Business Women Can – Health and Wellbeing Belfast Event

Over 30 business women joined Ulster Bank Business Women Can, to participate in the Belfast session of “Your guide to Health and Wellbeing ” at the five star Kingsbridge Private Hospital on Belfast’s Lisburn Road.

Business Women Can Ambassador Briege Bradley, hosted the event, and welcomed the attendees, inviting them to enjoy quality “me time”. Head of Ulster Bank Private Banking, Neil Cooke, outlined the ways in which Ulster Bank supports Health and Wellbeing of all employees. As a Senior Manager, he spoke about the importance of having a healthy, engaged workforce, and how ensuring a quality work life balance, is a major contributor to this. Neil advised the Bank’s commitment to flexible working options, was one of the many ways Ulster Bank support the wellbeing of their employees.

Prevention is better than cure

The first keynote speaker at the event was Dr Lisa Neligan, with over 14 years as a GP. Lisa specialises in women’s health and reminded us all that we need to have that all important health MOT, that prevention is better than cure. She explained those important numbers to us in relation to Blood Pressure, more than 90 over 60 (90/60) and less than 120 over 80 (120/80) healthy/ideal, cholesterol between 5mmol/L or less for healthy adults and 4 mmol/L for high risk, and a healthy BMI between 18.5 – 24.9. Lisa then gave us tips on how simple lifestlyes changes can have a huge effect, not just on our numbers but also on our mental health and well being.

Next, Brenda Shankey taught us how to “Be Fabulous”, . She explained how she learned the hard way the importance of taking time to look after herself first. As a highly sucessful businesswoman and mother, she always put everything and everyone else first, never taking the time to recharge her own batteries, she was prescribded medication. This was when she decided to research alternative sources to combat stress. Now fully qualified, Brenda shared her meditation techniques with a 10 minute demonstration that left us all relaxed and rejuvenated – remember to “breathe and smile”.

Nutrition

Before refreshments were served, Aimee Bremier, founder of Keen Nutrion, gave us food for thought. Again as a busy mum, Aimee wanted to give her children nutrional healthy snack alternative to peanut butter and other high sugar spreads, without compromising on taste. This resulted in the manufacture of her award winning nut butter range. We had a demo from Aimee on how to make a healthy smoothie using the nut butter, spinach and youghurt (to name a few ingredients) whisked up to serve in less than 5 minutes and tasted delicous. To get us in the mood for our canapes, she followed this with the rustle of a satay dip, (with a bit of fire in the taste) we all agreed a deserved “Great Taste Award” winner.

Following this we had the option of the fantastic tour of the impressive Kingsbridge Private Hospital, led by General Manager, Sarah Marks and a free numbers health check, from the nurse Aisling. No attention to detail is left undiscovered in this hospital, right down to menu choice from Deanes Resturant Belfast, for most of us who had a clean bill of health , we enjoyed the rest of the evening networking and finishing our refreshments.

Aside from the great speakers and plenty of networking, the event reminded us of the importance of our health and wellbeing. Everyone agreed this was quality “me time” well spent.