Put yourself first is an instruction, now particularly, but always… To all working mums and busy ladies out there who tend to put themselves right at the bottom of the pile after everything else and wonder why they have a perpetual cold.
Put Yourself First is also an excellent book by I was recently sent to review by Marianne Killick. And the time to read it truly couldn’t have been better, to have this particular book winking ‘read me’ as we strode headlong into lockdown and isolation was inspired. It’s a busy woman’s guide to thriving not surviving and there isn’t a better time to have some reminders about how to do more than just survive.
At a time like right now, whilst there is plenty to be positive about, there’s also so, so very, much to do that doesn’t involve looking after ourselves. But it is also a time when looking after ourselves is the best way we can fight the nasty germ should we be exposed to it. Which is why it’s so important.
My little boy is thriving being at home from nursery with us full time, he absolutely loves it (even though he loved nursery). And for however long this goes on for, I have to thrive and not just survive!
I don’t tend to read self help books, I prefer to read utter trash to zone out of the day before bed. But this book was easy to read and so relatable that I’m not going to call it a self help book. Instead I would say it is 139 pages of very good and short bursts of instruction and sense that I found helpful.
It is full of great advice which is written simply and factually – Marianne takes complicated things, like nutrition and hormones, and makes them straightforward with suggestions as to how to look after yourself better to make your body work better for you. She also takes resilience topics like habits, delegation and sleep and links them together with great reasons of why they all matter and how to do things better. The chapters about nutrition and sleep I found fascinating as I’m no biologist, but she explained how everything is linked so that I understand!
One key reason this book resonated with me is because whilst Marianne has a number of coaching and health roles, one of them is acupuncture. I have a lot of time for Chinese medicine and the thinking about our body being in balance. I am fairly sure it’s the reason we have our little boy. So I know that she writes from a sound base. She has really useful suggestions about better sleep and eating, ways to delegate to kids, how to fit in my me time at home, that she just delivers with a bit of science and fact to make you sit up and listen.
I have to thank Boris in someway for this lockdown… Apart from the hard graft of two 40+ hour a week jobs and a 77 hour toddler waking week that is… The best thing is that we’ve taken government advice to get outside (safely) once a day and we take an evening family walk/run/cycle. It’s becoming a habit in a time when it would be easy not to find the time to look after ourselves and I think that just doing that one thing as instructed at the same time as devouring the book is a great thing!
The book is available to buy on Amazon, so check it out here.
