This will possibly be the quickest Weekly Balance I have ever written gang – it has been one of those weeks! Let’s get right into it – and as always, thank you so much for tuning in for another week of the happenings in my life.

What went on in my doctor life…

The past seven days mark another week for me in the public health front-line of the COVID-19 pandemic. I can’t quite believe it’s April – where have the past 3 months gone?! Your guess is as good as mine. I am sharing an episode on my Podcast this coming week about COVID-19 with a clinical microbiologist and a general practitioner (plus myself contributing of course!), so do keep an eye out for that (subscribe if you haven’t, I’d love to have you as a regular listener!) This weekly blog post is not for a full-blown chat about COVID-19, but what I would like to say is this – please, PLEASE, use each and every single day as an opportunity to save lives with your actions. We’ve all heard the key steps we need to take to protect ourselves and others – I’m not going to list them all here, it’s a blog post in an of itself. In Ireland, we are focusing every effort in and outside of our healthcare system on reducing the impact of COVID-19 here, and I urge you, as we start a new week again, to please remain consistent  following the public health advice we have been given time and time again.

Please stay up to date on the COVID-19 situation via your local health authority. I’ll direct you to the following websites below – which is for you will depend on your nationality and place of residence, but I’ve included those for Irish, UK and USA folks, plus the World Health Organisation which applies to us all:

• The Irish Health Service Executive (https://www2.hse.ie/coronavirus/) 
• The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (https://www.hpsc.ie/)
• The World Health Organisation (https://www.who.int/)
• The European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/home)
• Public Health England (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/public-health-england)
• NHS (https://www.nhs.uk/)
• The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (https://www.cdc.gov/)

What I’m thinking about…

How much I miss my family. I can’t sugar-coat that. Last night we had a second Zoom family quiz with all of the relatives on my mom’s side of the family, and it was so much fun. It’s the second one we’ve done, and it’s amazing how something so simple can make such a positive difference. I’m focusing on how grateful I am for technology allowing us all to stay in touch, because although video-calls and Facetime obviously aren’t the same as a real life hug or catch up over a cuppa, its the best we have right now and we should make the most of it. I know most of us are feeling the same way – missing family, friends, our old routines, in-person connection – we’re all in that together. Remembering that helps too.

I have also been thinking about how excited I am to share my very own yoga flow with you all this weekend! You can have a read of the full blog post – The Irish Balance Yoga Flow – here. Special thanks to Ruth Delahunty of Yogaru for bringing my yoga creation to life so beautifully.

What I’m reading…

I’m NEARLY finished Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadarine Evaristo. It is absolutely fantastic – it took me a few pages to get into it, but now I’m hooked, and I absolutely love that feeling of being excited to curl up with my book each night. I’ll be sharing a review of it next week on my Instagram and probably in next week’s Weekly Balance article so stay tuned for that!

One of my favourite hobbies is reading, and so as I’m staying home whenever I’m not at work, I decided this week to order some new books. I recently turned 29 and I figured it was more than acceptable to buy myself a present! This week my next read American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins arrived, so I’m looking forward to tucking into that soon. For those interested, I also ordered:

• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
• The Imposter Cure by Dr. Jessamy Hibberd 

As always, let me know what you’re reading – leave a comment below if you want to share!

What I’m listening to…

Brene Brown strikes again with another excellent episode on her Podcast Unlocking Us. This one is Episode 6 – Anxiety, Calm and Over/Under-Functioning. My favourite take-home point from this listen was message that calm, like fear, can be infectious. In a time when it’s very easy to get swept up in the panic of this pandemic, especially as we are bombarded by headlines and posts about COVID-19 on main and social media, I think trying to spread calm, and focus on the facts (and what we CAN do), is absolutely critical. As a doctor, I like most of my colleagues I’m sure, find that fear makes me a very inefficient doctor, and right now we need our doctors and other healthcare professionals (not to mention the MANY others working within the broader healthcare system at this time) more than ever before. This week, I am going to do my best to focus on spreading calm, and compassion too.

On my own Podcast, this week I shared TWO new episodes – one on COVID-19 and Nutrition with dietitian Maeve Hanan (she is @dieteticallyspeaking on Instagram) and on COVID-19 and Mental Health with trainee health psychologist Joe O’Brien (he is @headfirst0 on Instagram). I’m so grateful to Maeve and Joe for giving up their time to join me on The Irish Balance Podcast – if you haven’t tuned into these episodes, please do and let me know what you think! You can find my Podcast on Podbean here as well as on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Recipe of the Week

My recipe of the week has to be my latest – a super tasty Sweet Potato, Broccoli and Chickpea Bake. You can find the recipe here on my blog – as always, do tag me if you try it out! It has 3 of my favourite ingredients in it – sweet potato, chickpeas, and (NOM) melted cheese on top, with a paprika kick in there.

And that’s a wrap folks! I hope you enjoyed this week’s article. If you want to get in touch, you can leave a comment here, send me a message on Instagram or drop me a line via email. I’m @theirishbalance on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook! I hope you all have a good week ahead – mind yourselves, stay safe, stay home, wash your hands and keep up to date on COVID-19 with the advice of your own health authority.

Ciara 🙂 x