Confessions of a Running Beginner

Regular exercise is important to me as part of my overall fitness and wellbeing.  I get bored easily so I try to have a selection of types of exercises that I can choose from.  So I vary between the gym, swimming, Pilates and using the Wii.  

Couch to 5k

I had never been interested in running until some friends told me about the NHS Couch to 5k programme.  It is an audio running plan that you can download from http://www.nhs.uk/Tools/Pages/couch-5K-running-plan.aspx  It takes complete running beginners to running for 5k (or 30 minutes) in nine weeks.

What I like about this programme is that as well as the 5k goal, there are goals for each week so you get lots of opportunity to achieve and feel good about your progress.  There’s also good music to run to and positive reinforcement from Laura who encourages and congratulates you as you go along.

I’ve really enjoyed jogging around the area where I live during the summer months.  What I have had to overcome is the negative thoughts that come into my head when I’m running such as ‘You don’t have to do this – you could turn around now’ and ‘You’ll never run for 25 minutes’ and ‘Aren’t you too old for this now?’  Fortunately, as a sports mind coach, I know  that these thoughts aren’t true and that there’s lots of techniques I can use to overcome them.  The important thing to do is to acknowledge the thought and understand that it is just a belief that you can change.

I can now run for 30 minutes but I haven’t reached 5k yet so there is still a goal to achieve.  So, come on Laura – let’s get those running shoes on!

Dealing with Emotional Vampires

Dr David Hamilton

I listened to a webinar at the weekend with the Barefoot Doctor, Stephen Russell interviewing Dr David Hamilton.  If you have never come across David, he is a truly interesting and lovely person.  He is a scientist who started his career in the pharmaceutical industry, researching the placebo effect in the development of new drugs for heart disease and cancer.  He is now a bestselling author and he travels the world offering workshops to help people understand the power of the mind on the body.  He has a great sense of humour and is able to make complex concepts very accessible. 

During the webinar he talked about a range of subjects including neuroscience, meditation, dealing with negative thinking, spirituality and past life.  He was also asked about how to protect yourself against other people with unhealthy states of mind and ‘emotional vampires’.

David said that everyone is susceptible to catching other people’s emotions, both positive and negative.  This is known as the ‘Chameleon Effect’ and occurs when we start to mirror another person both physically and emotionally.  

So what do you do if you start to get sucked in to a negative state? David’s tip to get out of it is to change your body language by scrambling your facial muscles, put your shoulders back, open your chest and take a deep breath.  When you’ve done that you can start to project your positive energy onto the other person. 

 

If you feel that someone is draining you of energy you can follow the same steps and, as you breathe out, express peace, positivity and inner strength.

Well, it beats wearing garlic around your neck!

Dealing with Horrible Bosses

The recently released comedy film, Horrible Bosses, proposes an extreme solution for dealing with  a boss who bullies you, makes sexual advances or is just incompetent.  The three friends coping with these horrible bosses are unable to quit their jobs so theyplot to kill them.  Inevitably their plans go wrong but, being a movie, it all truns out well in the end.

If you are having problems with your manager at work, you’re not alone.  In a survey by MIND earlier in the year,  respondents identified work as their highest source of stress and 48% were scared to take time off sick.  20% believed that if they mentioned their stress levels to their boss they would be first in line for redundancy. So what can you do? 

If you are being bullied, you should check your company’y policies on bullying in the workplace.  Is there a Trade Union or Staff Association that you can consult?  Is there a welfare officer that you can talk to in confidence.  If you are strating to get symptoms of stress (eg palpitations, higher blood pressure, poor sleep, loss of appetite etc) you may need to talk to your doctor or another health professional.

There are a couple of simple NLP techniques that you could try to reduce the impact of the experience.  If, when you think about your boss, you see an image of him/her that is big and close to you, try making that image smaller, turn it black and white and push the image as far away from you as possible so that it becomes less and less important.  To completely get rid of the feeling, you can add a red nose, Mickey Mouse ears and a spinning bow the to the image 

For some people, when they think about their boss, they hear their voice loud and close to them making derogatory remarks.  If you experience that, move that voice further away by reaching out your arm and putting the voice at the tip of your thumb.  For extra effect change the sound of the voice to Mickey Mouse - it will definitely feel less serious!