Doctor Toby Ford for Queensland Farmer Today | July, 2022
Welcome back to this month’s health column. Congratulations on the team who with Damian Morgan have launched Maranoa Today. To a new group of readers, a quick recap about this column and what we are talking about.
Over the years, since leaving the bush to go to boarding school in western Queensland, I have remained very keen on how we can improve health in the bush. So with Damian’s encouragement through this column, we have set about spreading some ideas to hopefully get some traction with you all and get buy-in. Be well, be happy, be rural.
The question is can you be well and live in the country? The answer is yes. The trick is to find good local role models who are willing to demonstrate how they take the time to eat properly, exercise, sleep well, watch their weight, take holidays when possible. Look for the ones who approach their mental well-being always on the lookout to obtain new skills to manage new challenges. Id recommend Joy McClymont as a leader in this idea. You can find her at www.offthetracktraining.com.au.
I said in a recent column about mental well-being that the best people who are succeeding at avoiding mental ill-health and falling down are those who keep finding, adding, and collecting new tools to cope with the challenges of life.
If you think you’ve got every tool for coping in life and you don’t need any more, then you reduce your scope to cope, because life will always be changing and skills to manage new things are vital. Stop collecting mental health tools, you stop growing as a person.
Coping with life is a bit like shopping at Bunnings. All sorts of people go there to get stuff. Some people just plain don’t like the place and they are like people who reckon DYI is not for them. They are not willing to even look at change. Some people go straight in and find the tool and walk back out. These people will often seek advice about mental health, but assume the job at hand needs only one tool.
Others who walk in and buy a bunch of tools are the type who are willing to try out new ideas and see what might be the best tool for the job, keeping the rest they bought for a rainy day. The last group just like going to Bunnings for the outing. In this group it’s like learning, browsing, thinking, selecting from the “specials” bins, or even leaving with stuff they would never know why they bought it but it could come in handy one day.
So I think a smart person who goes to Bunnings regularly is a person who is trying to learn something to better their mental well-being every week. Now don’t take the recommendation literally and tell your partner the doctor said you had to go to Bunning’s, its good for my mental health, they might be suspicious.
Back to the next idea to ponder. It remains an anomaly that in a country like Australia the further you live from a capital city the shorter your lifespan and that we spend $86,000 / adult person on treatment and care of illness and a paltry $86 / per person on prevention. (Source: Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing).
Are people in the bush of lesser genetic stock? No there is no difference in this feature of the city versus the country.
What it is different can be lifestyles. Lifestyle choices are sometimes made on the hop or under assumptions you can’t get everything in the bush you can get in the city so that’s why its different. Well, you can get a latte in Winton, iPods in Birdsville, running shoes in Mt Isa, sunscreen in Miles, and for newly arrived Maranoa Today readers you can get gym classes in Roma.
You might have seen some mates who have been riding their bikes out to Longreach to celebrate fitness in old age for the last five or so years. They like to engage local people to start exercising more or to reinforce the good stories of locals being healthy. Look up www.ridewest.com.au . To be healthy its good to belong to something bigger than yourself.
At the end of last year, I drove with a group of city mates from Brisbane to Longreach and back to check out the rivers and watercourses of our inland. Most are now full and overflowing. On the way, we wanted to scope out how we might start one small influence over health in the bush.
We recognise that to exercise many adults need incentives and one incentive is to be part of a team. So we are keen to start a new rowing event in Longreach and Barcaldine and to build some rowing clubs. Our ambition is to build rowing clubs all over the bush and get people rowing. Pretty much anyone of any age can learn to row. Its non-contact and uses all parts of your body.
Rowing for the first time on the magnificent Barcaldine Artesian Lake was very exciting. It signalled that age-old call to arms of building it and they will come. The lake has triggered many new sports in this dry arid neck of our outback. From this trip Dave Counsell one of our Viking members and a long-time grazier in the Barcaldine District has struck out to start the Barcy Rowing Club. Rowing is a sport for all ages. It is safe, noncontact and uses all parts of the body.
In Longreach, a different resource is the mighty Thomson River and the body of water stretching beyond the weir. This is an ancient resource and is available on which to exercise. If you want to see what can happen when a bunch of people help each other to remain well come to both towns 2-3rd October, for Queens Birthday weekend and see some older Australians competing. www.outbackrowing.com
So the bush can do it. We can turn back the troublesome statistic of isolation shortening life. IF you are a good role model step up and get your mates out and going.
