What a year it's been for lifestyle medicine! Read for December's lifestyle medicine updates! 🧬
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December 2024
Welcome member to
Your home of lifestyle medicine news
With this month's newsletter coming out a bit sooner and being a bit shorter, we're excited to join with others in December's festive cheer,
As always we want to take this opportunity to thank our growing Membership and this diverse, passionate community that has grown around us. We are grateful that month on month you follow our updates, contribute and build this fantastic and inclusive network across the UK and beyond!
Below is your guide to all things Lifestyle Medicine this month, insight into December at BSLM and also what's in store come 2025!
In this month's Newsletter...
HEADLINE NEWS
Warm festive wishes from Dr Fraser Quin & our team!
"Everyone at BSLM wishes you all the very best over the festive season and heading into 2025.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued support over 2024, with BSLM and the lifestyle medicine community making huge strides over the past year!
As our valued members, your engagement, effort and enthusiasm for all things lifestyle medicine is amazing to see. There is so much to look forward to with BSLM in 2025 and beyond, and we hope you are as excited as we are!
We're sure by now you have got to know our new chair, Dr Frances Elliot, through her role as Vice-Chair, and most likely recognise her from our Annual Conference and other such BSLM events.
Our new Chair, Dr Frances Elliot, has sent a festive message for you all...
Myself and Frances will be giving our vision of a Lifestyle Medicine 2025 as a release to you all in the New Year.
We can't wait to share this with you all in due time, but in the meantime we hope you enjoy the festive season and have a happy and prosperous start to the New Year!"
Best wishes,
Dr Fraser Quin and The BSLM Team 🎄
Our team at our annual Christmas meeting, then our get together mini golfing!
We welcomed Frances this month!
As of the 1st of December, we warmly welcomed our New Chair, Dr Frances Elliot!
If you haven't watched introduce herself as Chair to you all via the video below, make sure you watch now!
LIFESTYLE MEDICINE IN FOCUS
Some noteworthy Lifestyle Medicine features within the recent news in Britain.
NHS Change: Our Government's 10 year health plan
You may have already seen the buzz around the NHS Change Campaign. As this campaign states, “Changing the NHS is going to involve everyone. The government wants to hear people's views, experiences and ideas as part of this engagement to help shape the 10 Year Health Plan for England.”
This means for this outreach to be successful; it’s calling on patients, carers, staff, voluntary organisations and members of the public. So basically, it needs all of US to pass on our experiences, skills and ideas via their surveys and idea-sharing online forum.
We released some support and resources to our members - more on this further down!
Red January - a Decade of Red coming up!
Newest Releases available to read now!
The newest releases in December are:
Lifestyle Medicine Essentials: “Walk More, Eat Less, Sleep More”—White's Early Inspiration, released 13th of December, and Promoting Physical Activity in the Management of Type 2 Diabetes: A Feasibility Study to Develop Intervention Tools for Delivery of Diabetes-Specific Education was released the 7th of December.
This is your December prompt to remind you to join and rise to your own challenge of walking, dancing, stretching, running, cycling - whatever works for you. More than half of RED participants experience a significant improvement in happiness and a reduction in anxiety!
BSLM Fellowships Window: Early Preparations!
Following the basic criteria, if you would like to learn more and complete the application and nomination process, there's never been a better time - especially as the next window for application is July!
BSLM wish to acknowledge the work of those who can demonstrate outstanding contribution to lifestyle medicine and the integration of this within the UK - which is why today's post is about Fellowship!
Other Lifestyle Medicine News and Events
In aid of October being Menopause Month..
Linwoods: Find Out More About How To Boost Your Immunity Naturally with Hemp and Flaxseeds for a Stronger Immune System
As winter approaches and seasonal germs become more prevalent, supporting our immune system becomes even more important. One of the simplest and most effective ways to enhance immunity is through the foods we eat each day. While many of us turn to ‘immune boosting’ supplements, the truth is that incorporating nutrient-dense, immune-nourishing foods into our everyday diet is a simpler way to and more effective way to stay immune resilient throughout the colder months
With the festive season upon us..
You may have seen some of the resources as part of our social media countdown however these two are particularly important:
Mental Health and Wellbeing
We know that this festive time can be really hard for those that are struggling with their mental health. It's so important to know that you're not alone and that there are many organisations out there to support you and your loved ones at this time so here's an image of some useful helplines if you need to talk:
For the healthcare professionals, work may not be stopping for a festive break, however You Ok Doc? a fellow charity that we work alongside have some fantastic support lines listed on their website below.
Social connection
We know that at Christmas time is about connecting with others, but as some have the benefit of having family, friends or peers around them.
For those of you who are still working, have strained connections, or due to challenges, can't be around your social network today, we hope that you have a wonderful and peaceful day, with plans to connect with others soon.
LATEST NEWS AT BSLM
We've included some updates below to give you an idea of what we've been up to.
NHS Change: Our Resources
Did you get our email about our resources around NHS Change for you to utilise?
To give you some background, BSLM submitted our organisational response in time for the deadline of 2nd December but we’d love to share the content submitted in the hope that it may assist you in providing consistent responses from a workforce, patient & public perspective.
If you want to explore the campaign, read more on the NHS Change website, which has information, videos, statistics, and everything else you’ll need to add your voice to the movement!
We have been working behind-the-scenes since this initiative launched, trying to find the best way to empower our members to participate and share their personal experiences, thoughts and feelings, but also be able to incorporate their passion for mainstream lifestyle medicine.
We have shared our key points under each shift that highlights the key areas in our NHS Change campaign video - watch it below!
In regards to next steps after our campaign release, we recommend reading the full version of our communications by hitting the button below, and reading the action steps:
A summary of these are:
- Use our Text Templates to complete your survey
- Share and circulate our digital resources (including Social Media Posts)
- Watch, share and highlight our Campaign Video on release (and share with your peers too!)
all of the information and digital packs are available here for your use in your NHS Change application.
But most importantly, don’t forget to submit via the NHS Change platform to be heard.
What's happening in Our Communities?
Voices of Lived Experience: Introducing the team
We wanted to utilise this space to thank those who participated in submitting videos to us as part of sharing their Voices of Lived Experience with the world!
We wanted to thank specifically Dr Satinder Sanghera, Vidyamala Burch and Dr Helen Monk at this time for their videos in which we used to launch the very important campaign mentioned above, the NHS Change Campaign resources.
We hope to share with you soon more resources and personal experiences in exciting ways - watch this space!
Our monthly Live Well Update
With the Live Well East Lothian Team
Some fantastic tips from our Live Well East Lothian classes that we'd like to share with you to encourage you to keep-fit during the festive period too!
To find out more visit our website or if you have a similar group or idea in your area please get in touch with us below, we’d love to hear about it!
Our Podcasts
Microbiome Medics Newest Release:
Ep.22 - The Microbiome, Dopamine, and Parkinson’s: Exploring the Connection with Martha Carlin
The Movement Prescription Podcast below, as on a hiatus!
Every time one of the podcasts above are released we'll be updating the newsletter so keep an eye out for updates here too for your monthly listening fix!
FEATURED BSLM EVENTS
Head to the dedicated BSLM events page for the full list of upcoming events
Our Monthly Webinar is ON HOLD for December..
.. we look forward to welcoming you again in January!
A sneak peek here!
Our previous Webinars are below if you want to catch up on them!
Other Events
Schedule the below in your diary for January 2025!
We hope you can also find time for any of the below if they are of interest!
Aberdeen's Health and Wellbeing Festival: 2025
Association for the Study of Obesity: One-Day MDT Clinical Meeting
Beyond the Prescription - NE Scotland regional event
Talk 5: 22nd Jan 2025 - Exploring the many ways of staying active while ageing!
Edinburgh / SE Scotland meet
22nd Jan @ 7.30pm-8.30pm online
Only a Save the Date to mark in your diary at this stage!
NEY Regional Meet - January - with new theme!
BSLM FELLOWSHIP DEADLINE WINDOW
Deadline for application: 31st January 2025
BSLM LM and Cancer Study Day - Newly Released!
Tickets go on sale 01/01/2025
Learning Academy
Thank you for your patience, keen learners!
You'll have seen a lot of "coming soon" from our Learning Academy platforms, with lots of exciting things in the pipeline, we can only thank you for your patience.
We have been working hard behind the scenes to make sure that all of the alluded promotion is due to start releasing from January onwards. We just want to make sure it's perfect for you!
Thought about doing our Core Accreditation?
Some of the upcoming opportunities and releases in January will link directly to our Core Accreditation - so we want to highlight that in our NHS Change Campaign video, we have 3 wonderful Trailblazers that told us a bit about there experience in studying too (although not directly the point of our video unfortunately)
You can watch the video, and the three learners accounts below.
Did you see our Chronic Pain tips? These might help over the colder months!
As part of our latest We know with the colder weather settling in, it's difficult to manage chronic pain and chronic health conditions - and finding strategies that work for you in day to day life!
We have a recommendation to add to your toolkit: have a look at this NHS-recommended pain management resource, which provides 12 practical strategies to support people with chronic pain.
NHS NETWORKS
Top News Stories in December
Winter pressures
Older people to get urgent care at home this winter
Housing that promotes wellbeing and community for an ageing population
Assessing and managing risks across integrated care systems
Evidence to the review body on doctors’ and dentists’ remuneration
Football for Wellbeing hub provides mental health support
Email us - office@bslm.org.uk
