My years as a wellbeing coach taught me a lot. One thing was never to leave any stone unturned in the quest for health improvements. Put everything on the table. Not just sleep, diet and exercise.
Have you ever been on the receiving end of a health improvement due to one random tweak? In this short blog I want to introduce you to a new toy of mine. The ‘Lifestyle Tricycle’...
What is it?
If you read part one of this article series, you can recall how limited I said lifestyle is as a concept. It just is. It sounds great. It sounds concrete but it isn’t really. How can we all work towards something we can’t agree on the definition of?
Fuzzy definitions are the enemy of good science. How can you measure stuff you can’t define?
A better way
Drum roll please… The Lifestyle tricycle model is a visual tool to help you think about your ‘lifestyle’ without missing things out. Important things.
I’d argue that a lot of the stuff that gets missed out is at least as important as the stuff that gets left in when we talk about lifestyle.
Why tricycle?
I know it sounds silly. But using a tricycle helps you to visualise three aspects of your daily behaviours that play a huge role in how healthy you are (or not). Also wheels symbolise wholeness. Completeness. Perfection even…
By breaking lifestyle into three distinct wheels (zones) it helps you to get a bird’s eye view of what might be affecting your health status. The current narrow view of lifestyle is more a of a grounds-eye view.
Wheel 1 – What goes ‘In’ your body?
This wheel is about what enters your body. I’m not just talking about food here. This is about what goes in your mouth (food, drinks, medications, stuff you inhale). But it doesn’t stop there, you have other inlets my friend…
What about the stuff you see? (tv, news, newspapers, social media, video games)
What about the stuff you hear? (tv, news, social media, podcasts)
This first wheel is focused on all of the bits you can control that go into your body. Your mental diet is just as important as your physical diet. I think in IT they call it GIGO – ‘Garbage in garbage out’.
Wheel 2 – What goes ‘On’ your body?
This is what spawned the idea of the tricycle... Too many of us overlook the health effects of the stuff we put on our bodies. Did you know that fragranced products have an inflammatory effect? Meaning they can play a causal role in disease.
That means the stuff you rub on your skin, spray or roll under your arms, wash your body with, wash your hair with, dye your hair with, splash on for a night on the town.
The body’s largest organ
What about how we treat the body’s largest organ? The skin. It’s become popular to inject substances into our faces like Botox and fillers.
Chemicals have consequences. The idea that we can inject and fill to our hearts content without consequence is head in the sand thinking.
Wheel 3 – What goes around your body?
This is about your environment. Specifically what I call the 3 R’s. Routine, relationships and readies (money. Apologies it needed to rhyme with R!)
Relationships and readies are obvious in their impact on our wellbeing. If you’ve ever been skint or dumped you’ll know what I mean. Routine is just the stuff that most people refer to as ‘lifestyle’. Routines of sleep, movement, mind management etc etc.
What do you think?
Will this help? I hope so…
If nothing else it’ll help those who think they’re leading a ‘healthy lifestyle’ but not getting results to rethink it. If you’re nailing the big 3 (sleep, exercise, diet) and still not thriving the Lifestyle Tricycle can help you find out why.
Wellness as an adventure
The lifestyle tricycle can also open up some really important skittle to knock down and get quick wins. For example, switching your highly fragranced cosmetics and household cleaning products for non-scented ones.
Scented loo roll for instance. Come on. Really? If the smell is that bad you might want to improve your diet not try to disguise the smell folks!
Anyway where was I?
Oh yes. Health as a journey… The 3 wheels open up a whole new world of wellbeing for you to travel through and discover new treasures you can put to use. After all… wellbeing isn’t just about getting rid of stuff that’s hindering you. Like too much scrolling. Its also about adding the stuff that helps you thrive.
Imagine discovering these:
The best things to watch/read
The best things to listen to
The best things to eat
The best things to drink
The best ways to manage your mind
The best people to interact with
The best ways to manage your money
These are all things the lifestyle tricycle can help you achieve
Take your time
In the world of sports coaching there’s a concept called periodisation. It’s a process coaches use to gradually help their athletes achieve peak performance in time for competitions. They build gradually and consistently. Not expecting perfection on day one.
Bedtime request
How about applying the idea of periodisation to perfecting your lifestyle tricycle? Each night as your head hits the pillow you might want to ask yourself one or more of these questions:
How can I improve what I put in my body today?
How can I improve what I put on my body today?
How can I improve what happened around me today?
In the words of Cat Stevens, “Take your time, get it right….”
Jonathan Pittam Wellness Speaker
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