What are the long-term effects of being out of balance?
I can attest to the long-term effects of having a life out of balance—and they aren’t pretty. The effects on health are the most noticeable, generally starting with headaches, skin conditions and an upset stomach, often accompanied by a general feeling of being unwell. Some people have a permanent cold or flu, get bags under their eyes or start to hear the comment, ‘Gee, you look tired’, a lot more often.
Along with the physical symptoms come the emotional ones. We start to get more irritable, we don’t sleep as well as we used to, perhaps we start to get anxiety and even panic attacks, and we are irritable and generally highly strung. Under these conditions we can find ourselves leaning on crutches in the form of drugs and alcohol: after work we start to have three or four drinks to wind down; maybe we have three or four cups of coffee to get going in the morning. We eat chocolate to perk us up, which we need often because we have no energy, but which causes us to put on weight. Without making conscious decisions to change, and without knowing how to change, things will only get worse.
Of course, the longer you have bad habits, the harder they are to change and the more damage they can do. Business owners often tend to struggle the most with establishing a fitness and health regime, simply because they don’t give themselves enough time or energy to focus on it. Someone who has a regular job generally has a start time and a knock-off time, and can more easily build a fitness program into their life.
