I have a strongly held belief that there is nothing more important in your life than your wellbeing. The more I engage with clients on this topic the clearer it becomes to me that irrespective of what people have, posses, or achieve, it all becomes insignificant unless they also experience high levels of wellbeing; the ability to feel good and function effectively.

When I ask people why they don’t make their wellbeing a priority in their lives, nine times out of ten I get the same reply. ‘I don’t have the time at the moment’. They quote many valid reasons such as busyness at work, staff shortages, young kids, or elderly parents as reasons that now just isn’t a good time. Inherent in these responses is the assumption that boosts to our wellbeing require a huge investment of both time and energy. However, the evidence does not support this assumption and in reality, improvements to our wellbeing are possible for us all by simply consistently incorporating small daily habits into our lives. Many such habits take only a couple of minutes a day to complete.

Patient A vs. Patient B

A defining moment that shaped my attitude in this area happened very early on in my career as a pharmacist. On one particular day two patients both of whom I knew socially, but who were unconnected to each other, presented in the pharmacy with a prescription for a statin, same drug, same dose. Patient A dropped in his prescription, and after a brief chat said he’d call back in five minutes to collect it. Right on cue five minutes later, the pharmacy door swung open and the entire shop was immediately filled with the tempting aroma of fresh fish and chips from the chip shop next door. The prescription was collected and off he went, prescription under one arm, fish and chips under the other.

Within the next hour Patient B presents with an identical prescription, accompanied by ‘Could I speak to you for a moment please Séamus?’ Off we went to a quiet corner of the pharmacy (pre-consultation room days) and discussed the steps he could take to reduce his elevated cholesterol levels. We talked dietary interventions, the important role of exercise, how stress was a contributing factor, which supplements could help, and the effects of quality sleep. Patient B listened intently and left with his prescription, lots of determination, and some appropriate literature.

What happened with these two patients over the course of the following number of months really grabbed my attention, and shaped my attitude to health, wellbeing and lifestyle. Twelve months later Patient A had continued to visit the chip shop on a regular basis, coupled with many other poor lifestyle choices. Over time he experienced a dose increase of his statins, and the introduction of a plethora of other meds to treat his raised blood pressure, increased weight, and oncoming diabetes.  Whereas Patient B successfully made the necessary lifestyle interventions, and within twelve months discontinued his statin therapy, never to be seen again in the pharmacy, presumably off to lead a long and healthy life!

Small choices matter

The obvious lesson for me was this. When it comes to our health and wellbeing what we do consistently on a daily basis really does matter. All day, every day we make small choices that appear to be inconsequential, and indeed when looked at in isolation, many of them are. However daily habits either positive or negative, when applied on a regular and consistent basis, stacked one on top of each other, end up being hugely powerful. In his highly recommended book Atomic habits, James Clear calls this the power of 1% gains. The effect is comparable to compound interest, or exponential growth. Small daily habits that benefit our health, over time bring us to a completely different destination compared to negative habits, or indeed no action at all. And so it is, ‘How we live our days, is how we live our lives’.

It turns out that this of course is good news for us. When it comes to making changes that affect our health or wellbeing many of us feel paralysed. Mistakenly, we often think that we will only get results if we succeed in making drastic lifestyle changes. As a result we put off trying until ‘some day’ when the time is ‘right’. We excuse ourselves with, ‘It’s just too busy at work’, ‘I haven’t time, the kids are too young’, ‘The weather is bad, and the days are too short’ or whatever the excuse is today to make us feel justified in our choice, or lack thereof.

The truth of course is that change is rarely achieved by one giant drastic step, or by acquiring some astounding new ‘secret’ but by showing up every day, and constantly and consistently making the right choices.

When I ask people why they don’t make their wellbeing a priority in their lives, nine times out of ten I get the same reply. ‘I don’t have the time at the moment’.

Applying our advice onto ourselves

Pharmacists as trusted healthcare professionals are a valued source of advice on health, wellbeing and lifestyle issues for the public. Survey after survey shows our opinion is widely respected and trusted. We know the science, research, and reasoning behind simple daily interventions to safeguard our health and wellbeing. We counsel patients on the what, the how, and the why of healthy living each and every day of our working lives. Surely to do this with any degree of authority we should apply the same advice to our own lives. If you were your own patient, what advice would you give yourself, and what small, consistent habits would you encourage yourself to adopt? Remember when it comes to our wellbeing, like many aspects of life, success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in day out!

Séamus Ruane is a community pharmacist and Positive Psychology Practitioner. Visit www. iThrive.ie for more information. Séamus delivers the IPU training course ‘IPU Wellbeing in the Pharmacy’, which started at the end of April.