My daughters convinced us to participate in something called “No Mow May” this year. (They are very environmentally aware!) The principle is that many flowers that provide food for pollinators have not yet blossomed, so by leaving your lawn uncut it allows weeds to grow that can nourish the bees until the plants are in bloom. We decided to give it a go, leaving our back yard to grow untamed.
Of course, it was an extra wet spring, so the grass grew particularly long! When we finally went to cut the back lawn, the height of the grass was well above the wheels of the lawn mower. If you’ve ever cut grass, you know that this is a recipe for disaster. We had to use the grass catcher. Normally we allow the grass clippings to stay on the lawn and provide mulch, but they were so thick that this was not an option. The lawn mower kept stalling and we had to go painfully slowly. The grass catcher had to be emptied many, MANY times through the cutting of the lawn and it took hours! If we added up the amount of time we would have spent cutting the lawn once or twice a week through May and compared it to the amount of time we spent with our “one cut”, we lost big time!
Why do I bring this up, in an article on wellness (other than to complain and garner sympathy)? We can do the same thing with our health! When we don’t invest small periods of time in healthy maintenance, we wind up spending large quantities of time trying to recover from an injury that occurs after we neglect our exercises or a healthy habit.
Flossing and brushing your teeth are a great example. They take a few minutes a day. If you skip those few minutes, you may save time in the short run but you may experience much longer (and painful) periods in the dental chair that will more than balance that time.
I have practice members that come for regular tune ups and I have others that just come when something goes wrong. The latter group often require quite a number of visits to get themselves “back in alignment”. Often their symptoms pop up at an inconvenient time- interfering with a work schedule or special family event. Like my overgrown lawn, it is a lot more work to get back to health than it would have been to maintain it in the first place.
I’ve decided that next year the bees are going to have to make it through May without my overgrown lawn. (I’m reading about putting out saucers with rocks and sugar water instead). I encourage you join me in learning the lesson from my lawn and not neglecting your spinal health. Practice SRI daily and get in for regular tune ups. In the long run, you’ll save time and be glad you did!