Are you friends with the people in your house?

Not, “Are you a good parent or spouse?”
Not, “Are you providing for your family?”

I asked: Are you friends with the people in your house?

Because sometimes we can have a perfectly functional home. We provide. We teach our children. We pay the bills. We cook. We clean. We fulfil all the roles that society expects us to fulfil.

But beyond those roles, do we feel emotionally safe in that home?

Can you sit with the people in your house and say, “Today I am not okay”?

Can you talk about something that has frustrated you? Can you share something you are worried about? Can you laugh together? Can you simply enjoy each other's company?

That friendship within the home matters.

1. Be friends with the people in your home

In our African setting, we often have very clearly defined roles in the home. Someone is the husband. Someone is the wife. Someone is the child. Someone is the provider. Someone is the caregiver.

Those roles are important.

But we should not allow the roles to become the entire relationship.

We also need friendship within the home.

When people feel emotionally safe with the people around them, they are more likely to open up and talk about what they are experiencing. And when we talk about our emotions, something important happens: we begin to understand ourselves better.

Sometimes you don't even know why you are irritated until you talk about what happened.

You don't know why you are overwhelmed until you say it out loud.

You don't realise how much something has affected you until you share it with someone you trust.

That process can give us greater emotional awareness and help us develop better ways of coping.

Research supports the broader idea that social connection and social support are important for mental health. Longitudinal research has repeatedly found that lower social support is associated with greater risk of depressive symptoms, while stronger social connections are associated with better mental health outcomes.

So, being friends with the people at home is not just about having somebody to watch television with.

It can be part of how we build our emotional support system.

And this becomes particularly important because many of us have stressful lives.

We have demanding jobs. We have financial responsibilities. We have children to take care of. We have businesses to run. We have deadlines.

The stressors may not disappear.

But our ability to cope with those stressors can improve when we have people with whom we can safely talk.

And if you are already experiencing significant emotional distress or symptoms of a mental health condition, these everyday habits should not replace professional support. It is okay to talk to a psychologist or counsellor. Sometimes a person may need assessment and treatment from a psychiatrist as well.

Seeking help is not weakness.

Sometimes taking care of your mental health means knowing when you need another person to help you.

2. Practise gratitude

The second habit we need is gratitude.

And I want to make an important distinction: gratitude does not mean pretending that life is perfect.

You can have a difficult day and still find something to be grateful for.

You can have financial problems and still be grateful for something.

You can be worried about something and still have a good moment during the day.

There is evidence that deliberately practising gratitude can improve aspects of psychological wellbeing. In one randomised clinical trial, participants were asked to write daily gratitude lists for 14 days. The intervention was associated with improvements in positive affect, happiness and life satisfaction, as well as reductions in negative emotions and depressive symptoms.

So, one very simple exercise is this:

Before you go to bed, ask yourself:

What are three things I am grateful for today?

They don't have to be big things.

Maybe someone made you laugh.

Maybe your child did something that made you proud.

Maybe you had a good conversation.

Maybe you enjoyed your meal.

Write them down. Some even have a gratitude jar to put the gratitude points and you will have full jar by end of year.

And if you can, make it a daily before bed habit.

The purpose is not to erase the problems in your life. The problems may still be there tomorrow.

But while your mind is processing everything that went wrong, you are also deliberately giving it an opportunity to notice what went right.

We don't have to deny negative emotions. We need to acknowledge them, understand them and learn how to cope with them.

But we should also give positive experiences some space in our minds.

3. Sleep is not wasted time

The next thing I talked about was sleep.

Sleep is particularly important for us as educators because we are not only learning ourselves. We are teaching thousands of other people.

When we sleep, important processes involved in memory and learning take place. Information that we encounter during the day needs to be processed and consolidated.

So, imagine an educator who spends years acquiring knowledge but gradually becomes unable to remember and use some of that knowledge because their brain is constantly deprived of adequate rest.

Imagine your chemistry teacher no longer being able to remember the things they once knew so well.

Imagine the art teacher struggling to demonstrate the brush strokes and curves they used to teach effortlessly.

Our brains need sleep.

And this becomes even more important as we grow older. Dementia, for example, is characterised by progressive cognitive impairment, including problems with memory.

A large longitudinal study using data from 7,959 participants followed over 25 years found that persistent short sleep, around six hours or less, was associated with approximately a 30% higher risk of dementia compared with persistent sleep of around seven hours.

That does not mean that every person who sleeps less will develop dementia, or that sleep alone causes dementia. It is an association, and many factors contribute to dementia risk.

But it gives us another reason to take sleep seriously.

And sometimes we say, “I don't have time to sleep.”

I challenge you to look at where your 24 hours actually go.

How much time goes into scrolling through social media?

How much time goes into things that are not actually necessary?

Could some of those hours be recovered for sleep?

And don't think you have to transform everything overnight.

If you are sleeping four hours, perhaps your first goal is four and a half.

Then five.

Then five and a half.

Work towards improving your sleep rather than simply saying, “I need eight hours starting tonight.”

There is also a productivity argument for sleep.

There was a fascinating study involving 45 novice software developers. Twenty-three participants stayed awake the night before completing a programming task, while 22 slept normally. The sleep-deprived group produced implementations with about 50% lower functional correctness and made more syntax-related fixes.

So, sometimes working longer does not mean working better.

You may stay at work for another three hours, but if you are tired, the quality of your work may decline and you may have to redo what you did the following day.

Sleep may therefore look like lost working time, but it can actually help us make better use of our waking hours.

If you want to be productive, don't only ask yourself how many hours you can work. Ask yourself how well you are functioning during those hours.

And remember:

You cannot pour from an empty cup.

Yes, you have to provide.

Yes, you have to teach.

Yes, you have to be a parent.

Yes, you have responsibilities.

But you are able to fulfil those responsibilities because you are healthy enough to do something about them.

Without your health, your ability to provide, teach and care for others becomes more difficult.

So take care of yourself too.

4. Don't forget iron

The final part of my talk was about something that is sometimes overlooked when we talk about productivity: iron.

Iron deficiency is common, and women are particularly vulnerable because of iron losses associated with menstruation. Pregnancy also increases iron requirements, and blood loss during childbirth can contribute to depletion of iron stores.

If iron stores are not adequately replenished, another pregnancy can occur before those stores have recovered.

Diet is another important part of the picture.

We need iron-rich foods in our diets.

Meat and other animal-source foods provide iron in a form that is generally more readily absorbed than the non-haem iron found in plant foods. Plant foods such as beans and other legumes, millet and leafy vegetables can still make valuable contributions to iron intake, but absorption is affected by the form of iron and by other components of the diet.

This is particularly important when we think about our learners.

A student may have a breakfast that is mostly a refined carbohydrate food and very little iron-rich food.

At lunch, they may be served posho and beans but take mostly the liquid sauce and leave the beans.

If this happens repeatedly, the diet may provide less iron than the student needs.

And iron deficiency can affect how a person feels and functions.

Iron is essential for haemoglobin, which carries oxygen around the body. When iron deficiency progresses to iron-deficiency anaemia, people can experience symptoms such as tiredness and reduced physical capacity.

There is also evidence connecting iron status with physical work capacity.

A study among iron-depleted young women in Rwanda examined the effects of consuming iron-biofortified beans. The intervention improved haemoglobin, ferritin and body iron stores, and changes in haemoglobin and ferritin were positively related to work efficiency under particular conditions.

There is also research from Thailand examining iron supplementation and cognitive outcomes among schoolchildren. One randomised trial involving 397 children investigated IQ, Thai language and mathematics outcomes after iron supplementation. The results were more complicated than simply saying “iron improved maths scores,” so I would be careful not to oversimplify this finding.

The broader message remains important:

Nutrition affects our ability to function, learn and work.

So, when we talk about productivity, we should not only talk about working harder.

We should also talk about sleeping adequately.

We should talk about mental wellbeing.

We should talk about relationships.

And we should talk about nutrition.

These things are connected.

Finally, take care of yourself

My message to you is therefore not that we should add another long list of things to our already busy lives.

Rather, I want us to think about small habits.

**Be friends with the people in your home. **Create a home where people can talk.

**Practise gratitude: **Give your mind an opportunity to notice what is going well, even when life is difficult.

**Protect your sleep: **Don't sacrifice your health in the name of productivity.

**Pay attention to your nutrition, including iron. **Your body and brain need the right nutrients to function well.

And if you are already struggling emotionally, don't try to solve everything with lifestyle habits alone. **Seek help. **Talk to a counsellor or psychologist. If a medical assessment or treatment is needed, a psychiatrist can provide that support. There is nothing embarrassing about getting help.

Ultimately, you are not just taking care of yourself for yourself.

You are taking care of yourself because people depend on you.

Your learners depend on you.

Your children depend on you.

Your family depends on you.

Your colleagues depend on you.

And you deserve to be healthy enough to enjoy the life you are working so hard to build.

I hope this conversation reminds you that protecting your health does not always require dramatic changes.

Sometimes it begins with something as simple as asking:

“Are you friends with the people in your house?”

And then asking yourself:

“Am I taking care of the person who has to carry all these responsibilities?”

Writer: Regina Nantege, a dietitian with over nine years of experience, founder of The Dietitian App, and a psychology student.

These are the links to reading material and learning videos.

The healthy plate article: https://impactnutritionug.com/blog_details.php?id=36&title=Your_Body_Is_Your_Greatest_Asset:_How_Healthy_Eating_Protects_You_From_Disease_and_Disability. 

For those looking at losing excess fat: https://youtu.be/-tDkjbqbY48 

For those with children: https://youtu.be/CX9tbAvny-E , https://youtu.be/4P6p63lBkRg , https://youtu.be/rE5FfrVfJpg 

Testimonies for inspiration: https://youtu.be/sZnuIatfQwA , 

For inquiries: wa.me/256784200201 or email: regisdietitian@gmail.com 

For individual or family nutrition plans: Lya Dietitian App