JUSTIN LANGER: Why expert Ben Piggott says we must stop waiting for a crisis to take our wellbeing seriously

Last Saturday morning, a text arrived from a great friend.

“Morning mate. So sorry to do this in a message but not handling chatting about it too well at the moment.”

He’d been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer.

After a painstaking wait for test results following a couple of months of feeling unwell, his news was devastatingly unwelcome.

As we ache for a friend and hope there are better times ahead, his crisis is something that triggers one of those wake-up calls.

That wake-up call that stops you mid-stride and makes you ask the hard questions. Am I looking after myself? Am I doing everything I can for the people I love? What would I change if that diagnosis had been about me?

Like giving advice, these questions are often easier to ask others than they are to ask ourselves because when you dig deep into yourself, it means you must do something about it.

And, as we all know, that is easier said than done.

This weekend Perth will have plenty of those moments.

As Telethon fills our screens, we’ll hear the stories of kids fighting battles no child should have to fight, and of the families standing beside them. Most of us also know someone, right now, going through one of life’s crises.

These moments matter. They remind us that health isn’t guaranteed, and that looking after ourselves is how we stay strong enough to look after everyone else.

During the week I sat with Associate Professor Dr Ben Piggott from the University of Notre Dame in Fremantle. He said something that struck a chord.

“Most of us treat our own wellbeing as the thing we’ll get to later,” he said.

“I will get to it after the deadline, after the season, after the kids are sorted, after the end of financial year or when the inbox is cleared and everyone else has what they need.”

I will get to it later. Truth is, later may be too late.

Ben coordinates the health and physical education program at Notre Dame.

A few years ago, he noticed that more and more of the young people he taught were struggling with stress and their mental health. He also noticed how we respond.

He told me: “I observed an increasing number of young people I was teaching being impacted by mental health and stress-related issues.

“Our general model to deal with these issues in society and at uni is reactive.

“Something happens and we provide some pastoral care, send them to the counsellor and hope for better outcomes.

“But that got me thinking, can we have a more pro-active approach and teach young people about stress, well-being and evidence-based practises that have been shown to improve well-being.

“In universities, and across society, our model is reactive, not proactive, surely there is a better way.”

So, Ben asked a better question. What if we taught young people about stress and wellbeing before the crisis arrives?

He recognised that stress comes to all of us. Teachers, nurses, lawyers, builders, doctors, bricklayers, sportspeople, coaches. No career is exempt.

He also reminded me that the better our personal well-being, the better we cope — not only day to day, but also when the inevitable storms arrive in our lives.

So, rather than just mulling over the questions, Ben built an elective unit called Well-Being Fundamentals for Success.

Over 13 weeks, students work through the crucial well-being topics like stress, sleep, physical activity, nutrition, meditation, time management, mindset and emotional intelligence, connection, resilience, gratitude, empathy, and habits.

As Ben says: “It isn’t a lecture series on how to feel good.

Along the way, students log their sleep, physical activity and screen time, then they hold that data up against the national guidelines.

They complete the Values in Action (VIA) Character Strengths survey to see where they are strongest and weakest.

Then they build their own well-being plan which includes two long-term strategies, one habit they want to create, one they want to break, and exactly how they will do it.”

The research Ben and his colleagues published on the unit found students’ resilience — measured on the Brief Resilience Scale — rose significantly across the semester, even as the usual mid-semester pressure hit.

The student feedback was blunter.

“This needs to be a core unit, especially for first years!,” one wrote. Another called it: “The most relevant course I have ever done.”

Another wrote: “I wish someone had handed me that plan at 20. I might have been less stubborn about learning the lesson the hard way.”

We have all learned our lessons that hard way. Whether that be by burning ourselves out, or succumbing to the pain of disappointment being much worse than the pain of self-discipline.

One reminder came to me many Christmases ago.

I blew a disc in my back, four days before a Boxing Day Test match against Pakistan. While everyone around me was opening presents, eating too much and counting down to the Boxing Day Test, I was miserable.

I was in and out of the physio room and hotel swimming pool. Loading up on anti-inflammatory drugs rather than Christmas pudding and turkey.

I couldn’t do the simplest things. The pain was intense and my hopes of playing made me more despondent by the minute.

In that state, I wasn’t much use to my family, I wasn’t much use to my team, I wasn’t much use to anyone.

That is the point Ben keeps coming back to.

If you are not healthy and happy yourself, you are in no position to help anyone else. You can’t coach, lead, parent or be a good mate from an empty tank. Looking after yourself isn’t selfish. It’s the price of being useful.

It is also very hard to be successful yourself if you are not about to regulate your own mental and physical habits.

Sometimes these habits are hard and uncomfortable, but their benefits far outweigh sticking to them.

I read a great article about Herb Elliott this week. The Perth boy from Aquinas trained under coach Percy Cerutti and as part of his excruciating preparation he regularly ran sandhills until his legs had nothing left.

Herb described pain better than anyone I’ve heard.

“You never break a pain barrier” he said, “It doesn’t get easier. You just train yourself to cope with it.”

In Rome in 1960 he won Olympic 1500m gold by about 20 metres in world-record time. He was never beaten over the mile or 1500m.

“If you haven’t developed mental toughness in your training, then you can’t rely on it in the race,” he said. “But if you’ve done it every time in training then you can rely on it in the race.”

The way I read this was no different to Dr Ben Piggott’s view of being proactive in life, rather than reactive.

You can’t be ready for the big moments, in Herb Elliott’s case on the running track, if you haven’t conquered the daily habits that give you a chance when those major moments present themselves.

Last Sunday, modern great Eliud Kipchoge won the Melbourne Marathon in a course-record 2:09:10, finishing with half a lap of the MCG. He is 41 and it was his first marathon win in three years. Earlier this year he ran 16th in Cape Town and 12th in Porto Alegre. Plenty had written him off.

Kipchoge has a line I love: “The disciplined ones are free in life, the undisciplined ones are not free, they are in prison. If you are undisciplined, you are a slave to your moods and passions.”

His rules for discipline are beautifully simple. A daily dose of what he calls “Vitamin N”. Vitamin N? Vitamin N he explains is a daily dose of the word No.

No to the snooze button, no to the second helping, no to whatever pulls you off your plan. No to anything that takes you away from your highest priorities or anything that makes you complain.

None of Kipchoge’s mantra costs a cent. You could start all three before lunch.

Daily disciplines aren’t glamorous. Move every day. Protect your sleep. Put the phone down. Eat well. Spend time with people who make you laugh and re-charge your batteries. Do something hard on purpose.

None of these makes headlines, but stacked together, day after day, they give your body and mind their best chance.

Imagine if every university, TAFE and sporting club embedded genuine well-being education in what they do. We would stop waiting for young people to fall over before we help them stand up.

Dr Piggott has trialled his program with apprentices and in the corporate world with strong success.

My friend’s shock message last weekend is the reminder none of us want. No matter how wonderful your well-being is, no one is immune of a doctor’s diagnosis we never saw coming.

If we want to be there for the people we love, and strong enough to endure the biggest challenges when they come, we need a plan for ourselves too.

That’s the dial we need to shift, from reactive to proactive.

Do it for yourself. And do it for everyone who’s counting on you.