"Quality of life"......a gift that just keeps on giving.

A quality of life gift that I received this year is a new FitBit. A year ago, I gave mine to my mom to try. She was so motivated, I didn't dare ask for it back. For my birthday she gave me a newer model. I've been enjoying the new charge this has given me to keep up my workouts, steps and water intake. I'm enjoying the new energy and better sleeps.

Hello, Colleen. I'm ckg them out, and laptops, at Best Buy later this week if am able. I looking for a FitBit that does what I need but no more and is waterproof! Not too picky, eh? Just don't need a loaded one....anyway, those are the 2 things that I'm getting for me VERY SOON, little gifts to myself. Love it, to have permission to be nice to me. The best...Blessings all, Elizabeth

@ess77 I just wanted to say I got a pretty good fitness watch for Christmas. It was gotten at Amazon. It records my sleep and breaks it down to how much of each stage you got and what percentile each is. It does the heart monitor with a graph of your heart rate for 24 hours. It does steps, calories burned etc and is supposedly swim proof. All of this data us transposed onto your phone and you can refer back.

A quality of life gift that I received this year is a new FitBit. A year ago, I gave mine to my mom to try. She was so motivated, I didn't dare ask for it back. For my birthday she gave me a newer model. I've been enjoying the new charge this has given me to keep up my workouts, steps and water intake. I'm enjoying the new energy and better sleeps.

Hello Suzanne.. that's a lot to take in all in one day. We don't have a cardiologist where I live , closest one about 2 hours away and have to be referred but I did wear aheart monitor through famlily doctor before he left town.. this one had sort of suction cups and when I felt heart beating fast etc. I had to click on an attached monitor - when he got results he said he was not concerned with the extra beats! Much better to be under care of a cardiologist IMO. I was told I had Fibro five years ago but since then so many other things theydont even talk about that any more...but it was painful. That's horrible putting up with pain... and not getting much sleep doesnt help... I went almost a year with little sleep but now am back on Clonazepam I am sleeping better; however, there are drawbcks to being on this drug, but was on it for almost 20 years believe it or not til a young dr at hospital took me off it quickly and I went into withdrawal - I must say it was awful and gave me a taste of what it is like for people to be taken off meds. I never abused them, just was continually prescribed them and took them. I do listen to relaxation "tapes" on Utube and sometimes fall asleep listening to them, or not... would that be something you have tried or might try. Sometimes I shut my bedroom door and listen from ipad and sometimes use earphones. Only thing, Utube has ads so I pay about $12 a month Cdn. to not have ads... hope 2021 brings some relief for you.... J.S.

What a wonderful post, @artscaping! So happy to read the three "quality of life" gifts you've given yourself and your courage in taking them on! Way to go!

What you wrote about: "It’s never too late to think of and thank yourself for your endurance, generosity, and kindness to yourself." is such a timely statement because these uncertain times have required personal changes and adjustments that really can and have challenged our coping skills. Your statement brought this home to me the other day during a conversation with my daughter.

I was telling her how stunned and happy I was in asking my doc to refill some daily meds and doc replied she'd just put me on the Covid vaccine list. Hadn't even considered asking for that! Two days later, I was given 1st Moderna!

My daughter, who is much less effusive than I, (sometimes I have to remind her to "gush more" ...laughing, replied: "I am glad because you are so deserving! You've taken great precautions, remained upbeat with sense of humor in place, and encouraged our family through some scary times this past year" Pure Gold those comments!!!!!

With my little family out-of-state and 15 mos since we last visited person-to-person, Zoom visits with them made a huge quality of life improvement for me.

Another real biggie for me was setting the self-challenge for 2020 of taking 3 walks/week and specifying which days. Accomplishing this deeply bolstered my self-discipline feathers because I'd stopped regular walks after the loss of my dog and there were days when I had to push myself out the door.

By far, the single best and happiest occurrence this past year for my little family and myself was their adoption of two hypo allergenic kittens. Imagine waiting 60 yrs as my hyperallergic sil did to finally be able to have 4-legged furry babies! The photos and Zoom times of him and family with Oscar and Ivan
are beyond fetching!

My self-challenge for 2021 needed a back-up in case I couldn't do the primary one of reteaching myself to knit. With arthritis in my hand, I wasn't sure if I could manipulate the needles so thot' a "no added sugar or salt" day/week would be good. Happily after at least 25 yrs I've begun my first new knitting project. While I've restricted sugar and salt consumption for some time, I found the first day of "no added sugar" much, much harder than that of salt.

Perhaps the single most important quality of life effect of this past year was realizing that due to my contentment in being at home more than most and not suffering the anger and anxiety expressed by others I know about city mandates restricting/closing facilities, I do not feel the stress or dismay so many voice.

Thanks, Chris, for prompting an opportunity to take stock of quality of life impacts and to the forum for having a safe place to recount them. Wishing all continued strength and hope in this brand new year!

@ess77
Hi,
What is the name of your watch?. Do you know if the step counter counts steps 2 while you are moving your arm around but not actually walking Some of them do...My daughter’s Apple Watch does so is over inflating the number of steps she walks because it is on all day. Everything else is great. everything .

Thanks Fl Mary

@imallears My watch is a Virmee- VT3 Plus5490 About the steps. I look at mine today and says I did 12721 steps. I teach kindergarten so i do a lot of walking.I think!!¡@@.@.@

@suzanne2 and @lacy2........now that's a great quality of life gift....$12 a month for music you can play 24 hrs a day. Have you ever listened to a tulip tongue drum? They are beautiful. Here is one being played on youtube.

Be content and at peace.
Chris