Thank you to all our drivers who took part in our well-being survey; we are collating the results that will shape our wellbeing programme, which will then be delivered over the next twelve months, so watch this space.
In the meantime, we know now is the time that people make a new year resolution and dry January is popular with some but is not for everyone. However, January is also ‘love your liver’ awareness month and we thought we would give you some short information about it with some useful resources if you were thinking about making healthy changes; you only have one liver so it’s worth understanding its essential roles in the body. The role of the liver includes:
- Fighting infection and disease
- Destroying poisons and drugs (including alcohol)
- Cleaning the blood
- Controlling the amount of cholesterol
- Processing food once it has been digested
- controlling levels of fats and glucose in the blood
Liver disease often goes undetected until the latter stages of serious illness, but we do know that people who store fat around their middle are at increased risk, so it’s worth knowing some simple things you can do to protect your liver. The best thing is your liver is very good at repairing itself:
- being alcohol free for 3 consecutive days per week means your liver repairs itself from effects of alcohol.
- drinking within 14 units of alcohol per week helps not to overload it with work.
- Being active helps to reduce the weight around your middle, by increasing your steps each day can be enough to counteract the effects of sitting in one position whilst driving (use a free daily step monitor on your mobile phone to track your steps, a minimum 4,000 steps is essential, 7,000 is healthier but 10,000 supports a good fitness level).
- Stick to a healthy diet; in a nutshell, eat less junk food and more varied fruit and vegetables instead (swop crisps for nuts, a tuna sandwich instead of a cheese one, water instead of a sugary drink).
Free apps and resources are:
- https://britishlivertrust.org.uk/. Information website and tips one everything to do with your liver.
- Try dry. An App for anyone wanting to reduce alcohol, not just dry January.
- Step tracker and pedometer. A free App to download on most mobile phones to calculate how many steps you do each day (useful as you could be under/overestimating how many steps you do and can help to set goals if you need to increase).
- NHS easy meals. A free App to plan healthy meals.
- https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/ website with information for all round health and how to lose weight.
Join thousands around the UK, taking the various pledges this month https://conta.cc/3F2lHI6
