Hopefully for many  this state doesn’t last for too long and is short-lived, however 7% of the UK’s population every winter suffer from SAD(Seasonal Affected Disorder). If you get depressed in the winter but feel much better in spring and summer, you possibly are experiencing Seasonal Affected Disorder.

I have successfully worked with a number of clients who have had SAD finding it very difficult to function in the winter season between November and April.  They particularly experienced problems during December, January and February.

If you have SAD, or the winter blues you may experience some of the below:

• Depressive tendencies, grumpy, moody, or anxious.
• Lose interest in your usual activities.
• Eat more and crave carbohydrates, such as bread and pasta.
• Gain weight.
• Experience a decrease in sexual desire.
• Sleep more and feel drowsy during the daytime.

To help alleviate these symptoms I work with clients in my hypnotherapy practice to help them restore their natural balance by reprogramming the mind to feel more optimistic and to release their natural serotonin , the all essential feel good chemical.

6 Essential Remedies for keeping The Blues at Bay

• There is nothing like laughter to lift your mood with the body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, that promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain. Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, improving your resistance to disease.   Rent or share, comedy DVD’s, listen to or read funny and humorous material. Collect and swap jokes with friends and family.   Sing the laughing policeman song it never fails!
• Take advantage of the sunny days – leave your desks, sofas and get out there in the sun.  Take the opportunity to recharge your batteries, replenish your serotonin levels, and maintain a better mood.
• Physical exercise releases the feel good chemical serotonin, essential for improving your emotional state. Take a brisk walk, run,  cycle, whatever the weather, embrace the elements on a daily basis.  Walk to the tube, park the car further away from work and enjoy a brisk walk.
• Take charge of your feelings – aim to do activities that make you feel good, like listening to uplifting music, dancing, singing.  Look at previous holiday pictures and if you can, take a holiday to a warm place, or plan next year’s holiday.   Cosy up at home in the evenings, light candles, see it as an opportunity to relax. Get in touch with your domestic creative self.
• Moderate your alcohol intake – this helps you to reduce your weight, makes you feel less sluggish and improves your mood the next morning. Likewise aim to eat healthy fresh seasonal food packed with essential vitamins and minerals. See www.colouryourhealth  
• Boost your mind and your body regularly with feel good messages.  By frequently applying visualisation, hypnosis and meditation tools you can tone up your mental muscle. Flood your  system with images of liquid golden sunshine, and empowering positive  well being messages that excite your subconscious.
• Using these effective tools naturally releases feel good endorphins that reinforces your energy levels,  improving your motivation  as well as boosting your immune system to retain fantastic mental and physical health throughout the winter months ahead.   Buy my powerful mind-programming Winter Mood Enhancement CD that will banish those winter blues forever.  I give you positive suggestions that will fill your mind helping you to feel more energetic, healthier and change the way you respond to winter. Choose to be free from those winter blues.  Buy your CD here.

For more information on SAD you may like to read Transform those Winter Blues

1.   Avoid any shopping centres after the 1^st December.  Shopping centres can be a huge drain on your energy levels.   Go local and discover the delights of small bespoke shops. Ideal little stocking fillers can be found at farmers markets, or if you have a keen eye, delights can be had at charity shops.  Local shopping reinforces the feel good factor.  Place attention to detail – a beautifully wrapped present looks expensive, unique and carefully thought about.

2.   If you are overwhelmed bring things back in control.  If you have run out of time to send Christmas cards, prioritise, to those essential aunts and uncles etc.  I ring up old friends periodically and catch up rather than just sending yet another card of promises to meet up.  Emails are okay, however they do not stand out as anything special.  It’s a time of good will, people like to feel  loved, liked, and cherished.

3.   Keep it simple… People remember the emotion, the feeling, the experience years afterwards, rather than how many courses or the quality of the presents.  The best events are when the hosts are relaxed and up for fun. I used to get really hung up on cleaning the entire house from top to bottom.  I am much more casual these days and really focus on only the rooms that people see.  We all like to play sardines, by the end of the evening everyone is covered in dust where they have been hiding under the bed!  No one notices because it’s dark! I am beyond caring because the fun and good cheer is far more important.

4.   Keep a sense of perspective.  Reframe how you feel about your nearest and dearest…we can’t choose our family.  Forgive and move on from past hurts.  Write yourself juicy powerful statements reinforcing that your mother in law or whoever, (who generally is a guaranteed wind up) no longer has any effect on you. Write in the positive and present tense.  What we ask for is what we get.

5.   If you feel yourself winding up like a tight spring, or feeling you can’t breathe – take 15 minutes out. Lie down in a quiet place and focus on your breathing, lovely deep relaxing breaths, breathing into your stomach and deflating on the out breath. In your mind take yourself to a lovely garden or a golden beach and whisper to yourself relax, relax, relax.  Works like magic.

6.   In the kitchen or while cleaning play soothing, inspirational music, or crank up the volume and start the party early to the Rolling Stones!

Whatever your religious beliefs about Christmas it is a celebration, a time for cosying up and celebrating. Whether it’s the birth of Jesus or the winter solstice…after the 22^ndof December we pass the shortest day and from there on the days are getting longer.  I view it as a time to sit around the table and play silly games with my nearest and dearest and come from a place of love.

One day a solution presented itself.   A big elderly dragon with smelly, foul breath came to him and said he would take his daughter, the lovely Atoosa, to be his wife and in return he would settle the king’s debts.  Now this was a perplexing decision for the king to make.  He tossed and turned for several nights and then made his decision.  The only choice he had was to give his permission to the dragon to marry his daughter.

When he told Atoosa…she was at first horrified and cried and wept.  She loved her father dearly and didn’t want to cause him any more distress. Eventually she agreed and the wedding was planned.  It was to be a big, grand affair.  The people of the land were on the one hand mortified to see their adorable sweet-natured beautiful princess about to be married off to an old dragon with foul dragon’s breath.  On the other hand they agreed it was to their benefit and would save them all.

The night before the wedding Atoosa went to visit the old wise woman who lived in a hovel on the edge of the woods.  Atoosa explained her predicament, how scared she was, and that she would feel disloyal to her father if she didn’t go through with the marriage.  The wise woman with her old gray eyes looked at the lovely bride to be and told her to put all her faith and trust in herself.  She said “on the night of your wedding as you prepare for bed you must put 12 night gowns on.”

After the wedding the couple retired to their chambers and Atoosa prepared for bed.  When the dragon knocked on her door and came in he was full of eager anticipation to have his lovely young bride to himself at last.  He asked her to remove her nightgown to which Atoosa replied:

“I will if you remove yours first.”

The dragon obliged revealing his scaly, scarred, warty skin.  She then removed her first layer. The dragon was flabbergasted to see Atoosa  had another nightgown on.  He asked her to remove the next layer at once to which she replied “I will if you remove your next layer first.”

Now the dragon was only wearing his scales and so one by one the couple removed layer after layer. She a nightgown and the dragon another layer of scales.  As the last layer came off,  to Atoosa’s  astonishment,  stood not a warty, smelly old dragon but a young handsome prince who many years ago had a spell cast upon him from the wicked sorcerer of the North.

The moral of this tale is that when we trust in ourselves and are prepared to shed our old unwanted skins our true inner selves are revealed.

The end of our road was sudden.  We still love each other;  it is almost as if the lights had gone out.  For me and my estranged …what title do I give him?  Still my husband, still my soul mate and deep friend, it was a matter of a deep urge to get on with our lives, before it is too late.  To make up for lost time, a symbol of the baby boomers generation perhaps, prepared to search for more?  Our separation is/was incomprehensible to our parents, from a more stoic older generation. Who perhaps some may say have got it right, enjoying their comfortable old age together, sharing and weathering the ups and downs.

Our split coincided with a number of significant events. Firstly I was invited to Lanzarote to house and dog sit for three weeks last year, the longest time I have spent on my own.  Previous to that I had only spent a weekend by myself.  To my surprise I discovered myself, enjoyed the freedom of being able to please myself;  I felt I had rediscovered an essential  part of me, my creativity and a wonderful feeling of care freeness, to stand on my own two feet.

A month later our family dog Lottie died signalling the end of the family as we had once been.  Our youngest was finishing ‘A’ levels and talking of moving in with her boyfriend…empty nest syndrome looming large, the end of an era.

And significantly I became wrapped up in the early deaths of two people.  One neighbour’s daughter who slowly died at the tender age of 40 of a brain tumour and a colleague of mine whose 50-year-old husband suddenly dropped down dead of a heart attack in a taxi on the way to the station.

These cumulative events catapulted us into speeding up the separation. It made us realise the fragility of life, that time is pressing on, no time to wait to do what we have to do.  Sadly though not together, we had become worn out, run our course, predictable and uncomfortably comfortable. Although soul mates and best friends our marriage had become stale, I was going out and doing more and more socialising on my own, whilst my husband had become more and more insular over the months.  We were slowly suffocating one another. We both worked from home and even our day-to-day conversation had become clichéd and predictable, we had lost our sparkle.  There was a sense of holding one another back, preventing one another from growing, a separation seemed inevitable.

We had gone down the Relate and therapy route a decade ago, it had helped to reinforce our priorities, to love and cherish one another to bring up our lovely daughters, and yes looking back we have done a good job.

Embracing the Darkness

Sometimes a part of me still hankers for the cosines, the comfort and the security of our marriage.  At times I felt adrift and bereft like I had lost my best friend, and other times it feels just the right thing for us to have done.  I experienced terrible dark times, waking up gripped with fear of the what ifs, the unknown.  My first waking thoughts took me down dark alleys of financial insecurity, disbelief and the deep sadness and loss of leaving our cherished family home.  Along with the loss of my identity and role of being a wife, homemaker, mother, it had all happened so quickly and suddenly so final.   Interestingly my darkness and fear also took me to places of past loss.  I found myself reliving feelings of despair, grief, bereavement during my adolescence, and early adult life up until I had met Chris.

Experiencing these feelings had completely taken me by surprise, I felt a fraud a failure, surely after 23  years working on myself and as a professional  I wouldn’t need to react like this?  I knew I was being irrational and thankfully with the help of a couple of therapists and my own self hypnosis, I have been fortunate to move on, as each stage has emerged.  Perhaps you know the analogy of seeing ourselves as an onion…as each layer of the onion skin is removed we get to know ourselves on a deeper level.

These times have taught me to welcome my shadow, they have helped me to relate to clients even more, helping me to “walk my talk” to question my practice, philosophy and sense of self.  It is a natural state to embrace and work through rather than suppressing with anti depressants.

Finding your own way through

In my work as a motivational hypnotherapist I meet a lot of clients who are struggling to come to terms  with loss, especially separation and divorce.  There are several significant factors to grasp in order to move on and fully embrace their new situation. Hypnotherapy offers significant help to people who want to move on from divorce and separation, to deal with old limiting stuff.  By working with your subconscious,  your inner self, we can get to the root cause  of the issue and reframe your perception. It is a natural process that reinforces feelings of safety, boosts confidence and helps to maintain the essential equilibrium of life.

My own top strategies to apply to help you survive divorce and separation and to come through and out of the process with an enriched positive perspective.  To move on, embrace and enjoy the next chapter.

Darkness: Embrace your darkness.  Everyone experiences sadness, moods, and mind states. The Dali Larma teaches us that we aren’t supposed to deny or reject our darkness. Instead we can light up our darkness with awareness, compassion, and wisdom.  Identify your own shadow - is it a fear of loss, anger, worthlessness, insecurity, loneliness?  Darkness is part of the dance of life, the yin and yang.  However uncomfortable it is, welcome it, go into it, learn from it, it  is not a bad thing.  To deny our darkness is to turn our backs on part of ourselves.  Suppression of emotions and feelings can be likened to volcanic activity.  If the pressure is not released it can erupt at any moment in other unexpected areas of our life, affecting us both on an emotional and physical level.  By embracing the shadow, there can be liberation a rebirth, once we rediscover the lightness it is even greater.  When troubled by something or someone ask yourself “what is my learning, what am I here to learn, watch and listen to for the answer?”

Fear:  In our everyday existence our fear serves us no purpose, that is unless our life is in immediate danger and we are faced by life threatening experiences, such as a roaring hungry tiger, in which case our fight or flight response kicks in.  In 1580 Michel de Montaigne wrote “our greatest fear is our fear of fear” and how true.  For when we focus on our fears we are usually thinking about what happened in the past or what may happen in the future.  Remind yourself continually to remain in the present moment.  We rarely experience the now, we are always looking ahead to the next moment, worrying, preoccupied, or focusing on who did and said what to you. Remaining in the present moment helps you to stay balanced, focused and essentially to live with peace of mind.

Shock: Do  not underestimate how powerful an affect shock can have on you emotionally after the breakup of a long-term relationship.  Psychological shock can be a delayed response and may not come through until several months later. It effects both your state of mind and your physical body and can give you stress symptoms such as irrational  thoughts and behaviour, palpitations, inability to make decisions, being tearful and suffering insomnia.   I am a great believer in the Bach flower remedies  as a starting point to assist with coping and getting you back on track emotionally.  Essentially Rescue Remedy is a must.  A really good site is http://www.bachfloweressences.co.uk/pages/The-Remedy-Chooser.html where you can describe your symptoms and they come up with the right remedies for you.

Forgiveness:  If you are feeling stuck  and unable to move on in your life unable to enjoy discovering the real you, finding a new partner, getting a new job, selling the house, whatever it is, because of what someone else has done to you, it is important to understand that there is really nothing to forgive. What we call forgiveness is simply letting go. It is not placing judgment on other people or yourself. When you are truly conscious and living in the present moment you realize that nothing “bad” or “wrong” has happened. There is no place for blame.  It can be liberating to take responsibility for one’s part in the relationship, to drop the ego of judging something as “bad” or “wrong”, and come from a place of acceptance.  It’s over, It’s done, It’s history. It is as it is, only then can you truly move on.

Guilt:  Feelings of deep regret can frequently accompany separation and divorce.  It is a natural response and you may feel guilty towards your partner or to your children.  Again, in order to move on it is essential to forgive whether it be yourself or your ex partner.

Choice and control:  Many people in the separation and divorce process feel as if they have been pushed and shoved onto a new un-chosen path.  By taking control, taking responsibility of the way you feel and being more empowered, life will open up and then you feel and have more choices and options.   It is essential to remember that on a personal level, the choices you make will be positive ones.  It is part of your learning, part of your bigger picture.

Detachment:  Preoccupying old obsessive habits and thoughts in the long run do us no good. Begin to think differently by releasing attachment to something or someone, whether it’s your ex, the house, possessions, etc.  For those of you who hang on to the past too tightly, this creates stress, resentment, depression and prevents you from moving on. You can have an experience.  Yu are not the experience.

Acceptance: Let go, no more fighting, change and begin to accept.  No more hanging onto an outworn belief system that is no longer valid and is probably no longer relevant. Release and accept the new path, give in and accept that this is what is. You will very quickly find life becomes richer and more fulfilling. Take responsibility for yourself, let go and accept the new.  Become the silent witness – for a fresh less painful perspective.

Trust: Learn to trust yourself.  If you doubt your judgement ask yourself “why am I not trusting myself”?  Take this opportunity to find out who you are and what you want.  Failure as they say is an attitude of mind.  Acknowledge that it is part of the human condition to hit rock bottom at times. The trick is not to stay there for too for long and wallow in the misery.

Help: Asking for help from friends is good, and is an essential part of our human characteristics, to be able to give and to receive help.  However friends and well wishers all have an opinion, “if I were you” syndrome.  They are not you.   Be aware of the reactions and advice of others as so easily it is their stuff , a reaction to what they may be repressing in their own lives.  When we are feeling vulnerable it is easy to feel overwhelmed, easily swayed and indecisive.  When this goes on for too long, our confidence and self-esteem and motivation goes with it.  Take the bull by the horns and go and see a trained therapist, a guru, a coach depending on what suits you, for impartial and practical help.

Remember you can have an experience…you are not the experience.

Furthermore Compounded by the fact that we have high expectations and can lay on the pressure more and more.  We aren’t invincible and inevitably at some point we reach boiling point where we begin to feel more and more out control displaying inevitable cracks until it ll comes crashing down and we make ourselves ill.

During the week, to acknowledge National Stress Awareness Day, I attended an illuminating seminar led by Neil Shah, founder member of the Stress Management Society, I liked his metaphor of stress as a bridge that has more and more buildings, tankers, double-decker busses and the like placed upon it until it starts to creak, groan and  eventually collapse.  When cracks begin to appear what we require when we are experiencing excessive stress is support mechanisms.

Several years ago I experienced a very unpleasant period of stress in my life.  It was a time when I was juggling several things.  I had just taken on a new developmental role, in an area that was new to me, I was on a steep learning curve.   In order to make a go of it and succeed during this period I was working up to 50 -60 hours a week, I can only describe it at the time as a horrible experience I barely slept and felt I wasn’t managing very well in any area of my life.  As a  working mother my family life suffered my health and also my confidence.  In hindsight it was a valuable experience, it taught me to value my family my health and my priorities.  It made me look long and hard at what was I attempting to prove to push myself so hard.

There are times when we all pile on the stress, and periodically I still do push myself and take on too much beyond what is reasonable.  The key thing is I recognise it when it is  happening and have the strategies to stop, re-stock calm down and go at it in a much more agreeable focused pace.

What are the symptoms of stress?

Stress can manifest in a variety of symptoms, ranging from physical to psychological and behavioural, we can all experience these to a varying degree.

Physical symptoms include:

An increased heart rate, insomnia,  frequent tiredness, a change in breathing patterns, headaches, dizziness, indigestion or heartburn, sudden weight loss or gain and nail-biting

Psychological symptoms include:

Anxious thoughts, irritability, low self-esteem and an increased lack of confidence, an inability to concentrate, feeling fearful and unable to cope.  Stressed people also experience difficulty in making decisions, feeling negative with a lack of interest in life, alienation-feeling alone, a loss of creativity, withdrawal from family, friends, colleagues and work, intense frustration and confusion.

Behavioural symptoms to look out for are:

insufficient sleep, increased use of drugs or alcohol, changes in appetite,  argumentative, loss of sense of humour, avoiding situations, changing habits, teeth grinding, neglect of physical appearance, and a lack of concentration and working late.

Here are some articles tips and ideas on combating stress.

Stress no laughing matter- quick stress buster tips

How do you reward yourself at the end of the day?

Effects of redundancy How to cope

Tips on how to survive and thrive  through redundancy

This week businesses, organisations and people in the well-being industry acknowledged National Stress Awareness Day.  A topic perhaps not to be laughed at, rather acknowledged,  and for us to take stock on the increasing stress levels of the entire nation.

Stress is natural..it can fire up our adrenalin and can benefit the immune system, preparing the body to withstand things like surgery and infections.  There is nothing quite like a bit of Stress to help us work towards completing a deadline. We all have our own limits of how much stress we can take in our lives before it just becomes too much. However, when the amount of pressure we are experiencing rises above what we believe we can cope with, it can easily turn to stress and that’s where it becomes distressing.

Stress is a debilitating condition for individuals and expensive for businesses.  Recently according to the Stress Management Society, one in five of the working population is currently affected by stress and more than 105 million days are lost to the condition each year, which costs employers approximately £1.24 billion annually. Furthermore half of people in employment suffer from stress over a period of a year, stress is the main cause of sick leave.

How Hypnotherapy helps reduce Stress

Increasingly my work has involved working with men and women from all walks of life to help them resolve and gain control of overriding  anxiety and the incapacitating knock on effects of stress.  The main objective is to achieve a sense of perspective to reframe the way the client is coming at a problem or set of issues.  When we feel stressed and generally out of control of our lives in order for us to cope better people can turn to excessive or acquire unwanted behaviours. Stress is generally an accumulation of several factors.  Earlier on in the year I worked with an ambitious accounts manager to help her overcome her stress.  You can read here  how hypnotherapy turned her life around relatively quickly.

Common causes of stress at work

Stress at work comes from an overriding  feeling of being out of control contributory factors include:

A heavy  workload, long hours, increased responsibilities, unrealistic expectations,  bullying or harassment, lack of job security, a poor working environment, the  organisational structure,  a lack of  career development and a general lack of support.

You may:

• experience feelings of being out of control?
• working  longer and more ineffectively?
• lost  motivation, focus and doubt your own judgement?

 Quick Stress Busters:

1. Take a wonderful deep breath When you start to feel  overwhelmed and everything is whirring out of control..how you breathe is  essential.  We rarely breath properly… practice your breath control. Take a deep , deep breath breathing all the way down  to your abdomen and fill  up your lungs with air  and then SLOWLY  let it out…repeat this three or four times.  Then again take a deep breath and fill your lungs with air and then hold the breath at the top before releasing very very  slowly.
2. Don’t eat an elephant all at once!  Take tasks that feel overpowering and break them down into bite sized pieces. Monitor your time management and  keep a log of where and how you are spending your working time.  It is satisfying if you feel you have been ineffectual throughout the day, to actually see where the time has gone.
3. Ask for help- see where you can realistically delegate areas of  work that frustrate or de-motivate you. Highly successful people are efficient  with their time.  They pass on work to  the right people rather than getting bogged down with tasks that do not utilise their key skills and judgement.
4. Top up your energy batteries with pleasurable healthy things that feel good to you mentally and physically i.e.  join a gym, pilates, yoga, running , walking etc the cinema, theatre join a  choir. Cook a delicious meal, switch on to some comedy..laughter is an instant  top up. When our batteries are running on empty we get stressed, anxious and  become ineffective.
5. Fine tune your focus and relax  with Self -Hypnosis- Join me and learn how to flood your body and your brain with positive energy and messages, take  control of your life and achieve results through self hypnosis. You can use self hypnosis as a power nap.  For more details of the next course see here.
6. Learn the benefits to saying “no”  listen to this audio  where I explain how to deal with the often tricky task of “saying no”

Finally get yourself into the mindset that this too shall pass.

We are currently experiencing worrying times as the global economy lurches from one financial crisis to another, threatening our livelihoods,  investments and our sense of security. On top of that the home news this week focuses on the devastating riots across our country.  Rocking the foundations of the communities involved, leaving the majority of us saddened, appalled and full of questions and opinions on the state of the nation.

My impression of the media is that they love a good opportunity to focus on the doom and negative aspects of any current situation. Stirring up readers and viewers, increasing fear and hysteria.  For that reason I limit how much of the news I expose myself to.

How I deal with unsettling news is to acquaint myself with the bare facts, reading opinion and comment on Google news, choosing what I want to read to get a balanced view from the broadsheets. To achieve a sense of perspective I limit myself to the news just once a day.  An essential is also to practice meditation on a regular basis,  helping me to keep a sense of proportion of the bigger picture, avoiding sliding into a state of  pessimistic despair.

Optimistic types fare better than pessimists

Current scientific research shows that optimists fare better than pessimists. Optimistic types respond better to stress, they are healthier and are more confident, succeed better at work and achieve more of their personal goals and are happier.  Optimistic types have a tendency to be more creative turning events presented to them as beneficial opportunities.

I am not advocating the “ fake it until you make it” mentality, or always looking on the bright side of life.  To face our darkness sometimes is fundamental to enable us to see the light. Experiencing challenging times is part of life, it plays a vital  part of finding and moving forwards to becoming stronger and wiser.

Clients work with me because they want to take more control of their lives, to be and feel  happier.  A key factor is how they view themselves.  Many people lack a sense of optimism and feel that life runs them rather than the other way around. Optimistic happy people tend to have more control over their lives rather than coming from a passive place of victim.  There is much written about the sought after state of happiness in fact there was even a BBC series several years back which you may recall “ Making Slough Happy”.

The Happiness prescription

Happiness is part of the human condition that we all strive for, when we are happy we feel younger, healthier, sexier, more confident, and more successful. We cope better in any given situation.   It is our ultimate goal;  to be happy is to enjoy peace of mind and freedom from want and distress, ultimately a preferred state of mind than being unhappy.

I have practiced meditation and self-hypnosis for nearly a decade, along with countless others  I recognise the benefits these practices bring, rather than relying on other people or material goods to bring about this internal state of happiness.   Self Hypnosis, meditation and mindfulness are  ever-increasing tools that  people are turning to, to help them to stay calm, feel at peace and stay in control of changing times.

Internationally renowned writer, doctor and scientist, Deepak Chopra says in the Happiness Prescription:

“ Meditation is simply a practice to allow the mind to quieten down – to get to a place of inner silence.  The practice isn’t just about relaxing, it is to be mentally alert.  Meditation is a  way to tune into our intentions, our goals to get in touch with our inner essence.”

By changing our mental state we become more conscious of the now, helping us feel more in control which in turn affects our personal happiness.  By focusing on the now we are centered in the present moment, why worry about the “what if’s” and dwell on the past?  For now is a given, we are experiencing this moment.  Too many people live their lives and gallop ahead worrying about what might happen, in many instances it doesn’t happen.  All that we achieve is that we become anxious, unsettled and unhappy.

When we are happy we are more able to deal with situations quicker and easier and stay calm and feel in control in uncertain times.

For more information about how you can achieve greater balance and happiness in your life  register now  for my free Power Up Your Happiness programme including regular articles, meditations and downloads.  Simply type the word Happiness into the message box.

Dear Nicola Ménage, a £60 fine and 3 points on your license or a £100 fine and spend 4 hours with us on our speed awareness course.   Yours faithfully, Thames Valley Police . 

Oh …… thought I.  Well clearly I didn’t want 3 points on my license.

It was one of those rare warm summers evenings that I reluctantly pitched up for the speed awareness course run by AA Drive Tec.  Ironically to arrive on time I ended up speeding to get to the course!

My offence was I  that was caught on camera speeding over the limit by just 4 mph.  The thing is instead of feeling incensed and outraged I realised that increasingly I had been driving faster and faster.   Speeding along the motorway and along those country lanes, racing from one activity to another, sometimes frightening myself with some hairy moments.

Essentially the Drive Tec message is that by speeding I am increasing the possibility of causing a serious, if possibly fatal, accident risking not only my life but others too.  Since completing the rather dreary, intense 4 hour speed awareness course the message is ingrained on my brain.

To my surprise I am enjoying driving at a slower pace and have come to see the experience as a reinforcing message as to how I am leading my life.  It has made me reassess.  We all  have a tendency to speed along,  as our lives are getting faster and faster.  We pack more into our day and evenings than ever before and then wonder why we achieve less and yet seem endlessly busy. Putting this entire experience in to perspective has been a good one highlighting to me to appreciate that Slowing down feels good.

If you have not already done so,  I am inviting  you to enter the worldwide Slow movement, wonderfully spelt out by the author Carl Honore in his book In Praise of Slow. Maybe the word slow could be swapped for the word sane.  Slow is the rhythm of life that our ancestors have followed for centuries.  Since the latter  half of the 20^th century we’ve swapped slow to worshipping speed in the pursuit of consumerism and materialism.

The concept of Slow (with a capital S) is explained in the book’s introduction:

Fast and Slow do more than just describe a rate of change. They are shorthand for ways of being, or philosophies of life. Fast is busy, controlling, aggressive, hurried and analytical, stressed, superficial, impatient, active, quantity-over-quality.  Slow is the opposite: calm, careful, receptive, still, intuitive, unhurried,  patient, reflective, quality-over-quantity. It is about making real and meaningful connections—with people, culture, work, food, everything. The paradox is that Slow does not always mean slow. As we shall see, performing a task in a Slow manner often yields faster results. It is also possible to do things quickly while maintaining a Slow frame of mind.

August has become a time to slow down, whether you are on holiday sunning yourself on the beach or by the pool. Here are my top tips to enjoying and benefiting from a slower pace.  Likewise if you are still working then it is an opportunity to make the most of a quieter and more productive period whilst colleagues and customers are away on holiday.

Top 6 tips to Slow down:

1.  Ditch or limit the use of the blackberry, i phone and mobile, when away from work.   Block all work calls…remember you are  supposed to be relaxing.  Take the time to listen to the sound of the sea, read, paint a picture…do something differently that engages your concentration and gives you pleasure.  Leave work behind - essential for controlling your stress levels.

2. Work.  At work there are moments when we have to be fast to necessitate a closing deal or  to avoid an emergency.  However we have come to adopt a reactive rather than a reflective philosophy especially in the work environment.  Take time out of the day to reflect, to  be quiet, to still the mind and restore your creativity, focus and energy levels.  In the USA and Europe, rest and quiet rooms are being introduced into large companies.  I am a great advocate for taking 30 minutes to restore your  mental agility.  Learn how beneficial Self hypnosis and meditation can enhance your concentration and focus.

3. Cooking and eating.  Eat like the Mediterraneans…have you noticed they don’t grab a sandwich for lunch, they take their time?  If not already, become a foodie lover.  Take time to choose the food you buy, lovingly prepare it with care and attention.   Once food is prepared avoid the habit of wolfing it down in 3 minutes in order to rush on to the next activity, almost as if eating is an inconvenience to be got on with as quick as possible.  The French, Mediterraneans, and eastern cultures take their time to eat, it is a ceremony, each meal is an occasion to be celebrated.  Once you slow down, you will notice how much more efficiently your digestion works and you feel full quicker, the food also tastes so much more delicious.  The slower you eat your food, the less likely you are to eat, thus enjoying the benefits of a slimmer you.

3. Playing.  Have you thought about why it is that grandparents are heard to report how much better being a grandparent is than when they were bringing up their own children.  Is it perhaps because they have more time to play?  All parents are busy, the best present you can give your child is your time.  Allocate a specific amount of time every day to play and engage in an enjoyable activity with your children.

4. Listen.  How often are you really listened to?  And how often do you really listen to others? Not being heard increases our stress levels, makes us feel frustrated, impatient and not valued.  Slow down and practice the art of listening…let your partner, colleagues, and friends, talk to you without interruption.  Be aware of how you respond, are you constantly trying to interrupt, interject your opinion. If you are not a good listener, learn the acquired art of listening, it helps to focus, improve creativity and improves productivity.

5. Slow down in the bedroom.  Along with the speed culture, the notion of fast is better has also slipped into the bedroom. The time factor has compromised our intimate times.   Not all sex has to be fast.  Re-discover slow leisurely lovemaking.  How about buying or treat ing you and your partner to a course on tantric sex.  It’s not as cranky and weird as the media has made it out to be.  I attended a day course back in the spring and it was full of ordinary couples just seeking to improve the quality of their time with their partner.  Start by allocating time when you won’t be disturbed, light those candles and set the scene and enjoy.

6. Become a human being, not a human doing.  I just love this one…how often do you catch yourself just being…rather than constantly doing and thinking.  The art of Slow is to just be…listen to your heartbeat, be aware of your breath.  The more you can stop and be aware of your breathing the greater the quality of your life.  When you are in control of your breath you are in control of your life.  Be aware of your pulse, the tingling in your hands, the blood pumping through your veins.  Be aware of this several times a day, when you are driving, washing the car, mowing the lawn or wherever.  Focus on your out breath extending it as long as possible.

Simon Young from Auckland sums up The Slow philosophy in a single word:  balance.  He says “Be fast when it makes sense to be fast, and be slow when slowness is called for.  Seek to live at what musicians call the tempo giusto—the right speed.”

Meanwhile  if you are still speeding along…SLOW down and enjoy the rest of your August.

click here to listen to  Author Carl Honore discuss 3 key elements in praise of Slowness