Beat the Winter Blues Update

A couple of weeks ago I suggested taking a walk at lunchtime to get some midday sunlight and some healthy exercise.  We already know that exercise has significant benefits for mood and energy levels and has the potential for managing addictions.  Now there’s an even better reason to go for a walk.

According to research published by the University of Exeter, a 15 minute walk can cut your snacking at work by a half.  The researchers invited 78 regular chocolate eaters to abstain from chocolate for2 days and then enter a simulated work environment.  They were asked to take a brisk 15 minute walk on a treadmill and then they divided into four groups.  The first group was given an easy, low-stress task and the second was given a more difficult task.  The other two groups were asked to have a rest before being given the same tasks as the first two groups.  Chocolate was freely available to all the teams.

The groups who had exercised before working ate on average half the amount of chocolate eaten by the others.  The difficulty of the task made no difference to the amount of chocolate they consumed.

Professor Adrian Taylor, lead researcher, said: “We know that snacking on high calorie foods, like chocolate, at work can become a mindless habit and can lead to weight gain over time. We often feel that these snacks give us an energy boost, or help us deal with the stress of our jobs, including boredom. People often find it difficult to cut down on their daily treats but this study shows that by taking a short walk, they are able to regulate their intake by half.”

You can read more at http://www.sciencedaily.com Dec 7 2011

A Festive Recipe

Last week, along with the sales catalogues and Christmas cards, I received a flyer from a local firm of solicitors with a special offer. It was for free initial advice on divorce and family law. The offer ends on 31 January. This is not a piece of random marketing because family law solicitors are particularly busy at this time of year.

Relationships can come under pressure for a variety of reasons; seasonal depression, financial pressure, anticipating spending time with relatives, an excess of alcohol at parties etc. Some people see Christmas or the New Year as an arbitary deadline for getting their lives sorted out.

If you are in an abusive relationship then you need to take action. But if your relationship is just at a low ebb, stop, think again and consider taking some relationship advice or therapy.

There are lots of new and traditional recipes around at this time of year so how about a recipe for  happier Christmas relationships?

Ingredients:

A good helping of patience

A pinch of time spent alone with your partner

An extra helping of laughter and fun

One cup of tea (served hot to partner in bed)

A handful of hugs to increase happiness hormones

A helping of shared exercise for health and well-being

A generous helping of happy memories that you’ve shared

 

Method:

Combine all of the ingredients. Look back over the happy memories and make them as vivid as possible so that you can really enjoy them.  Review the highlights with your partner every evening to ensure that everything is cooking well. At the end of three days review all of the new happy memories and store them away for easy retrieval during the year.

 

Best wishes for a Happy Christmas 2011.

Beat the Winter Blues

We had a lovely autumn with lots of warm sunny days but now the clocks have gone back and the days are getting shorter.  Whether or not you suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) you may find yourself feeling tired, overeating and experiencing periods of low mood.

Lack of light during the mid-winter season causes an increase in the production of melatonin (the hormone that makes us sleepy at night), and a reduction of serotonin, the lack of which can lead to low mood.

If you do have symptoms of SAD, you could consider trying Bright Light Treatment using a specialist light box.  These lights provide summertime levels of light and have been shown to be effective in up to 85% of diagnosed cases.  Light boxes are not available on the NHS and have to be bought from specialist retailers.  They are free from VAT when used for medical purposes.

If your symptoms are relatively mild, there are other things you can do.  Firstly, take a 30 minute walk outside around the middle of the day.  The exercise will make you feel better and you can get the best of the daylight.  Secondly, do something that makes you laugh for five minutes three times a day as this will help to boost your levels of serotonin.  Thirdly, to boost your levels of wellbeing, keep a notebook of the ‘gifts’ you receive every day.  These don’t have to be big things, they can just be the little things like seeing a beautiful sunrise, a smile from a colleague or a cup of tea that’s been made for you. 

For more information and advice on SADA see www.sada.org.uk

From Good to Great - Tips from a Master

As a Life Coach and Sports Mind Coach I am always interested in learning from other people who I admire.  Last weekend I listened to a recording of Robert Fripp, the legendary King Crimson guitarist, speaking at the National Speakers Association in America.  He was talking about the principles of moving from being good to being great.  In fact, he says you have to move from bad to good before you can move to great!

Although he is talking about mastery of the guitar there is plenty in what he says that is true for anyone who wants to achieve mastery in any field.  He sets out 7 steps:

1. Have an aim.  Having an aim helps to guide your actions.  Fripp’s aim at 11 years old was to be the best guitarist in the world.  
2. Find someone who has been there before and is willing to teach you.  That can be an instructor or mentor or teacher.  Normally it will be someone who is one rung above you in terms of mastery and as soon as you are as good as them you need to find the person at the next level.
3. Get out of bed.  You need plenty of time to work and practice
4. Practice.  Remember to listen to yourself when you practice.  Notice what you are doing and make a record of it so that you can learn from it.
5. Work with people who are better than you.  That gives you a chance to learn and one day you may get an opportunity to stand in for them.
6.  Work a lot.  If work is not coming to you, go and find work.
7. When you are unemployed or ‘resting’, keep practicing.  That way you will be ready when the chance comes along

I think those steps apply to most skills.  There is a theory that you need to practice for 10,000 to attain mastery of any skill.  I suspect Fripp has well exceeded that.  

A final thought from Robert Fripp:

“In strange and uncertain times…sometimes a reasonable person may despair.   But hope is unreasonable and love is even greater than this.  May we trust the creative impulse.”

How's your blood pressure?

Did you know that high blood pressure (hypertension) affects 1 in 3 people worldwide  and accounts for 20-25% of all deaths. That’s over 16 Million people in the UK, and 50 million people in the USA.  In over 90% of cases there is no identifiable cause and, in over 50 % of cases, people are unaware that they have it.

Blood pressure is the force need to maintain the circulation of blood through your body.  Ideal blood pressure is around 115/75.  Hypertension (that is blood pressure over 120/80) is divided into two classes: primary or essential hypertension which has no known cause (over 90% of cases), and secondary hypertension which arises from a disease or medical condition eg sleep apnoea, sodium retention, excess cortisol, narrowing of the aorta, endocrine disorders and pre-eclampsia.

There are a number of lifestyle factors that can contribute to hypertension such as:

• obesity/diabetes
• lack of exercise
•  excess salt
• excess alcohol
• smoking and
• some prescription and non-prescription drugs.

There are other factors related to stress which can impact on blood pressure such as:

•  feeling loss of control 
• feeling burdened 
•  unresolved anger 
• inner conflict and
•  fear of death/illness.

So, if you’ve been diagnosed with hypertension/high blood pressure what can you do?  Well, if you’ve been given medication by your doctor, keep taking it.  Then look at the lifestyle factors and think whether any of them apply to you and what you could change.  If you relate to any of the stress factors you might need to get some help from a complementary practitioner.

If you think that you might have high blood pressure then go and see your doctor and get it checked out .

Frightened of Fruit?

There was an interesting programme on ITV2 last weekend called ‘My Child Won’t Eat’.  The programme followed the treatment of three children who were being treated by a psychologist, Dr Gillian Harris.  All of the children were refusing to eat ‘normal’ food along with the rest of their families.  Instead they were eating the sorts of food that parents normally reserve for treats for example chocolate, biscuits, cereals and yoghurt.

Dr Harris believes that the children have phobias relating to certain foods which means that they are actually scared to eat them.  The normal encouragement and cajoling just doesn’t work in this situation and can just creat tension around mealtimes.

This type of phobia can carry on into adulthood and  this can have an adverse effect on nutrition, growth and healthy weight control.  I have worked with weight loss clients who find it hard to eat fruit and vegetables.

So what can you do if you have a food phobia and want to increase the range of food that you eat?  Dr Harris’s approach is to encourage her clients to start by identifying one need food that they are prepared to try to eat.  Relax before meal times and picture yourself eating the new food in a completely calm state.  Then, eat a small portion of the new food.  On average you need to eat a new food about 15 times before it becomes familiar and easy to eat.

Most of all, make mealtimes enjoyable and stress free.

New Research on Weight Loss

Sometimes when you hear about a new piece of research that has been published you wonder how they ever got the funding to look into something so whacky or something that just seems like common sense.  But there have been a few interesting papers published recently on weight loss.

 

Dr David Hall of the US National Institutes for Health and his colleagues have published research in The Lancet about realistic rates of weight loss (http://bit.ly/o0i6AZ ).  In their report they say that general advice has been that if you cut 500 calories from your daily diet or burn them off through exercise you can expect to lose 1lb (0.5kg) of weight every week.  However, they say, that it takes longer to lose weight and a year of dieting will result in only half the amount of weight that experts currently predict.  Because of that, many people give up because they have unrealistic expectations.

An unusual study by Ohio State University has shown that a socially active lifestyle can dramatically speed up weight loss through the burning of fat in mice (http://bbc.in/nJH2Vv) .  The team found that relatively small changes in the physical and social living environment of the mice can alter vast amounts of white fat to brown fat which is easier to burn off.  Professor During said that "it is not the size of your social network, but its depth and complexity, and your level of engagement with that network, that counts.”

Radio 4’s ‘All in the Mind’ programme on 5 October, featured research by Dr David Neill of the University of South Carolina into the effect of bad eating habits.  Their research studied habitual popcorn eaters at a cinema.  They found that participants ate out of habit, regardless of the freshness of the popcorn.  The habit can be broken by asking the participant to eat with their non-dominant hand, that is, if they normally eat with their right hand, change to their left hand.  That change, known as a ‘pattern interrupt’ in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), gives the participant a chance to make the conscious decision about whether they want to carry on eating.

So what are the implications if you want to lose weight?  Firstly, set yourself realistic weight loss targets and stick at it - healthy eating is for life not just for New Year’s resolutions.  Having an active social life with lots of face to face interactions is good for your emotional health and will help you to lose weight.  And finally, you can break harmful eating habits by making small changes like eating with your non-dominant hand or moving snacks to a new drawer or cupboard in the kitchen.