Why Getting Real this Christmas is Essential for Your Health

Several years ago I learnt in an alarming way just how what we think can affect our health both mentally and physically.

I remember quite clearly one Saturday morning, in early December I woke up with that rising feeling of panic.  “ Oh no, just 20 Days left until Christmas and there is so much to do”.  I made a mental list, presents to buy, Christmas stockings for the girls.  Cards to write and then there was the house to prepare for.  “Oh and I may as well just freshen up the kitchen with a lick of paint, ” I said. To myself.  As a full time working mum it felt daunting. Perhaps this sounds familiar to you?

Mind over matter

We had invited our close family over for Christmas, 16 in all.  In my mind it had gathered in to a big ball of panic. Later that morning, whilst driving to buy the emulsion I suddenly had to pull over. Experincing an excruciating  pain in my chest and the entire side of my left side had gone completely numb.  Sometime later, I was able to drive back home and remember staggering  up the steps to the house to have a lie down.  Thankfully I recovered after a rest and having a good off load to my husband,  and reassessing the essential priorities.

Keeping a sense of perspective over and during the Christmas period is about mind over matter.  It is well over a decade now since I refused to let Christmas get to me and literally dictate my health.

What had occurred I later discovered is that our subconscious mind, which is responsible for not only our emotional and creative thought, is also responsible for our physiological responses.  My subconscious had simply had enough, letting me know by seizing up, going on strike, in a frightening way. In addition when we are stressed we fail to breath properly, limiting oxygen to our brains and to the rest of our bodies.

I still hear, (mostly)  women say “ Are you ready for Christmas? Even though it may still be weeks away.  My reply is now, “ yes,  will be on the day”  and yes I always am.  How can you be ready  for it until the 25th arrives?

Christmas for me is about enjoying the lead up and the preparation. Sharing with my nearest and dearest, and that means, the washing up, shopping and the cooking.

Here are my:

6 stress tips for the perfect easy Christmas

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. Or alternatively order in time on the internet.

2. When you are overwhelmed bring things back in control. If you have run out of time prioritise.   In my experience this is female phenomenon.  You rarely get men winding up over the domestic side of Christmas.  Perhaps women have an unrealistic sense of proportion.  We can become controlling, neurotic and a misery to all those around.  Learn to share the load, tell the family how you feel and ask for help.  If you are unable to ask for help, and feel their efforts are not good enough, you are setting yourself up for long term misery.  It’s a time of good will, people like to feel loved, liked, and cherished we all do.

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.   Focus on only the rooms that people see. We used to play sardines, by the end of the evening everyone was covered in dust where they have been hiding under the bed! No one noticed because it’s dark, and had a drink or two! Go beyond making everything too perfect, 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 short juicy powerful statements reinforcing that your mother in law or whoever, (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!

So get real these this Christmas and keep a sense of perspective,  enjoy, relax and benefit.  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, or whatever you choose …after the 22^ndof December we pass the shortest day and from there on the days are getting longer. View it as a time to sit around the table and play silly games , with your nearest and dearest and come from a place of love.

For more stress solutions check out:

 How a short course of hypnotherapy can help manage your stress

Why sress is slowly killing you

Easy breath awareness exercise

How to feel comfortable saying no

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How to to improve your waistline, your wealth, health, and your relationships

Case Study: How through hypnosis Harry reduced his weight, improved his relationships and his health.

(names and details changed to maintain confidentiality)

Recently  I worked with 48-year-old Harry who is a senior operations manager who signed up for the virtual Gastric Band Weight reduction package that I offer. It is an effective program whereby through the power of hypnosis and suggestion we skillfully let the subconscious mind think that you have actually had a real gastric band placed around your stomach.  Helping you to eat smaller portions, resulting in effectively controlling and re-educating your stomach to eat less, but eating sufficiently to maintain a healthy body and mind.

During the first consultation it soon became apparent that apart from being 3 stone overweight Harry was chronically stressed.  Not only was he overweight, his drinking habits were out of control and his sleep patterns were seriously disturbed.  He was also suffering from high blood pressure.  Harry’s work life balance was affected by feeling out of depth at work and a belief that he had to continually prove himself in order to remain in his job.  As a result he rarely exercised, stayed at work longer than anybody else and was frequently the first to get into work.  His social life was nonexistent. Clearly if Harry didn’t take responsibility to do something about his chronic stress he would soon die as a result of a stress related illness.

Harry’s diet comprised:

•  8-10 cups of coffee and tea a day to keep his energy levels up.
• For breakfast a grabbed sandwich and a coffee, and a snatched sandwich or snack for lunch.
• Throughout the day he grazed on crisps, doughnuts and peanuts, bananas and fruit to keep his morale and energy levels up which frequently dipped mid morning and again around 4 ish in the afternoon.

On his eventual return from work in the evenings he and his partner would heat up a microwave meal and relax with a bottle or two of red wine in front of the television.  His relationship with his partner was  tense and non-communicative. Clearly not good and lots of scope to educate Harry on preparing and planning good healthy nutritious food to maintain a high level of energy and introduce an achievable exercise plan.

It all came down to the chronic stress, or  “stress overload”  that Harry was locked into, that was systematically sabotaging his health, relationships and well-being.

The Stress Solution

With a course of hypnotherapy and back up phone mentoring I helped Harry to learn to  relax, to manage his fear of losing his job and to boost his self-confidence.  As a result he felt more in control and understood why he was eating and drinking in order to make himself feel better.   By getting back a sense of being in control we balanced his emotional relationship to food and eradicated his destructive habit of eating for comfort.

Over a period of 10 weeks he has successfully dropped his weight by 21 lbs, and learnt how to plan for regular meals and small healthy snacks during the day to keep his energy levels up and his stress levels down.

When we looked at Harry’s diet it composed mainly of eating comfort food… he had developed a sweet tooth eating biscuits, doughnuts and large quantities of wine.  Under hypnosis I suggested to his subconscious that his life wasn’t sweet enough and what would he like to do about it?  The reply came back that he wanted to make himself feel better and to treat himself.  From then on the “work “ we focused on was what would make Harry feel good about himself.  Part of the answer lay in Harry liking who he was and starting to develop more of a social life and reframe the destructive relationship he had with his mother who had been an alcoholic.  Harry as a small child was constantly criticised and verbally abused, never feeling he was able to please his alcoholic dependant mother.

Harry was able to move forward by changing his emotional behaviour to comfort eating and learning to take control of putting his  own needs first.  He is well on the way to achieving his goal of dropping his excess 3 stone and maintaining a balanced healthier life.

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Why stress is slowly killing you

I recently read an article by EFT (Emotional Freedom technique ) tapping guru Nick Ortner  from The Tapping Solution who outlined the 13 following  damaging steps to chronic stress.  I like it so much for its simplicity I want to share it with you here:

1. Firstly you think about something stressful—work, money, relationships, and family, whatever’s currently bothering you.

2. Your amygdala (in your mid-brain) senses danger.

3. Your amygdala helps to initiate your body’s fight-or-flight response to stress. We are naturally designed for survival – our ancestors cavemen and cave women would be responding to an attack from a saber tooth tiger.

4. In “fight or flight”, your body releases adrenaline and the “stress hormone” cortisol, diverts blood away from your digestive tract, leaving you less able to digest food and absorb nutrients AND more likely to gain weight.

5. In this physiological “crisis mode,” you’re more vulnerable to pain—from chronic illness, arthritis, fibromyalgia, migraines, stomach upset, and more.

6. In this state of heightened physiological “alert”, your brain’s creative center is deemed “non-essential” and shuts down. Down goes your problem solving, your creative skills, your intuition.

7. You feel increasingly irritable, isolated and impatient. Your relationships suffer.

8. Stress affects your sleep. Your metabolism slows.

9. Your body secretes even more cortisol, wreaking more havoc on your digestion (and waist line), increasing your blood pressure, lowering your immune response.

10. After releasing too much cortisol for too long, your body goes into “adrenal fatigue.” You feel depleted, exhausted, and depressed.

11. You no longer have the energy to adhere to your exercise routine, your healthy eating, meditation, yoga. Migraines, insomnia, stress-related hair loss, chronic pain, and any number of other issues become regular parts of your life.

12. Battling low energy, you can hardly focus at work, and elsewhere. Your relationships suffer.

13. Your depression deepens. You (and your body) are STRESSED OUT!

Thanks Nick.

A short course of hypnotherapy can help you to combat chronic stress alleviating feelings of anger, helplessness, lack of confidence and self-esteem helping you to feel back in control.

Individual Stress Management Programmes

If any of the above is ringing alarm bells  perhaps it is time to take responsibility to get your life back in control.   Each individual programme offers solutions  and directly addresses debilitating symptoms of stress that keep us from feeling and being highly motivated, balanced individuals performing at our very best.

Using a powerful set of tools including hypnosis, NLP ( Neuro Linguistic Programming)  and visualisation you can:

• Learn instant stress release techniques such as self-hypnosis.
• Reduce stress related symptoms – alcohol abuse, weight gain (with the powerful Virtual Gastric Banding technique), smoking, loss of confidence, relationship issues and insomnia.

We address the root cause, not just the symptom, of any life issue and clear it out completely.

Why put up with feeling constntly stressed putting ourselves at risk both physically and mentally, perhaps now is the time to do something about it?

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The most important person in your life is…?

Shouts of “ the dog”, “the kids”, “my partner”, “my horse” and a lone voice called out “myself”,  when I  recently asked the question  “who was the most important person in your life”, to a roomful of family lawyers attending a stress solutions seminar.

Hallelujah correct answer is, YES YOU!  The majority of my work involves working with people who are in a constant state of worry and stress. Many are experiencing excessive pressure from balancing work with a home life and fulfilling relationships. As a result many are suffering acute stress symptoms, commonly insomnia, diabetes, indigestion, migraines obesity and drinking too much alcohol.

As a member of the core training team for the Stress Management Society, Neil Shah founder of the Society,  encourages us to use this very tangible metaphor likening stress to a bridge that has more and more buildings, tankers, double-decker buses 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. Basically our bridges collapse when DEMAND EXCEED RESOURCES.

Frequently to illustrate the point I get clients to see themselves as a battery cell.  Asking them to point where on their body do they feel their energy is currently located.  Usually they respond that it is right down by their ankles.  It is crucial that we look after ourselves and keep our batteries topped up to the very top.  Otherwise our bridges do come crashing down.  You can view it as taking responsibility for shoring and strengthening your own bridge.  One of the first steps of managing the stress that many of us are under is to begin to look after ourselves and bring everything back into control.

How to Top up your batteries

So how exactly  do we keep our batteries topped up, simply by attending to our own basic needs?  Remember  the golden rule you come first…by running on half empty you will be running like an inefficient machine or a sailing vessel at half mast trying to catch the wind.

Take frequent mental  breaks to centre yourself- I teach self hypnosis, meditation and mindfulness techniques to aid instant recharging of your batteries.

Top up at the end of the working day with pleasurable healthy things that feel good to you mentally and physically i.e. join a gym,  football, Pilates, yoga, running, rugby, walking, etc, go to the cinema, theatre, join a choir. Cook a delicious meal, play with the children.

Laughter is an instant top up –  when our batteries are running on empty we get stressed, anxious and become ineffective. Laughter releases the feel good chemical Serotonin.  Too much anxiety and stress releases cortisol the chemical hormone that keeps us in a flat unmotivated frame of mind. Switch on to some comedy and laugh.

Listen to your body – when you are ill, thirsty, or hungry do something about it. Aim to eat food that tops up your energy levels. Fresh seasonal food with a healthy balance of raw and cooked vegetables is very good.   Cut down or cut out alcohol, sugary drinks and  processed food.  Processed sugar contributes to increased stress levels. Aim to go to bed early and top up with good quality sleep.

Ditch or limit the use of the blackberry, iPhone and mobile, when away from work. At the end of the working day block all work emails and calls…remember it is your relaxing time.  Technology is a great tool and we are in danger of it taking over and infringing 24/7 in our lives.

Take a wonderful deep breath – when you start to feel overwhelmed and everything is whirling out of control how you breathe is essential. We rarely breathe 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.

Claim it and take responsibility to get the balance back in your life – make the time to get back in control.

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How to Feel comfortable to Saying “No”

How many of you can relate to saying say yes all the time and either instantly regret it or realise somewhere along the way you have done it again? How many of you  as a result end up feeling stressed and out of control, frazzled, put upon, worn out, no time for yourself, and not achieving your dreams?

It’s all about coming from a place of inner confidence. Let’s explore exactly what is that prevents people from saying no, and how to move from repeated patterns of saying YES to every request.so that you are able to have the confidence to make more informed beneficial choices for managing our  increasing stress levels and feel in control of all aspects of your life.

Take for example someone who is always saying Yes, which in certain circumstances is fine if what you what are saying yes to is exactly what you want to be doing and it feels okay and sits with you comfortably.

So let me ask you do you pride yourself on being the kind of person that everyone can rely on, always there, to fix things, write that last-minute report, organise an event, give a presentation etc.?

Maybe you see your role in life to make it alright for everybody else?

Is this ability to not being able to say no a repeat pattern that has stemmed from your childhood.? Perhaps you have inherited this behaviour from your parents?

Or, is it a deep seated desire to want to make it alright for everybody else, because of the fear of confrontation, of what might result if you were to say NO.

Or Is it perhaps an excuse to prevent you from getting on with the important stuff in your life.

Have you become an expert at saying yes to delay what it is that’s preventing you from moving to achieve your bigger goals in life?.

Are you an artist, a writer, do you come up with one hundred and one reasons why you can’t organise that art show or finish writing that book, are you too busy running around after everyone else’s life mopping up the tears for a bereft friend?

Or is it that you just don’t know how to say NO.
For me it is all about not giving your power away…it is keeping in my sight what it is that’s important to me.

More than ever in these current shifting financial times, when people are feeling more and more under pressure, to prove themselves, to hang on to their jobs, the pressure of work and life stress is on the increase. I am working with moiré and more people who feel they are not in control.

Learning to delegate
From a work setting it can often stem from a lack of confidence, not feeling quite good enough to say no , so therefore you just agree to deliver the goods. Whatever the consequence to your increasing pressurised work load and increasing personal and family commitments.

Take for example a James, a  hypnotherapy client I recently worked with who came to me because he felt exhausted, burnt out and that feeling that his life held no purpose. All his life he had prided himself on doing the right thing, if anything needed doing he was right up there volunteering and saying Yes to everyone’s requests.

James had just been promoted from within his company 8 months previously and instead of taking the helm of the ship and demonstrating his leadership qualities he was right up there still running around carrying out not only his new work load also with this inability to delegate and empower the rest of his team. So he was in fact running himself into the ground, swamped, overwhelmed, not sleeping and fast burning him self out.

He hadnt’ developed the confidence to step back and delegate to the rest of the team. Also his new line manager saw that he was a soft touch and just kept right on piling on more and more work for him to do. He just hadn’t the skills and the confidence to say to no to every request. He was worried that he would lose his job, that he in fact didn’t deserve the promotion.

After delving a little deeper we established that James came from a troubled background, his father was a weak mannered man who worked long hours running the family grocery business his mother suffered from depression and was an alcoholic with a fiery temper so his two brothers had learnt that in order to make life easier and avoid being hit they would toe the line, and over compensate because they believed that they were responsible for their mothers drinking and depression. Furthermore he was bullied at school, because he was under pressure at home he hadn’t the confidence or the skills to stand up for himself.

Through our sessions James learnt how to feel happier, and more confident with himself, and began to enjoy his new promotion, learning to delegate to his team and gaining respect from his boss and work colleagues.

Coming up with a compromise

Learning to be assertive and to have your voice heard. I don’t mean being aggressive and shouting, I mean consistently and respectfully sticking to your guns and listening to what YOU really want . So stop worrying about what other people think of you……start listening to yourself.

Where does it feel uncomfortable in your body when you agree to something that doesn’t feel quite right. Does it stick in your throat, do you feel it in your gut, do you carry tension in your shoulders. Once you start to recognise and listen to your body’s symptoms and what they are telling you it will be easier to say no and feel secure in the knowledge that it’s okay to do so.

The more you learn value yourself, appreciate your own special unique qualities you can begin to take control and have the confidence to decide what it is that you do… or choose not to do.

One of my earliest and most precious lessons that I learnt from my Uncle Bob was the liberating art of being able to say no. He said to me that if you aren’t sure Nicola, instead of jumping in with a yes and then living to regret that decision just say, “the idea doesn’t appeal to me” or “can I give it some thought, and get back to you.”

Actually by having the ability to say no can help you to grow personally as well as gain a greater respect from others.

Simple strategies to apply
As human beings we are designed to be highly intuitive and what this means in this instance is that your manager, boss, client or whoever can sniff out a vulnerable insecure person, not just by what we look like , by how we dress, stand and the words we us they can smell the fear that they instil in us. .

The first thing is to start to pay attention to other people, perhaps people who you admire, notice noticing how they respond, when asked to produce an extra piece of work, at short notice or…. What kind of tone is used …is their tone aggressive, respectful or apologetic? Do they speak calmly, confidently is their tone high pitched, squeaky or does it finish each sentence on a low, do they sound depressed or do they inspire a feeling of confidence of someone in control?

Be aware of how they carry themselves, what’s their body language like? Do they have their arms and legs crossed in a defensive fashion. Do they look people in the eye, or is their body language and hand gestures open , and confident. Are they rocking backing and forth or do they stand with their feet squarely on the ground.

Begin to move your observations forward and be aware of how you sound, look and behave to others…play around with changing your tone, body language and the words you use. Ask for feedback from others. Be aware of what feels the comfortable for you

Next time you are asked to put more demands on your precious time. When you are confronted by an over pushy, aggressive manager customer or a client be aware of the over use of SORRY, or I am afraid.  Those words instantly put you in a position of weakness. Rather, use words that make you feel more confident and in control and instil a feeling of being in control. Remember don’t give your power away!

Coming from a place of understanding

Aim to come from a position to understand where they, the other person is coming from. They either believe you are the best person for the job, you’re a soft touch, a walk over, or they can’t think of anyone else to ask.

The key thing to prevent previous patterns of always saying yes… is to stay calm, be aware of your breathing, keep it steady ..and slow it down, if your pulse is racing, keep your tone and your body language open and give your self time to think. If you are not sure at first what to say I always recommend taking the tack of thanking them for asking me, then I might say can you clarify exactly what you want me to do… and if still not confident to say no say something like …I will give it my consideration, I always like to sleep on it and I’ll come back to you tomorrow, in a day or so etc.

By nature I am a jumper inna without thinking of the consequences. By giving my self time to think I have saved myself a lot of unnecessary angst. So for example if your asked to deliver a report within a very tight deadline, or give a presentation, possibly you may not know anything about the subject

Some useful responses you can effectively use are: “Thank you for asking me, regretfully I can’t help you out “

“ I am unable to write that report just now, it doesn’t fit into my schedule”, or… “I’m not equipped with sufficient information, I don’t believe I am the best person for the job”.

Or put a proviso in or a condition you can always meet them halfway if it suits your time framework …you can always say something like…”I can help you out, I can give it two hours of my time next week.”

Aim to be perceived as someone who is helpful, knowledgeable and willing to help so this is where you offer out suggestions of who else or how the request could be achieved.

I always find this to be a useful response.

“I don’t believe I am the right person to deliver that piece of work…however have you thought about asking Melissa, I know she is looking to develop her skills in that area.”

If the person asking you the request has in the past intimidated you, it is essential that you keep your response short, look them in the eye, be quite firm and at the same time respectful, not aggressive or rude… stick to your guns, and don’t get involved in a lengthy discussion, don’t give your power away, don’t get twisted in knots…

If it upsets them that you can’t help…well that’s their stuff to deal with, not yours. The more you practice and put these techniques in to action the easier it becomes.

Visualise a positive scenario
You may like to visualise in your mind certain scenarios with your boss or whoever in the past you’ve experienced difficulties with.  I just love this technique  it is what we call mental rehearsal and it is like a preview of how the situation will and does run.  Like actors  and atheletes you rehearse until you can not get it wrong.

Work out want you want to say, and write it down so that you feel comfortable with what you want to say.

Close your eyes and see yourself standing or sitting tall, with your back straight, and see yourself looking and feeling confident;. see how you look them in the eye, how you are in control of the situation, how easily your confident response .flows of your tongue easily and comfortably, Start to feel excited about all the possibilities of being in control of your responses.
By acquiring and practicing these skills and techniques to develop your inner confidence you have the ability to recognise what it is that you don’t want to do …you don’t have this need to make it alright, it feels much more comfortable and easier the more you practice it. it becomes second nature.

Take time out to think clearly to assess the situation what is it that is being asked of you. This gives you more time to find the appropriate response that you feel comfortable with.

By feeling more confident with yourself you will learn to recognise… that it is okay…and you are okay…it is all about having a sure footing with your feet firmly on the ground.

Frequently when people start to change, to value themselves more…to gain an inner confidence … not jumping in to make it alright for those around them, ..they can be accused of being arrogant or selfish. My response to this is that friends, colleagues, family and associates who have grown used to your old behaviour are sometimes resistant to you moving on. Because actually it is inconvenient to them, they liked it that you always said yes, it made their life easier.

Follow your gut response
Just stick with it, go with your gut. Ask yourself ..who am I… making it alright for…me or them? These people will eventually, respect and like you for having the confidence to follow your gut response, your natural instinct. The real bonus of this is that once you learn to stand your ground …and follow your true response… you will begin to attract more like-minded… respectful people to you, providing you with more satisfying work opportunities and personal relationships into your life.

Remember …it’s all about staying in control developing your inner confidence,.and listening to what your body tells you, what response feels comfortable to you.

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Language Of the Heart

Our heart, like our breath determines that we are alive. It begins to beat just 5 weeks after we are conceived; it is our essential life force.

When you come to consider it, how often do we place our attention on our heart, apart from when we have a problem with it?  Problems with the heart manifest in numerous ways, angina, heart attacks, eurythmia, heart burn and heart ache. Yet our language is filled with references to the heart. When I first started to study the fascinating connection between the mind and body back in 2001, The Healing Power of Illness by Defletheson and Dahlke was the essential  reference book.  Now regrettably out of print this precious gold mine of a book discusses the metaphor of our language and the connection between our physiological and psychological symptoms. When we refer to the heart it always represents an expression of emotion whether it be sincerity, joy or sadness. Common phrases and words regularly occur in our everyday language.

When we want to express our heartfelt sincerity we are often heard to say “With all my heart”, or “from the bottom of my heart”. Children in the school playground say cross my heart and hope to die, meaning they are making a promise or being asked to keep a secret. The solemnity of the statement if you either share that secret or break that promise is that we are dooming our own life. Proving to the other person that we are dead serious about keeping that promise.

We may refer to someone who is kind, compassionate and generous as warm hearted, big hearted or having a heart of gold. We describe people as being cold hearted, and when we are stricken in love we are broken hearted.

When we are happy or delighted we say my heart sang with joy, or his heart leapt for joy.  If we are downcast we refer to being downhearted or having a heavy heart, our hearts can be in our boots.  If we are alarmed our hearts can be in our mouth, likewise if we are disillusioned we might not have our heart in it.

When applying terms of endearment we hear people say bless your heart; I love you with all my heart and my heart is fit to bursting and when we are excited our heart is all a flutter!

We show our love by cooking our nearest and dearest hearty food, or we approve of someone’s hearty appetite.

Essentially our language and our thoughts determine and reinforce what we get from and out of life.  Louise Hay, self- help guru and metaphysical writer  of  “You Can Heal Your Life”  writes that the heart symbolises love whilst our blood symbolises joy.  “Our hearts lovingly pump joy throughout our body”.  She goes on to observe that when we have a heart attack, or suffer from angina our hearts don’t actually attack us.  When we deny ourselves love the heart begins to shrivel and we cut ourselves off from joy and a feeling of connectedness.

Our modern day all consuming  love for money and material things is squeezing the joy out of our hearts, as we work harder to pursue our love for progress, our lives are becoming more and more stressed killing and paralysing us with heart attacks, angina, and high blood pressure.

To live with an open heart is to be open to loving everything from the smallest creature, to lovingly caring for a tender seedling, to loving your neighbour and loving your enemies.  For as Jesus said “love thy enemies”, which when you unpick it, means when you love someone unconditionally then you have no enemies.

An expression that I have recently been thinking about is the expression home is where the heart is. Having recently moved out of my long term family home into rented accommodation I found myself questioning this statement.  I kept referring to “home” as my old house.  But now I feel more and more at home with myself as of course my heart is inside me.

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The Symptoms of Stress

We hear the word stress a lot these days, and there is not a week that goes by without an HR report that lands in my email box reporting how  stress and low morale is affecting the workforce.  As a nation we are experiencing a collective stress as we are fed daily news bulletins on climate change, global recession, cut backs and redundancies.

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

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