If you joined Club Physical to get healthier, but you don’t talk to anyone, you wear your headphones, spend most of your time (at the gym), and in society ‘alone’, you could be short-changing yourself.

Prominent educator Dr Mark Hyman says that ‘loneliness’ can be as damaging to your health as smoking TWO packets of cigarettes a day!

By caring more about others, and even giving them some type of encouragement and support, you actually boost your own mental health. Incredibly, friendship also positively influences your microbiome (your gut), crucial for overall health. Tackling an improved healthy eating regime or new exercise habit becomes several times more effective, and more likely to succeed long term, when you do it with a like-minded friend or a small group.

Community engagement, where you get together with others with a shared interest, fosters stronger social bonds and has been proven to be essential for both physical and mental health.  And perhaps, you could make the effort and invest the time to form a deeper and more meaningful, supportive relationship with one or two of the people you meet. Go for a coffee and have a chat about where you’re at.

If you’re a bit reluctant to introduce yourself to others, Club Physical has a number of group activities that help develop these bonds. These include; XBOX classes, FLEX, STEPX, PILATES. YOGA, XRIDE, X45. Even using your MYZONE will draw you into a positively influential community group. It doesn’t take long for you to ‘feel that you belong’ and that you are a recognised and expected member of the class or group.

All you need to do is take the first step, and join in.

This week’s newsletter can be found here