Archive for month: October, 2023

This week I had to attend a driving awareness course which is very topical to the moment as there is a great move, not least of all over they border in Wales, to reduce all 30 MPH limits to 20 MPH. There are a list of reasons for this reducing pollution and improving air quality to reducing accidents and saving lives. All of these reasons are supported by the evidence based research and the case is there for it to be a good idea.
Interestingly many people that I know are either from Wales or have to travel to Wales have shared their frustration with me about the cues of traffic that are now in the knew system.
On the course, that was attended exclusively by males, the reasons given for speeding were about being in a hurry. Each of us could justify our hurry or we believed that we could. For me I was taking belongings from my recently passed auntie’s house to charity shops and to the tip and fitting this around all the other things that had to do. I was doing 36 in a 30. Did I need to be? Really the answer is ‘No’. Yet we can all justify to ourselves why we need to rush everywhere but why?
Slowing down to speed up can seem paradoxical if your default behaviour is to rush everywhere as quickly as you can. But where did we learn that everything has to be done at speed? I remember being told that ‘time is money, so get a crack on’, but is it? Does it matter if I get to the supermarket five minutes later or to my my holiday cottage a few hour later? Why do we all need to be doing everything at speed?
Ed pointed out that when you slow down and take a bike to travel around you see more, smell more, appreciate more and interact with other people more. Where as in a car you are trapped in a metal box and missing most of what you are driving through.
Increasing your stress levels
Remember that driving too fast and feeling stressed will significantly impair your ability concentrate, observe and anticipate the decisions you need to make, and reduce your capability as a driver. If you are really stressed from what is going on in your life so that it affects you when you are driving it may mean that you need to take a break and to question whether or not you should be driving at all. You may need to take a few moments to meditate and just breathe to calm down and give yourself time to recover so that you are safe to drive.
Driving slower, moving slower, living slower and being more aware allows you to be is more efficient not just as a driver but in every aspect of your life. You should prioritise speed over quality in every thing that you do. Self-care is so important. When you are overwhelmed or exhausted you can become a liability to yourself and others. More importantly it might even save a life.
There is always a balance between getting things done and getting where you need to be and looking after your self. To create the right balance you may need readjust your attitudes and behaviours and take breaks as and when necessary. This will allow you to be as constantly and effectively as you can.
My resource for this week is the up to date edition of the Highway Code. It has changed a lot since I last looked at it and takes into account both pedestrians and cyclist.
So, if we all one need to travel a bit slower don’t fight it enjoy and arrive at your destination with a smile on your face.
Take care and drive safely
Sean x

Have you ever wanted to give you a body a good clean, but from the inside? It is rebooting your entire system. A bit like when you turn your laptop off and on again and then defrag the hard drive.

Twice a year, autumn in October and spring in March I will do a 13 day mini detox. This an exclusion detox, that you can see on the site www.livesthepresent.co.uk . In the thirteen days you progressively go from a full solid diet to three days of fluid and then back up to a full diet again.

Every few years I go on a 90 day clean out. This means no alcohol, no chocolate, no caffeine, no dairy, no meat. With the no dairy goes all the cakes and pastries. Does that sound hard? for many people this is normal. 

When you have been eating a full western diet this may seem a difficult idea. Yet many people live their entire lives this way and, guess what, they are very healthy. When Fauja Singh ran the london marathon aged 102 he did it on a Punjabi farmers diet of mainly rice and lentils.

I will reduce my diet over a seven day period and have a day, or a few, on just Water with honey and lemon, often this will be warm. The lemon cleans, and the honey provides energy. Some people will have some withdrawal to begin with. So if your system is addicted to something like caffeine you may get headaches if you stop too quickly so it important to reduce things gradually.

People often fear that they will lack energy. Not true. You use between 35 and 50% of your energy just digesting the food that you would normally eat. On diets like this most people feel an increase in their energy level and even sleep better. 

Flushing your system may sound odd, this is why I do it. The tube that runs from your mouth to your bottom, the alimentary canal, gut, processes all the food that you eat. It has done so from the moment of your birth and if you have never fasted or detoxed, without a break. Just like the skin on the outside of your body the lining of you gut will be sloughing cells, so that a proportion of what comes out of your bottom will actually be your dead cells from your gut lining. 

However, because your poor old gut has been working, usually flat out 24/7, year after year not all the cells come away and you get a build up of old rubbish on the lining that reduces the efficiency of the gut wall to absorb the nutrients that your your body needs. Many people suggest that this buildup and the subsequent problems this creates lead to many diseases. By doing a few days on fluid, and that means quite a lot of fluid, so that you pee a lot, your gut gets the opportunity to flush and clean all this rubbish that would otherwise remain stuck to your gut wall. Having given the gut a clean you then have a chance to create a new diet that will serve you well.

Think about our origins as hunter gatherers. We would never have had the constant supply of food that we have now provided for us in the supermarkets. There would be days of plenty and day when the calories would have been reduced and some days when we only drank water. In these circumstances the gut had the opportunity to cleanse itself on a regular basis.

So what will I eat? Well pulses, beans, grains and nuts, plenty of protein their. Rice, potatoes and wholemeal pasta, plenty of carbs there. As much fruit and vegetable as I want, plenty of minerals and vitamins there. I make my own bread that can be moistened with good olive oil or nut butter. For breakfast a plain unsweetened muesli type mix with nut or soya milk.

Really it means flushing the system and rebooting onto unprocessed foods that are healthy and nutritious. My rule is no meat, no dairy, no alcohol, coffee, sugar and anything processed with a drastic reduction in sugar. I have to say that if you are going to try it you might need to talk with your doctor first especially if you are diabetic.

The resource for this podcast/blog is my thirteen day detox programme. This can be a good place to start, as I say twice a year. If that goes well and you enjoy it you may get to trying a thirty day and then gradually extend it to 90 days over a few years.

Game for a laugh? Have a go.

Take care 

Sean x