything to do with food and eating behaviours on social media as it can be such a sensitive and triggering subject. Everyone has their own unique relationship with what, how and why they eat and what works for one person may not necessarily work or be the right thing for another person. . I would place myself as someone who is emotionally connected to food, as in I don't always eat when I'm hungry, I eat when I'm bored, anxious, procrastinating, the list is pretty much endless. I love food and food loves me. In the past I would 'allow' myself certain foods as a kind of reward for having exercised, or as a 'treat' for making it to the weekend, or simply out of habit because "it's family film night we always have sweets and popcorn". . But that's where the whole language of food and #dietculture starts to flag up that actually the root of the problem is not that I need to lose weight or be a certain size, it's that food has control of me. And that rather than this being a physical issue, it is a mental one, which until that changes, nothing else will. . And I know all this. I know you can't out train a bad diet, that too much sugar, processed foods, white carbs etc etc ain't good. But I also know I don't believe in diet plans and supplements and faddy this that and the others. I'm not interested in the scales, the numbers, the clothes labels. I am interested in how I feel. . This was my mindset shift. I think the whole #perimenopause chat thing I had with my Dr was what triggered it. A sense that, well if no one's going to proactively help me, then I'm going to help myself. I've always been stubborn that way 🤨 . And fed up with feeling tired, moody, and just generally meh about things, I knew that one of the places I needed to up my game with was food. I didn't need to wait until Monday to start (I hate that diets wait until Monday to start!), I didn't need to take before and after pics/measurements. Something just flicked inside me that made me suddenly think - I need to start looking after me. So I am. And I'm feeling great.
Yeah OK it's another surf pic and yeah I know I ne Yeah OK it's another surf pic and yeah I know I need to get over the fact my holiday's over, but listen up I've got something else to say and excuse me this small indulgence as it's not very often we get a nice family photo of all four of us these days 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 . So I wanna talk to you a bit about joint strength. Now you might be wondering what that's got to do with #surfing but my god it is EVERYTHING to do with it. Do you remember a while back I started doing some strength training from @corpaofitness to improve my #pressups ? Well part of that involved wrist strengthening exercises. Pretty small movements, to the novice it might not even look as though you're doing much, but consistency is everything, and over time my little sparrow wrists have turned into a force to be reckoned with. 💪 . And this really came into play when we surfed a couple of weeks back. Those strong wrists helped get me up on that board and as I was doing it I knew that those exercises had 100% helped get me up there 🏄‍♀️ . As we get older, especially women going through #perimenopause and #menopause joint strength is so important. But it can often be forgotten in our workouts. I mean it's not as though you break into a sweat when doing these small movements, so it's as if we automatically give them no worth. So wrong. . I am a big believer in the saying 'use it or lose it' and if you don't keep these working, movable parts in order they are the parts that get rusty and start to restrict other movement. Wrists, knees, ankles, hips - all of them so so important to how we move. Let's look after them and give them the respect they deserve yeah 🤷‍♀️ . And listen, sure I wanted to get half decent at press ups, but this is kind of beside the point. These are transferable skills. Yes I can sorta do a press up now, but I can also do a hell of a lot more other things because of my strong body support system and the growing confidence in myself to know and feel that I can do these things. Trust me it feels great!
Don't mind me, I'm just sat here enjoying the morn Don't mind me, I'm just sat here enjoying the morning sunshine with my doggy doppelganger #dogsthatlookliketheirowners
I don't get many pictures with my boy these days s I don't get many pictures with my boy these days so when I do how can I not share it - it's OK he doesn't use the same social media platforms as me so he'll never know 🤫 . As you can see he's now towering over me, takes after me in the mad crazy floofy hair department, and is also like me in far too many other ways that I couldn't even begin to start listing on here. . He'll be a proper teenager soon (end of this month) - yeah I know he looks like he's sixteen or something, but nope still only 12 😯 Am hoping we won't have that classic Kevin the teenager waking up on his teenage birthday #ifyouknowyouknow transformation, cos tbh it feels like we've been Iiving with that for the past year or so anyways!!! . For all his potty mouthed back chat, general agginess and shower dodging pit stinking ways, he can be really good company and a right old laugh when you share a kayak with him. Which is what I found out in Cornwall last week. . We thought we'd be bloody awesome at #kayaking 🚣‍♀️🚣‍♂️ I mean we're both relatively fit strong people, I've been working on my upper body strength, we work fairly well together as a team, what could go wrong? 🤷‍♀️ . Well we didn't fall in..... but whereas everyone else sped ahead, we got further and further behind doing zigzags across the estuary. Christ knows what it would have looked like if we'd Strava'd it 🙈 . Anyway the instructor later told us we had a heavier boat, so we're totally going with that. Biggest laugh I've had with the boy in a long old while though and that in itself is priceless 😁
I'm just a kid trapped in an adult body ✌ . Befo I'm just a kid trapped in an adult body ✌ . Before having kids I would've looked at this photo and the only thing I would've seen is my thighs. I would've totally missed the fact that I look like I'm having the best time ever. That I'm proper enjoying myself, having a laugh, making memories, and doing something that I thought I'd hate, dare I even say it cos it looks mild I know, but was a teensy bit scared of, but actually loved every moment. . And when my kids look back on this time, I know for a fact they won't be thinking about 'mums thighs' they'll be thinking "do you remember that time mum and us went on that aquapark in Cornwall, wasn't it awesome" . I've wasted enough of my time fretting about my body and I certainly don't plan on wasting any more. It was those strong old thighs that helped get me over those inflatables and let me tell you, it's no mean feat. I think I discovered muscles that day that I didn't know I had. . And the wetsuit thing.... yup same, a few years back I'd have been paranoid AF about donning one in public. Now? Well now I think I look mighty fine and if anything it just helps show off all my best bits even more 💁‍♀️ . Let's quit those body hang ups and start loving life again. Doing fun things without worrying about what we look like or stressing about what others might think we look like. Cos when you're laughing your head off, flicking the peace signs and filling your world with joy, trust me, the only thing people see is a woman having the time of her life. And that is deffo good enough for me ❤ . . . . . . . . . . . #bodyconfidence #loveyourself #betruetoyou #empoweringothers
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