Tim Guest - We Take Our Brain & Body For Granted

Just step off the treadmill of life for a moment...what do you notice?

Tim Guest, founder of Consulting 51 is an Experienced Executive and Non Executive Director, Leadership Mentor, Business Strategist, Cultural Change Agent, Husband, Father and Speaker.

Tim hadn’t been feeling good for some time with ‘minor’ symptoms of insomnia, pain behind his eyes especially when lying down, high blood pressure and high glucose levels causing him to be told he was pre-diabetic. His tongue was also slightly bigger than usual. Because of the treadmill of life, Tim didn’t take time to give enough thought to his symptoms, until one day during lockdown when he had a little more time to consider whether his symptoms deserved more attention.

Tim had a tumour on his pituitary gland. The majority of people don’t realise they’ve got it until they are dead. It is likely to take 10-15 years off his head. It causes internal organs to get bigger. Diabetes, stroke or heart attack are possible causes of death. If Tim hadn’t stopped for a moment and taken stock, he would likely have experienced these results.

Tim used to put insomnia down to stress, as if that was OK. An acceptable thing to live with. Since this life changing event, he has been able to review his life. He used to use sleeping tablets every day in order to function because every day was ‘important’. He felt like he was on the treadmill of life. There was no time for any thought.

After the surgery he didn’t check his email for a week or his phone for four days. Although he wasn’t feeling great after neurosurgery with a hole in his skull, he felt that his mind had improved for ideas and creativity.

He no longer keeps his phone in the bedroom, he avoids the news and emails first thing in the morning and he keeps a notebook with him to note down ideas that come to him.

The procedure made Tim realise how much we take our health for granted. We are lucky if we can get out of our beds and go about our daily lives, because many people can’t. He relied on his wife to rein him in when he felt he wanted to push himself to get back into work.

We discuss my own concussion and the realisation that our brains allow us to do everything. When our brain is not in good form, we are affected in every way.

Tim believes in positivity and is now focusing on not getting stressed about things which don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. We discuss the stress caused by a regimented morning routine especially with a family, rather creating a structure which doesn’t include unhelpful practices.

We discuss improving quality of life and length of life by considering holistic options. We discuss breath and how Tim already incorporates this into his life and with his children at bedtime.