Many people feel tremendous pressure to look a certain way, particularly those in the modeling industry, where their body is judged far more than in other professions. This can lead to a lot of stress for models, impacting their health and lifestyles as they put their health in the backseat while striving to meet their career goals. The potential health consequences, whether physical or mental, are essential to pay attention to, and many signs can indicate it is time to reassess priorities to ensure their health is looked after.
Poor health can manifest in various ways, such as changes in eating habits and excessive screen time, leading to physical, emotional, behavioral, and social changes. In this article, we’ll explore the warning signs and the various ways they can impact your life. We’ll also look at what can be done if you’re experiencing these warning signs to start caring for your health again.
1. Fatigue and Low Energy
Feeling fatigued and having low energy even after getting adequate sleep, as well as having trouble sleeping or insomnia, can be physical warning signs that your health has fallen by the wayside of other obligations. It can leave you feeling too drained to engage in activities you usually enjoy and can also hinder your performance at work.
2. Frequent Illnesses
When your health is pushed to the back burner, your immune system isn’t as strong as usual. You may feel like you always have some sort of cold or flu. It can interrupt your ability to get to work, see friends and family, and generally leave you feeling drained and unwell.
3. Appetite and Weight Changes
Significant appetite or weight fluctuations can be a physical symptom that your mental health is suffering or simply that you’re not prioritizing a healthy diet. If you find yourself skipping meals or binge eating, it can be a sign that your health is being neglected or that you’re struggling with disordered eating.
4. Skin Issues
Dry skin, breakouts, and other skin concerns can be symptoms of stress or a poor diet. It can be a subtle sign that your body is overwhelmed, lacking essential nutrients, or consuming too much junk food.
5. Changes in Mood
When your health isn’t a top priority, it can greatly impact your mood, causing everything from mood swings to feelings of anxiety and depression. The effects of this can ripple into other areas of life, impacting everything from your work to your personal relationships.
6. Lack of Motivation and Poor Concentration
Finding it hard to motivate yourself to do chores, get your work done, or complete other tasks of daily living could be a sign that your health is starting to suffer. This can even impact your hygiene, making you feel unmotivated to shower or brush your teeth. Similarly, focusing on tasks, projects, books, or even shows can become very difficult when you don’t give yourself what you need to thrive.
7. Lack of Exercise or Overtraining
Not having a consistent exercise routine may be a sign that you’re neglecting your physical health. Regular exercise supports our health in various ways, and when it falls off our radar or out of our routine, it’s time to reassess things. However, there is such a thing as overtraining, where you’re not giving yourself adequate rest between training sessions. Overtraining can also impact your physical and mental well-being, contributing to mood swings, fatigue, and discomfort.
8. Excessive Screen Time
While screens are an essential part of modern living, there is a fine line between using them for productivity or even entertainment and having them consume our daily lives. So whether you’re seeking new strategies for gambling online on Canadian BonusFinder or scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, remember that there can be too much of a good thing. When our mental health starts to struggle, our phones or whichever devices we spend time on become an escape and a tool for avoidance rather than one that enhances our lives. If you’re spending far more time than usual on your phone, this could signal that you need a shift for your well-being.
9. Isolating Yourself
Withdrawing from friends and family, intentionally or not, is another sign that your health, particularly your mental health, isn’t where it should be. Unfortunately, isolating yourself can also lead to other negative health impacts, making this, like many other signs on this list, important to recognize as early as possible.
Long-Term Consequences
These nine signs can become a negative feedback loop, with some signs leading to others and adding up to have much more significant long-term health consequences if changes aren’t made. These consequences can include physical and emotional exhaustion, leading to burnout and affecting your ability to advance in your career. More concerningly, if these signs go unaddressed, you could be causing illnesses such as digestive problems, eating disorders, and heart disease. Thankfully, acknowledging the signs early allows you to make changes before any long-term health consequences occur.
How to Reclaim Your Health
If you find yourself experiencing the signs listed above, there are steps you can take to address their root causes to help prioritize your health for your wellness today and into the future. These steps may begin with speaking to your general practitioner to ensure there isn’t a more serious underlying cause. Then you can move on to make lifestyle changes like prioritizing a well-balanced, nutritious diet, building a regular fitness routine (with adequate rest periods), practicing mindfulness, setting screen-time limits, and getting support from friends, family, or a professional.
Conclusion
When your health takes a backseat, it can seriously impact all areas of life, including your work and personal life. Thankfully, our bodies are usually great at giving us early warning signs that something needs to change so that we can adjust our lifestyles to protect our health and live our lives to the fullest.
