Nicholas Bate

Stress Management Primer 14

1. Act as soon as you get the symptoms (anxiety, increasing irritability, inability to focus). The body does have a brilliant early warning system. Don't ignore them.
2. Get back to basics: time out, back to nature, regular exercise, time with those who are supportive, loving, fun. Reading.
3. No. It doesn't HAVE to be done. That's a great skill to practise.
4. So is saying no. If you say yes to more work you are potentially saying no to great health.
5. Care with stress 'delayers'. Excess coffee. Over-reliance on alcohol.
6. Remember: you are not a machine.
7. Remember: everybody has their threshold. Exceed it and you will fall over.
8. Remember: the body is remarkable at re-building great wellness; given a chance.
9. No one on their death-bed ever said: "I should have spent more time at the office".
10. Real stress management is less about learning to meditate and more about how to communicate with your boss, your spouse and your teenage daughter.
11. Have a rule: add something to your busy life and simultaneously drop something.
12. Your young son's request to play Lego isn't causing you stress. It's that nagging e-mail which is stressing you. Get a system to resolve that.
13. Re-discover music for putting the world to rights.
14. Use your hands again. Quite literally too many of us spend all of our time 'in our heads'. Get out of it a lot more. Chop wood, carry water, make bread.

From My iPhone: First Cigarettes, Then Alcohol. Now Soft Drinks.

 

Junk Food Overload? Make A Paella...

 

Coffee Overload? Try This...

 

Mmmm

 

No Doubt About It

 

Ever Since He Had Seen A Picture Of A DNA Molecule

 

Fitness Primer

1. Always take the stairs, especially down.
2. Walk to the corner store.
3. Stretch regularly during the day.
4. Go to one Pilates lesson and find out how to strengthen your core.
5. Go to a couple of martial arts lessons and re-discover balance and co-ordination.
6. Go to a dance class and become totally exhausted and hit your MHR without even realising.
7. Walk everywhere you can: rain or shine.
8. Make exercise an essential part of your day: not an inconsequential 'add-on'.
9. Stand during more of the day.
10. At the gym do everything properly: quality over quantity.
11. Work all the body, not just the six-pack.
12. Address both CV and resistance.
13. Build in variety: cycling, swimming....
14. Expect it to be tough initially but eventually something you just love to be: fit.

Instant Energy Kit 7

1. Walk and gulp fresh air
2. Get back into nature: woods and forests, the lakes and sea-shores. The mountains and deserts.
3. Sleep until the debt has gone.
4. Chat with those you love. Chat a lot.
5. No technology for a couple of days.
6. Drink plenty of simple, pure water.
7. Laugh a lot and be grateful.

How To Meditate 7

1. Sit in a quiet place. A supportive upright chair, your feet flat on the floor is ideal.
2. Close your eyes and notice your breathing. Just follow the rise and the fall. The ebb and flow. Easily, effortlessly.
3. Continue to follow your breathing.
4. When thoughts appear-which they clearly will do-just bring your attention back to your breathing.
5. Try it initially for 10 minutes. If a bit 'turbulent', just 5 minutes.
6. Aim to make it a daily break from the busyness.
7. Aim for 15/20 minutes, perhaps twice a day.