[This post can be seen as a continuation of what I was thinking about when I posted on slowing down]

For the past few weeks I have been mulling over in my head the notion of balance and how it applies to my health. Ever since I can remember, I have been a type of an overachiever. Constantly looking for ways to improve myself, say something better, and write something better - especially if I was really interested in a certain something. Since I started writing about the convergence of modern health communication and social media/personal technology, my brain has been on fire with ideas and thoughts. I have re-ignited my passion for health…and once I get passionate about something, oh boy, I go full speed ahead!

Since getting more involved with aspects of social media and getting to interact with so many great people, I found myself paying less and less attention to things like getting adequate sleep (sometimes 3-4 hours a night) and not eating properly. I felt like things were going alright, despite increasingly frequent bouts of sluggishness during the day and nagging chest pains. I shrugged it off for a while until 3 weekends ago, when I was enjoying a bed and breakfast in Va and I woke up in the middle of the night with a rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath and acute numbness down the left side of my body. To be honest, I thought it might have been the last few minutes of my life - especially knowing about the chest pains I had been experiencing the weeks prior (that I of course told myself I would get checked out eventually). Long story short, I was rushed to the ER and was released a few hours later with a clean bill of health. Nothing clinically wrong, but I knew this was my warning sign…a wake up call of sorts.

Now, I know there was a NY Times article about this sort of thing - bloggers dying or having heart attacks - and I wanted to distance myself from the media frenzy and not be another person talking about the same thing, despite its obvious importance to our culture and it being my specific interest. However, this was a personal event for me and one that I wanted to share with my readers. Sometimes you have to live through a situation in order to feel inspired and when I feel inspired, I want to share it with others, hope you don’t mind.

I came away from this event, reorganizing my time and what I did with it. Spending more time with the people I care about, focusing on my goals to revamp/update the way we view our health and communicate about it (health education, promotion…more on that later) and having quality interactions with people who are passionate about something. I bet you’re thinking that this is where I say “life is short” - actually that is a moot point in my opinion. Let me tweak that phrase a bit and say life is an opportunity - the quality of which is up to you. Whether you are here reading this because you are wired up to the gills with social media interests or just want to get a better idea of where your health fits into a busy lifestyle - one thing remains the same…you make use of this opportunity called life by taking care of yourself.

Thanks for listening.