By: Dr. Lauren N Penn
I would like to take the time to introduce myself. My name is Dr. Lauren N Penn and I have spent my entire adult life as a health & wellness practitioner. I joined the Army when I was 18 and spent five years learning and working as a surgical technologist. I spent the next 25 years in this career, and then decided to become a chiropractor when I was 45. I opened my own practice – Pinpoint Chiropractic & Wellness – here in Colorado Springs in 2019. I practice a holistic approach to wellness through my practice.
I want to briefly focus on the critical role “self-care” plays in a person’s overall health & wellness. Self care extends far beyond just getting your hair done, getting your nails and feet done, or your face waxed or threaded. These acts of maintenance are important, for sure. But there is so much to selfcare than these acts of maintenance. Ask yourself, have you ever seen a person and said, “Wow, they have a pretty smile.” Or have you wondered why your coworker always seems to handle stress with grace, or maybe how your sister-friend at church seems to feel so confident in her own skin?
Almost certainly these folks are able to do these things because they take their self care regimen to the next level. That means they are very deliberate and intentional about their actions. We should all try to follow this process. Every day we get the opportunity to look at ourselves in the mirror. We get out of bed, brush our teeth, take a shower, maybe grab breakfast. But do we make sure to block out time on our calendar to take care of ourselves?
What if you scheduled a “date with yourself” to really focus on selfcare? To make sure we do things we may not like, but which are important to keep us healthy and well. When we take a look at self care we should consider how we want to progress in our body. We should have written goals for our weight, our eating, and just how we want to look and feel generally. I recommend at minimum annual (and preferably bi-annual) checkups and check-ins with ourselves. Self-care is not a once- or twice-a-year thing, though.Focusing on our own selfcare means we live proactively, instead of always having to be reactive. So, put these types of self care activities on your calendar.
So, how do you get started with YOUR self care? The easiest way is to look at several things you can do. Cost effectiveness is a good question to how we can accomplish an optimal wellness journey. Number one, get a calendar and decide what you will or won’t do for selfcare. Maybe choose twelve things you are going to do for yourself and schedule those things in your calendar. Most of us get an annual dental checkup and get our teeth cleaned. The next question is, what am I doing that I like for myself? So this can be getting your nails or hair done, or getting our face/body waxed. It is important not only to do the obvious health checkups, but we also should make sure to do other self care activities that we enjoy and that simply make us feel better about ourselves.
Each of us can level up on the things we currently do. When you see your doctor for your annual visit, have questions ready to ask him or her. “What do these labs mean? Or, “When should I check back if there is something actively happening? What are things I can do to improve and maintain my weight?”
If you have dental issues, ask how often you should get a check up. Maybe you need to do this MORE than twice a year. Women, you may ask your OB-GYN about other things you may need beyond an annual pap smear. As women age, finding out about how you can be more pro-active about your body and your health will almost always result in better outcomes and longer, more healthy life.
I recently had a health issue that looked like many problems going on with my body. In the span of just three years, I had an arching health issue. The first two years I got two dental crowns on my teeth. I asked my dentist how to follow up, so in the third year I wouldn’t need the same type of dental treatment. Then I had pancreatitis and pneumonia. I have always been a healthy person up until the last few years. So I started diving a little deeper into what could have caused this cascade of health issues all of a sudden. It turned out that ALL of these health problems really were caused by some female issues. Once that root issue was resolved, my health took a turn for the better and those problems subsided.
So my point is, we all need to make selfcare a priority EVERY day and to schedule the things that not only keep us healthy, but also the things that make us FEEL good as well. It is an investment of time and effort, but consistently focusing on our selfcare will invariably help us live longer, and enjoy life to its fullest extent.
Dr. Penn
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