Speaker 1: I'm Sam Wood, and this is your motivational moment for
Speaker 1: this week why you should take a break. That's right,
Speaker 1: Sam Wood here telling you to put the dumbbells down
Speaker 1: and just take a break. Now, I'm kind of being
Speaker 1: a bit tang in cheek, but I'm also being really serious.
Speaker 1: I've taken a break for the last fortnite. Mine's been
Speaker 1: a bit of a force break with everything that's been
Speaker 1: going on, and I haven't been to work for the
Speaker 1: last two weeks, which for me that's really strange, but
Speaker 1: it's been wonderful. It's been absolutely necessary, and possibly for
Speaker 1: the first time in a long time, I've been able
Speaker 1: to do it guilt free. It's almost like the forced
Speaker 1: nature of it, with Sneeze having to be in the
Speaker 1: hospital and me having to be home with the girls
Speaker 1: all day every day, which I've absolutely adored every moment,
Speaker 1: has allowed me to do it guilt free and kind
Speaker 1: of changed my perspective. But that's why I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you about it today, because I think think
Speaker 1: it's a really important message for all of us, irrespective
Speaker 1: of what's going on in your family or personal life,
Speaker 1: and whether it's forced, I think taking a break can
Speaker 1: be a bloody great thing. There's obviously the practical physical benefits.
Speaker 1: You might recover better, you might be injured less, you
Speaker 1: might perform better because you were always performing under some
Speaker 1: kind of muscular or neural fatigue. And once you have
Speaker 1: a little rest, you come back fresher, bigger, stronger, whatever
Speaker 1: it might be. But for so many of us, I
Speaker 1: think it's more of the mental break that is so important.
Speaker 1: So from a mental perspective, whether it's work or wellness
Speaker 1: or fitness or whatever it might be, mental health, don't
Speaker 1: be afraid or don't feel guilty about giving yourself a break.
Speaker 1: You can be refreshed, you can come back better than
Speaker 1: you were before. You can use that time to get
Speaker 1: your thoughts, your emotions, your plan together. And perhaps that
Speaker 1: wouldn't have happened if you were trying to do that
Speaker 1: while pushing through with all of these different balls in
Speaker 1: the air. And I heard an analogy the other day
Speaker 1: that you need to think of your mental health. And
Speaker 1: this is a strange analogy that hopefully resonates with most
Speaker 1: of our listeners, but as an eighties baby, it resonated
Speaker 1: with me. You need to think about you as a
Speaker 1: fighter in a computer game. That perhaps you played in
Speaker 1: your youth, you know, street Fighter or Mortal Kombat or
Speaker 1: one of these games, And he said, you've got a
Speaker 1: health bar at the top, and every time something happens
Speaker 1: to you, that health bar gets lower and lower and
Speaker 1: lower and lower, until your health bar gets to zero
Speaker 1: and bang, you're on the ground. Your character in that
Speaker 1: game is on the ground. That is how we need
Speaker 1: to approach our mental health. We all have that health
Speaker 1: bar and different things impact us and take a little
Speaker 1: bit of color or a little bit of power out
Speaker 1: of that health bar as things happen. You know, you
Speaker 1: might have a stressful situation, you might have a bad
Speaker 1: day at work, you might have a bad night's sleep,
Speaker 1: someone might say something to you that emotionally you don't
Speaker 1: react well to, and eventually that bar gets so low
Speaker 1: that you hit the ground and then it's much much
Speaker 1: harder to take care of ourselves. So we need to
Speaker 1: start identifying when that bar is getting low and how
Speaker 1: we can do things proactively to get the full energy
Speaker 1: back in that bar. And taking a break is absolutely
Speaker 1: one of those things. And I think we tell ourselves
Speaker 1: that things can't wait. We tell ourselves that if we're
Speaker 1: not there tragedy or disaster is going to occur, and
Speaker 1: it's just not true. The world will wait, work will wait,
Speaker 1: people will understand. But we all like to portray the strong,
Speaker 1: invincible persona when the reality is what's going on underneath
Speaker 1: or behind the scenes is often far from that, And
Speaker 1: whether it's a mental or a physical perspective, we need
Speaker 1: to proactively take care of ourselves. So my message to
Speaker 1: anyone that is listening to this on a Monday and thinking,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is so may I'm a bit broken,
Speaker 1: or I'm far more depleted than perhaps I'm letting others know.
Speaker 1: Give yourself a break,