Just Do It! Farrah Storr Takes Action for #bekindtoyou Women’s Wellness Week

If anyone knows about women’s wellbeing, it’s Women’s Health editor, Farrah Storr.  Here, she explains what #bekindtoyou Women’s Wellness Week made her realize this week!

Here are eight ways in which I have been good to myself in the last 24 hours:

1. I went to sleep way past my bedtime so I could stay up and watch a film I’ve been meaning to see for months

2. I got up two hours early to catch the morning sunrise

3. I ran 5k

4. I bought three bags of kale

5. I booked a spa treatment

6. I spent 10 minutes trying to‘appreciate’my face in the mirror

7. I ate a red velvet cupcake, and savored every mouthful of it

8. I organized my diary and workload to save myself the Monday morning stress overload

Now, let me list eight ways in which I’ve been bad to myself in the last 24 hours:

1.I went to bed at least two hours after I really wanted to…

2.…and got up two hours earlier than I needed to

3.I ran 5k in the freezing cold … with a bad knee.

4.I bought three bags of kale from the supermarket when all I really wanted was three bags of Tyler’s vegetable chips.

5.I made (then cancelled) a spa appointment I’ve been looking forward to for six months

6.I spent 10 minutes looking at the new lines on my face in the bathroom mirror

7.I ate a cake. Standing up in the kitchen. Then spent the next four hours regretting it

8.I worked … on a Sunday morning.

Do you see yourself in this list? Do you recognize the constant see-sawing between self-love and hate?  If life is all about balance then this is perhaps the only time we manage to strike it.

How did we get to here? I’m not sure.  After all women are supposed to be the kinder sex. The empathetic ear. The caring, nurturing shoulder to cry on. And we are. To everyone else but ourselves. Because when it comes to how we treat number one, we are mean old battleaxes.

You see, being mean to yourself has become a kind of twisted national sport; a kind of screwed up badge of honour. Somewhere along the way we feel that if we’re not stressed, or doing five things at once or staying back late at the office that we’re slacking. We put zero emphasis or importance on our own wellness. “Me-time’ has become dirty word. Something for slackers. Finally, that mentality is starting to show. Take recent research by Oxford University that found that women are 40% more likely to develop a mental illness- basically stress and anxiety. That’s right. Forty. Per. Cent.

So this week in aid of Women’s Wellness Week I urge you to make the change. Do one nice thing every 24 hours for yourself. Whether it’s spending three hours on Pinterest pinning dream kitchens you’ll never be able to afford just for the hell of it. Or booking in a 60-minute foot massage. Who cares? Do it.

With that I’m off to eat cupcakes and rebook that massage.