Setting Boundaries: An Overlooked Aspect to Maintaining Deep Health

In our excessively connected world, it's incredibly easy for modern humans to be "always on" and "always available". Unfortunately, that is the opposite of how our physiology is designed, and it is showing up negatively in our deep health.

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As a quick reminder, the Deep Health Model shows that us humans are much more complex than just, exercise + eat well = health. These are just two pieces to a multi-piece puzzle that is human health.

The deep health model shows there are 6 dimensions of human health that all interact and interwine together. No one dimension of our deep health is independant of another. But don't get stressed thinking this is "even MORE work" to be healthier. I argue the opposite; it actually opens SO MANY DOORS and WAYS to postively impact deep health when we learn to work from the deep health foundations. The reason being is that we don't "have" to start with exercise or nutrition if we don't want. Yes, they are vital to human health, but STARTING with something else is okay! We can positively impact our physiology by creating habits and practices in ANY of the 6 dimensions of health.

That's pretty awesome!

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Setting Boundaries is an Important Element to Creating Positive Impacts on Deep Health

An example of how our deep health can be positively or negatively impacted, is looking at our health through our boundaries or what is often the case; a LACK of boundaries.

Our modern society is ALWAYS on, ALWAYS connected and we are sucked into that without even realizing it's impact. It's NOT a "conspiracy" and people aren't "out to get us". Rather it's a progression and evolution of the technology, societal expectations and pace of life today. In that speed of change, WE HUMANS are NOT taught how to manage our health and wellbeing in this modern world, while using the awesome technology and tools we have accessible to us today.

Human beings were NOT meant to be "on" or "connected" at every second of the day. As discussed in many posts here on the Zen Blog, our physiology is designed to eb and flow between work and rest, fast and slow or "on" and "not so on". However, the modern world doesn't live like that. MOST people are connected and "on" 24/7...

-Doing more (though with less quality and less focus)

-Available to people (loved ones, work colleagues, clients etc) MOST hours of the day

-Diving into entertainment in various forms in the digital world when we DO have any amount of "down time"

-Immediately answering messages, calls, emails etc within seconds or minutes of their arrival (whether it's convenient for us or not at the time)

-Spending time in the "virtual world" while with others, instead of spending time in the REAL world

... the list goes on.

I'm not arguing to "cut the cord" of the internet world so that we're unavailable completely. My argument is to hopefully help some readers of the Zen Blog open their mind and their deep health to the positive changes that BALANCE can bring to their daily lives. Especially for those who don't want to dive into their movement and nutrition habits right away, putting your energy into CREATING BOUNDARIES will be a big boost for positive change.

Some of us will remember the days of driving home from work or from running errands and being UNAVAILABLE. Oh my!!! What!? Unavailable!? ...

Remember those days?

I just drove by a vehicle yesterday here in town and the drivers head was completely looking down into their lap the entire way past me. This happens WAY too often. We can't even drive from point A to B without "having" to check messages, emails or whatever we're doing!! 🫣 It's wonderful to have the safety net today of knowing IF something happens, we can call for help. But the compulsiveness and constant urge to "be connected" and the FOMO (fear of missing out) is GREATLY impacting our wellbeing. We NEED to be CONCIOUS of this very REAL FACT and FIND OUR BALANCE. That compulsivness and constant urge is there BECAUSE we practice it regularly, throughout most of our day. Every day. That's an example of a lack of boundaries.

Examples of Setting Boundaries

In my profession and others in health and wellness, there is the reality of mental and emotional drain. It took me two decades to realize this was a major part of past burnouts and negative health changes. Only when I began to set boundaries did things begin to change in the direction I wanted.

A common conversation with clients and boundaries is, work. Because of our modern connected world, we work WAY MORE than we should. Period. For some, it may help fill the bank account a bit more, but those same people are dragging through MOST days with low energy, low motivation, mood swings, brain fog, little time or hobbies outside of work related things and a host of other symptoms. THEN those same workers whose bank accounts were increased a bit more from ALL the extra time and hours they put in, get to spend THAT extra money on other things to help them manage all these symptoms;

• Physio, chiro, massage therapy for aches, pains, tension and discomfort

• Over the counter meds or perhaps perscription meds to off-set symptoms

• Increased spending on caffeine and/or alcohol to get through the days/weeks

• Increased spending on "self-help" books to figure out "how to feel better"

Meanwhile, for so many of us, if we put our energy into setting actual boundaries and practicing them regularly, it would make a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE in how we feel and go about our days. When we're NOT working, we would feel more energy and desire to do things for ourselves BECAUSE we have boundaries set between work time and personal time.

Here are just a few examples of boundaries we can set that will positively impact our deep health. 👇

WARNING:

These may shock some people.

Boundary #1: When the work day is done, so is work. 😮

Human beings were meant to work, play, smile, laugh, cry, be social, read, write, create, rest ... They were not meant to WORK 24/7. This is a prime example of how my career has evolved in a little over two decades. The conversation of "reducing the amount of time you work to work hours only (most days)" was NOT a regular discussion early on in my career with clients. This is partly because the connected world we live in today, was much more sparse at that time. This common conversation now is one of the biggest impacts so many of us can have on our wellbeing; When work is done, be done work for the day. Guess what? It'll still be there tomorrow.

Over the past 6-7 years in particular, I purposely make it known to my clients (in particular any new ones) that they can text or email me 24hrs a day - it doesn't bother me. WHY? Because I have boundaries. They know I will only respond during "business hours". They also know that if they don't hear from me right away, they WILL hear from me by no later than the next day (or in the case of weekends, Monday when I'm back to the studio). It's a practice I protect fiercly because it keeps MY health, time and overall wellbeing a priority. All it requires is letting people know AND putting it into action.

When work is done, we humans can practice physically, mentally and emotionally BEING wherever we are; with loved ones, at a restaurant or event, enjoying a hobby at home, reading a good book etc. I cannot emphasize that enough!

Boundary #2: Only respond when YOU are available.  😮

Remember when text messaging was in it's early days? You'd text someone rather than call, so that they could "get to it when it was convenient for them". Now, if someone doesn't text you back in less than 1min you either get worried, annoyed, completely over-analyze "why they're not getting back to you" or something along those lines. 🙄

The reason for that is because we create our own stress by BEING that person who responds immediately the moment our phones or devices "ping". Even when we're with other humans, on a trip or at an event. The act of responding instantly at anyone's beckon call only pushes your boundaries further away, while at the same time turning on your stress body's stress response... over and over again, all day, everyday.

Practice responding when you have the time to do so with intent and ability to focus on the message sent and your reply. Use time between clients/appointments, on your lunch hour, AFTER you get out of the car, once you get settled at home... Not only does this allow you to not have 100 things going on at once, but you also begin to show others that you WILL respond, but when YOU have a convenient time to do so (not them). For some people it helps to schedule times throughout the day to specifically check email and/or text messages. For example in an 8-hour work day, maybe you check when you get to work for 10min, once after lunch and then maybe again before you leave work. Even THREE times is WAY less than most of us are doing.

Boundary #3: Disconnect from your Phone for a While.  😮

Here me out - Our phones have a TON of tools we often don't utilize. One easy example is the volume button. Seriously. My volume (and vibration) is rarely on. WHY? So I can go through my day, receive any messages etc coming in but I only see them when I want/have the time to do so. This way, they don't constantly take my time, energy and attention from whatever it is I'm doing (work or play).

We can also choose to use another tool which is the "Do Not Disturb" setting. Your phone can save your "favourite" contacts and you can set your settings in "Do Not Disturb" to allow PHONE CALLS (not texts) from those favourites to ring through should they call. For me, it's my family (my parents, kids, wife and in-laws). If there is an emergency and I have DND setting on, my phone will still ring. I'm going to challenge "old school awesomeness" in your thinking here now; Set the DND on. Be sure to have your volume up though in case a favourite contact does call (I'm not always good at remembering that 🤣) and leave your phone in another room. Calm down, you'll be ok. It'll be just like the "old days" when if the phone rang, you'd hear it from wherever you are in the house and you GET UP to GO answer it.

These two examples of disconnecting for a while brings a sense of calm and freedom that we all USED to feel on a regular basis.

Practice saying "No" AND making YOURSELF a Priority  😮

Here's a boundary conversation that doesn't directly involve technology, but rather OUR OWN PERSONAL TIME and ENERGY. This is another common conversation that has evolved over my career with clients, where we are giving so much of our time and energy resources to ALL ELSE but ourselves. And guess what? It's DRAINING US.

We are VERY good at doing things for others (work, events, volunteer opportunities, helping friends or family). This is a natural human superpower. It's hard to say NO. BUT, as usual in today's society, we go ALL IN and forget to create a balance so that WE actually give ourselves (and our health) time and attention.

This boundary took me a while to learn as well. It often pairs with the balance of work and personal life, but it can flow into other responsibilities as well. Basically, we need to take our strength of scheduling STUFF in our days (and sticking to it) and do the SAME FOR OURSELVES. Our superpower of saying "YES" to everyone and everything else, is a great quality but it needs to be used on ourselves too!!! Say "YES" to YOURSELF. Setting boundaries with YOUR time is crucial if you want to have more energy and health. It took me twenty years to learn this with my work (take that as "it's possbile" rather than "it takes that long"). It's easy my profession to say "YES" to people because I love to help people. That's why I do what I do. BUT, we need our personal time, health and energy TO help those people.

YOUR time and YOUR energy are IMPORTANT and neither are infinite. Practice and learn to PROTECT both of these elements. YOU deserve it. It's a lack of boundary that if we can put our energy into and improve, we will see a MAJOR shift in our deep health... for the better.