I was feeling isolated....

Wow November flew by incredibly fast! it's been a month since I moved the clinic over to the movewell space just off Roman Road and I can't thank you enough for coming along with me for the ride. 

My biggest takeaway of the past month was the realisation of how isolated I was becoming working from home and how that was adversely effecting my mental and physical health way more than I thought. Obviously I work in the well being industry and have access to a lot of self care but sometimes life gets in the way and it can be hard to access it for yourself. In clinic when I’m reminding you to do your stretches or to check in with your breath I am almost always trying to remind myself at the same time.

From a physical stand point I want to flag up with you a really interesting experience I’ve had recently with my voice. Over the past couple of months, when in conversation, I was becoming fatigued really quickly, and I’d noticed my voice had lowered an octave, I contacted my GP and they refereed me pretty quickly for a scan (2 weeks, go NHS) because apparently the lowering of your voice can be a tell-tale sign of something a little more sinister (bank that information for the future). Thankfully for me it turned out to simply be weak vocal chords, and I've been referred for speech therapy, how mad is that?

Thinking about it, it makes a lot of sense, during work hours at home the only use of my voice would be during consultation, of course some clients do like to have a little catch up whilst receiving treatment but invariably you lovely humans just like to bliss out, it basically means I can go whole days without talking to anyone until my husband arrives home from work and because I was working from home there would also be days when I’d also go without seeing anyone other than my clients as well.

It's all quite fascinating and has made me question how working alone must also be affecting others, and in what other ways it’s affecting our health. It’s also made me question how those of you who became working age at the start of the pandemic, and have never been into the office are faring working from home? are you missing out on some vital social connection that is now also adversely affecting your health? What do you do to find social connection?

There is a lot of evidence at the moment stating that we are in a loneliness crisis and I wonder what I can do to help alleviate some of the discomfort this could be inducing in your body?

The problem with my voice wasn’t the only thing at had made me aware that I needed more connection of course, it was just the thing that made me connect the dots to my physical health.

To alleviate some of this isolation I have teamed up with my lovely friend Emily Brusem of Blue Daisy Patisserie , another solo worker, and set up the Solo Worker Social Club, a place to exchange goals, dreams and worries for humans working alone.

We meet at the wonderful independent book shop Bard books on Roman Road on the first Tuesday of the month 10-12. Email us soloworkersocialclub@gmail.com for more info or to arrange to join us.