“Now we emphasize reactive wellness, I would like to start the ‘proactive’ health revolution” With Author Peggy Weekes
A proactive health and wellness revolution: This is where I will re-orient the way people think about health so that they are not reactive, but rather proactive. This revolution will ensure that people think of health as a daily and continued regiment, not only about exercising, but when they think about health, they think of it holistically — mentally, physically, and spiritually, and enabling them to go through the day doing some type of activity that is health oriented. That would be my revolution.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Peggy Weekes. Peggy is a health consultant and author of the upcoming book A Mix of Two World — Nature’s Best from the East and the West for Optimum Health. As a health consultant, Peggy promotes the use of natural products and natural health alternatives to promote healing and maintain well-being. She has been interested in and has actively pursued natural alternatives as part of her regiments. It is her belief that anyone who is proactive with their body state by using natural remedies and natural alternatives, is practising preventative health which leads to improved wellness.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! What is your backstory?
I was born on the beautiful island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where natural remedies abound and were part of everyday life. There, I had first-hand experiences seeing how herbs were harvested and carefully blended to produce potent and effective natural remedies. It is from this knowledge and experience that my interest in using natural remedies was forged. After migrating to North America, I came to realize that the remedies I had come to know and rely on were no longer available, instead, it was going to be purely traditional western medicine from there on in.
After a few incidences of using drugs that I had a negative reaction to, I realized that this was not always in my best interest and that I had to find a way to get back to the basics (nature). It was this quest for natural remedies that led me to start trying various alternative health techniques to maintain and improve my health. My book, A Mix of Two Worlds, represents my desire to share my knowledge, as well as to preserve and promote alternative approaches to health and wellness.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
One of my most interesting storyhighlights is about the benefits of using natural remedies — this is a personal experience.
I found myself having to see a cardiologist due to a referral from my doctor. At my appointment with the cardiologist, she ran a series of tests to ensure that everything was ok and made the comparisons with the previous results that my doctor had sent her. She was so totally impressed with my results and how much they had changed for the better over the years and asked what I was doing to have such good results.
I explained to her that I was currently taking natural supplements and explained to her which ones. She said, “Well, whatever you are doing, it is working, keep doing it.” I found this truly amazing coming from this specialist who recognized that if something is beneficial to a patient, even though it did not fit into the traditional western way of medicine, that it should be encouraged, not criticized. This drove home the fact that although there are still many people still needing a shift in their mindset to embrace natural alternatives, that there are many doctors and specialists who are open to their patient’s pursuing a path to health and wellness, even if it does not involve prescribed drugs.
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now?
Yes, I am currently working on the final edits of my soon to be released book — A Mix of Two Worlds, Nature’s Best from the East and the West for Optimum Health, and I am very excited by its imminent release.
Between work and personal life, the average adult spends nearly 11 hours looking at a screen per day. How does our increasing screen time affect our mental, physical, and emotional health?
Balance is the key to maintaining good mental, physical, and emotional health. However, we can admit that balancing one’s daily activities can be very challenging. If balance is maintained throughout one’s life, I think that in turn it will also carry over into the amount of screen time one uses per day. Today, more so than ever, screens time has just become a normal part of life, but we often seem to forget that there is a negative side to it.
Increase screen time affects us mentally. It affects us mentally because if we are constantly looking at a screen and not interacting with others; we run the risk of isolating ourselves. With isolation comes loneliness and depression and from there, one can sink even further down this slippery slope of further mental health.
Increase screen time affects us physically, because it causes us to limit our movement which is essential to good health and being physically fit.
Increase screen time affects us emotionally, because we will find that our one-on-one communication skills begin to suffer, due to the fact that are no longer engaging in conversations on a regular basis. It can make us socially awkward which in turn can reap havoc with one’s self-esteem.
Can you share your top five ways people can improve mental wellness and create a healthy relationship with technology?
Here are five top ways that people can improve mental wellness and create a healthy relationship with technology:
1. Set boundaries — By this I mean, knowing when to turn on and off technological devices. These boundaries are not only meant for kids, but also for adults since we are just as guilty of having unhealthy relationships with our devices. For example, do not take devices into bed or allow them at the dinner table. This will encourage face-to-face communication at the dinner table and family bonding, which in turn may promote a better state of mind for all concerned.
2. Use the devices wisely — Set limits on how long you should spend on an application.
3. Schedule downtime (time away from the screen) — You can set your start and end time in the settings of your phone. This will allow you to interact with your family and friends, read a book, go for a walk, or anything that will otherwise engage you mentally and physically.
4. Talking openly about your own experience with mental illness not just online — Join a support group or start your own but get professional help for a mental health professional, as well. Sometimes, just talking to someone can make a tremendous difference in another person’s life.
5. If you find that you cannot leave your house without your device or be in another room without getting anxious, then you may have a problem and should be seeking professional help from a mental health practitioner.
51% of Americans say they primarily use their smartphone for calls. With the number of robocalls increasing, what are ways people can limit interruptions from spam calls?
Here are some things that can be done to alleviate general interruptions, be it spam or otherwise:
1. Give the phone a rest — Put it down. It does not always have to be in the same room you are in.
2. Put the phone on vibrate instead of having a ringtone — The world will go on even if your phone is off.
3. Do not answer calls from numbers you are not familiar with — If it is important, they will leave a message or call back.
4. Block the calls to your phone if they are becoming an annoyance.
5. Use the Do Not Disturb setting to limit calls for a specific time period. This can be used especially during dinner time.
6. Do not make it a habit to check your missed calls list. If it is important, they will leave a message.
Between social media distractions, messaging apps, and the fact that Americans receive 45.9 push notifications each day, Americans check their phones 80 times per day. How can people, especially younger generations, create a healthier relationship with social media?
Here are some ways to create a healthier relationship with social media:
1. The quickest and easiest way to start cutting down on notifications is the most obvious — select “Don’t Allow” when given the option to select “Allow” or “Don’t Allow”. If at a later date you want to have notifications sent your way, then this can be changed in your settings.
2. Always be aware of exactly which applications you are allowing to send notifications to you. As a rule of thumb, I usually do not accept most notifications — I figure that I can always go back and turn them on if I so desire.
3. As our devices get smarter, there are many different settings built into our devices that can be used to help monitor how much time we are spending on the devices.These settings are there for a reason — use them. Devices can now summarize the total amount of time one spends on the screen and can even breakit down even further to let you know the areas such as, social media, entertainment, games, productivity, etc.
80% of smartphone users check their phones before they brush their teeth in the morning. What effect does starting the day this way have on people? Is there a better morning routine you suggest?
Checking your phone first thing in the morning is not a good way to start the day. For instance. if you subscribe to news feeds, it would more than likely be the first thing you see, and it is often not good news. Instead, one should have a routine that does not include using the phone first thing in the morning. A better morning would be:
1. Devotion or meditation.
2. Stretching before getting out of bed — stretching the fascia.
3. Ensure you have a clock in your room to avoid the temptation of checking your phone for the time.
4. If you must have your phone in your room, keep it out of your reach so that you will not be tempted to pick it up.
5. Use the downtime setting on your device and ensure that the end time in the morning is set to allow you enough time to take care of yourself and your loved ones before the phone is reactivated.
Can you please give us your favourite life lesson quote?
My favorite life lesson quote is about perseverance from Albert Einstein where he says “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
In this quote, Einstein points out, that when faced with an obstacle, stay and deal with the problem because that can mean the difference between failure and success.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
It will be the proactive health and wellness revolution. I think it’s absolutely important that everyone start taking responsibility for their health. Everyone needs to be in-tune with their bodies and know when something is not quite right and know where they can go to get it fix without drugs. As we have seen and heard, there is a major opioid crisis to that is creating a generation of addicts, who are more and more going from addicts to over what-to-do-to-fix-it.
A proactive health and wellness revolution: This is where I will re-orient the way people think about health so that they are not reactive, but rather proactive. This revolution will ensure that people think of health as a daily and continued regiment, not only about exercising, but when they think about health, they think of it holistically — mentally, physically, and spiritually, and enabling them to go through the day doing some type of activity that is health oriented. That would be my revolution.
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mixoftwoworlds/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/peggy_weekes
Website: www.peggyweekes.com