Let’s hear for the staycation

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How do you feel about getting on plane right now and jetting away? The people I am talking to are split both ways. There are those that would grab a bag right now and rush to the airport while others are saying to me that they don’t expect to be going abroad until at least 2023. 

So, one client said to me, just as an aside, “why is it that we go on holiday to get away from where we live and the people who live where we go on holiday are going some where else for theirs? Can’t we all just stay where we are have a good time?”

The idea of needing to get away would suggest that where we are is never really good enough. I get it that the act of taking a break, of doing something different, is stimulating and often relaxing but the question got me thinking about do we really appreciate where are and what we have? Are we able to enjoy the space that we live in.

I am reminded of the amount of the amount of times when we have been driving around europe and have been spellbound by views and vistas. Yet there are many times when we have noted that we have views like this where we live on the Wirral. There is a beach on an island in the Florida Quays that people go to every evening to watch and marvel at the sunset. It does have lovely sunsets. But, when I watch the sun going down over Hilbre Island and the Welsh coast I am stunned on a daily basis just down the road from my house.

The peninsula named Wirral is know as the insular peninsula mainly because people, once they arrive, never leave. I know many people that were born on the Wirral that have never travelled anywhere else, not even for holiday. I note that those that do manage to leave often return after a few years as though they have been drawn back by some invisible elastic umbilicus that will not them truly leave.

Wirral sticks out into the sea with estuaries either side. There is the river Mersey between Wirral and Liverpool and the river Dee between Wirral and Wales. Both estuaries empty into Liverpool Bay and eventually the Irish Sea. At the top end of Wirral there are beaches, and all the fun of the holiday trade. There seems to be a balance here of industry, residential and holiday occupation and accommodation.

Where do you live?

How well do you know your own area? What do you know about it’s history?  Maybe this would  be a good time to get to know where you live? Especially if you are not holidaying abroad fro a couple of years.

I have lived all over the world and only came to Wirral with work and stayed and now I cant think of a better place to live. Like most of the British I feel that the weather could be warmer and that the sun could shine some more but taken over all I live in heaven. In ten minutes I can stroll down to the beach. In twenty minutes I can be in the centre of Liverpool. In twenty five minutes I can be in Chester and in forty minutes into the mountains of Wales. The motorway system that runs through the middle of Wirral connects us to the rest of the UK and on through to Europe.

Once I became interested in the Wirral and began to look around it I found places that are gems. There are areas of richness and poverty, areas of beauty and the not so beautiful. I discovered that Paul Hollywood’s dad has a bakers not far away, that Lillie Savage was brought up here and Wirral has been home to Ian Astbury, Ian Botham, Fiona Bruce,Ellis Costello, Daniel Craig, Chris Farrell, Austin Healey, Paul Hollywood, Eric Idle, Paul O’Grady, John Peel, Patricia Routledge, Harold Wilson, the list goes on forever. And there was a Viking parliament in a place called Thingwall apparently a corruption on Ing meaning assembly and Voll meaning field- Amazing.

Anyway, I digress. My advice to you is to get to know where you are. Don’t become blind to what is around you and certainly enjoy your holidays in foreign parts, once we can safely do them again, but maybe begin to understand why people from other parts of the world might like to come to where you live for their annual holiday.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

Avoiding the winter weight

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Have you noticed that people are getting bigger? The joke was ‘are you doing the covid 5k?’, no not the run, the 5k that we put on during lockdown. Most of us will gain weight in the dark months of winter due to increased calories and a reduction in exercise. My fear is that with covid lockdown and winter we could be looking at 10K not 5.

So here we are again the winter is starting. Officially it starts on December 21st but from the point of view of our body the change mainly begins when the clocks go back. The disruptions this causes in your body clock can have an impact on our appetite and here comes that winter weight. We do get the extra hour in bed but we also get an extra hour to eat. The first night we get and extra hour of sleep but the habit in our brain tends to make us wake up at our usual time effectively an hour earlier than normal. It will take a few days and sometimes weeks for our internal body clocks to adjust to the new time. There are several effects that this can have on our bodies, mind and emotions.

Emotion and well being

Serotonin in the brain is both a hormone and a neurotransmitter, it is responsible for our wellbeing. It is effected by daylight. Once the clocks go back and it gets darker the levels of serotonin start to reduce and with it can reduce our sense of well being. Or we might just feel flat and listless though for some this will mean full blown depression.

Carbohydrates and Serotonin and comfort food

In the winter our intake of carbs increases quite naturally. In response to the digestion of carbs our brain secretes more serotonin. In effect we eat more carbs in the winter months to makes us feel better. We self medicate with carbohydrates. Sticky puddings, cakes, biscuits, crisps, bread, pasta and so on. It is comfort food and that is real. More carbs, more serotonin, more wellbeing but also…more weight.

Sleep disturbance

Sleep is therapeutic it is the time when our body and mind regulate and rebalance  chemically and physically and also emotionally. With the change in time the disturbance created by the change in our sleep pattern also changes our hormones. Sleep deficiency can lead to a rise in the hormone Ghrelin which is produced in the stomach and is responsible for making us feel hungry. There is also a disturbance in the hormone Leptin. Leptin is responsible for making us feel full so that we stop eating. Once we continually feel more hungry, but have no sensation of feeling full, the weight can just pile on. In general obesity can be a result of the imbalance of these two hormones but at this time of year we are all susceptible to weight gain. 

Comfort and inactivity

The change is in both in our hormones and neurotransmitters that will effect our feelings, thoughts and behaviours including our energy levels. This is why sitting in front of a fire and eating carbs while watching the telly can feel very comforting. However, there are things that we can do to avoid over eating, gaining weight and losing our mood. This is to do with what we eat and when we eat.

Opt for filling foods

Some foods are light and even if they are nutritious can leave us feeling hungry. Foods that make us feel fuller for longer will limit bathe effects of needing to eat more. Pulses such as chickpeas, lentils, and beans are great at keeping you full for longer, as they are high in both fibre and protein. Other filling, high-fibre foods include oats, whole wheat bread, carrots, broccoli, and bananas.

Getting as much sunlight as possible

Even on an overcast day, or in the dark of winter, exposure to natural light is beneficial for your sleep schedule as it sends signals to the rest of your body telling you that it’s daytime and you should be awake. It also gives your body the distinction between day time and night time and when we should be sleeping. If we stay indoor for the majority of time of if we go to work in the dark and come home in the dark we lose the daylight effect. Try to get outside in the morning and at lunch time to help wake you up and to regulate your body clock. Sit near a window if you are stuck inside and, if needed, use some daylight bulbs. 

Get off your butt

Although that sofa by the fire looks very tempting this is really the time when you need to get moving. Raising your heart rate for as little as twenty minutes will make your brain release all the feel good endorphins. It will raise your mood, give you energy and make you feel less sluggish. It may take a bit of will power to get moving but the benefits are huge. Least of all you will be less tempted to eat comfort food and you will also burn any extra pounds that you have gained. I try to run a 5k Monday, Wednesday and Friday and restrict my calories on a Tuesday and a Thursday. I am not persistent every week but as long as I do enough it works. This means that I can then have a nice hot chocolate or a mulled wine and not feel too guilty.

  

Check you weight, not obsessively, be aware of what you put on and what you lose. Be fit, be healthy, be happy

Take care 

Sean x

Some Like It Hot

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When George Harrison sang “here comes the sun” it was all about the end of winter and the joy that comes as things becomes both brighter and warmer in the spring and summer. It now seems that we have too much of a good thing?

With a global climate that is getting increasingly hotter year on year we might indeed end up with it being too much of a good thing. The question of the day, indeed a question of vital importance to us all, is “is global warming real”? What do you think? I would say yes.

As far back as 1824 scientist were registering their concerns about the effects of fossil fuels and the effects that carbon dioxide was having and would have on planet Earth.  At that time no one seemed to listen to the science. Scientific research increased during the1970s and 80s. Most scientists were then predicting that our use of fossil fuels will lead to a warming of the surface of the planet and create global warming that could, in the end, become devastating for the planet and for all of human kind and every other living being on the planet. The weather events this year would suggest it is happening right now.

Well, most people seem to agree except for apparent “experts” such as Donal Trump, that well known scientist and climate expert, shouting them down calling them ‘gloom mongers’. 

The one thing that was promised to Britain with global warming and a warmer earth, was cool dry summers and warm wet winters. My experience is that is what we now have. The scorching summers of the 60s and 70s have disappeared as did the British holiday makers as they chased the sun on various package deals to Spain. The cold winters with real Christmas Day snow, often several feet thick, has become an occasional sprinkling of white. This year the staycation meant that most people stayed at home. Perhaps this could be the reinvention of the UK summer holiday. 

The fact that it is getting warmer would seem to to be beyond dispute. The question is why?, is the USA and Australia wanting to re-energise the coal industry suggesting that global warming is nothing to do with human intervention and simply one of the many cycles on Earth’s planetary activity. Just another weather event.

As I understand it we are carbon based organisms living in a carbon based world. Where we are all subject to the carbon cycle. Carbon is used to construct living matter and then when it breaks down it is released back into the atmosphere to be recycled into new growth.  

Everything is on fire

When the pages of an old book are turning yellow they are, actually burning but very slowly. The pages are slowly turning back into carbon, this is the carbon cycle. The carbon was captured in the trees that created the wood pulp that made the paper. Fire is a catalyst that increases the rate of the carbon cycle that is going on any way. Fire releases carbon and energy, in the form of heat, into the atmosphere.

The carbon based system that we live in stores carbon into the growth of vegetation or carbon is held in the natural storage of the seas. This has been, throughout creation, a natural process of living and dying. Plants and trees, that need CO2 to grow, soak it up and turn it into vegetation that is either eaten by animals and turned back CO2 when the animals die, or as leaves fall to the ground carbon is released as the leaves rot down to provide nutrients for further vegetation growth. 

Coal is the fossilised deposit of the forests of the past. As they died and were buried they were compressed into what we now call coal. The coal, just like the forest is full of carbon. This is what is released into the atmosphere when we burn it.

The natural process of growth and decay, birth and death, of carbon storage and release, has been in balance on the planet throughout time. Then the humans arrived and it all changed.  

If the carbon released into the atmosphere is greater than the planets ability to store it the system goes out of balance. The atmosphere of the earth, apart from providing the oxygen that we all breath filters out the effects of the sun. The CO2 creates a blanket in the atmosphere that increases the heat at ground level.

We human beings are having three main effects, I can see, that are contributing to global warming. The first is this issues of putting more and more CO2 into the atmosphere. The second is deforestation that has removed the planets ability to store carbon in vegetation. It is said that the forests are the lungs of the world. Right now the world if suffocating. The third effect is methane.

Methane

Described as the ‘Greenhouse gas’ is said to be more dangerous than CO2, though once in the atmosphere methane does react with oxygen to create even more CO2. The majority of methane in the atmosphere is said to come from ruminants. That is, animals that ferment vegetation as food in their gut and then both fart and burp methane. It is estimated that the 1.5 billion cows and bulls currently on farms account for 18% of all harmful greenhouse gases. That is more than the entire negative CO2 effect of the entire US economy. Apparently a vegan male can produce seven times more methane than a meat eater.

So, number one we have deforested the planet. The forests have been burned to heat humans and fuel industry. And number two, the land that has been cleared of tress is now used to raise cattle for human food consumption. Both actions become a recipe for a warmer planet. I have not even included the effects of burning oils and gas and the love affair that we have with the motor car. As I write this I have stopped doing my monthly plane flight to Qatar mainly due to Covid. When I was flying the planes were often only half full of passengers. I do not have a clue about how much fuel it takes to fly us all there, I do not know what my own carbon footprint has been on these journeys. Though I have discovered that I can do virtually everything that I did face to face thanks to Zoom and Teams etc.

There are things that we can all do to reduce our individual effect on the carbon cycle and collectively reduce global warming. Now, many people will say ‘what is the point of me doing anything, I am only one person, I can’t have much of an effect?’ And yet a lot of people doing the same thing can have a big effect.

The two biggest things that we can do immediately that will have a huge effect on global warming. The first is use less fuel. Walk rather than taking the car and cycle to work and the shops if you can. If you are going to drive try and go electric as a bike or a car. The second is stop eating meat, especially beef, and stop consuming all dairy products. Becoming veggie or, if you can, vegan has an enormous effect of your carbon footprint. The last things is recycle all that you can and where possible buy things that are not in packaging that requires recycling in the first place. Only time will tell what effect we are really having on the climate. The trouble is that by the time that we realise it, it might just be too late. 

I am veggie considering becoming vegan. I have my electric bikes. By cycling with a bit of electric support, I have reduced my carbon footprint without being sweaty at my destination and at the same time getting fitter. Sounds like a win, win. What can you do?

Take care and check your footprint

Sean x 

 

Empty Nest and Covid Fears

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This is the time of year when kids are turning into adults and heading off to three or four years at uni. Now most year most kids can’t wait to get away. This years seems a little different after lock downs and working from home many are feeling a bit nervous of going out on their own. I have also spoken with a some who were supposed to be having a gap year and then became stuck at home with no where to go. Most years it is the parents who are seeking help with being able to let go now they are asking me how they can encourage and support their kids to leave and go to uni.

As a parent you spend years developing your family. Your kids have good bits and bad bits. There are times when you could happily strangle them all and times when you love their bones. Then when you have learned to live and even enjoy the madness that is called ‘family’ hey, they go and leave home and go off to uni and become independent. The fact that they have been leaving their junk all around the house, just like a tree shedding leaves in autumn, means nothing, you just want them back. The bird has flown and the nest is empty. Suddenly your role has changed, or maybe even come to an end. This is the time when the answer to the question ‘who are you?’ suddenly changes.

The rites of passage

The senses of the changing role of self happens to us all though it is more so for women. When a woman marries she most times changes her name and as she normally takes the part as of head of the house, often without the man even realising it, she has changed her role. Then the first child comes along and another set of changes begin and each time the answer to that question ‘who am I?’ changes. As the last child is born, as the last child goes to school, as the last child leaves school, as the last child moves on to university, as the last child leaves home. Each stage presents us with a different sense of who we are. For full-time mums the impact of these changes can be much greater.  

We live in an odd world. As primates we would be living in extended family groups. When change happened there would have been a natural stress management provided by the various relatives supporting each other. Even when your our own children had grown up there would be new young ones coming through in the extended family. In our odd little nuclear units of mum, dad and the kids aloneness and isolation can become common place as evidenced in the general rise of depression, stress and anxiety in western society. Though with covid we have seen isolation a loneliness magnified.

We the children do finally leave some of our stress comes from the fact that we do not really understand how to act in this new family situation without them. There is a confusing shift in the roles that we now play. When you have been a full on parent and your child goes off to uni. What contact do we now have with our distanced child? Questions arise..

Who contacts who?

How often do I phone, text, skype, zoom?

Do I wait for them to contact me?

Do I offer the money, resources or wait until I am asked?

What do I do with their room?

Do I keep it as a shrine, redecorate it, let’s other people stay in it….?

What about the family dynamic?

One child moving out can upset the dynamic of the entire family. In some case this can create feelings of bereavement and loss. Some families will even go though a period of mourning. Siblings may become withdrawn or upset. It may effect their performance at school. I am not being dramatic I am simply stating that changes that can effect us all.

Often both parent and child do not fully comprehend the importance of the family unit until it is no longer there. 

‘We don’t know what we’ve got ‘til its gone’.

But hold on, we always knew that this would happen, that this day would come it was just that we have chosen to ignore it. Maybe pretend that it will never happen. The awake mindful parent is preparing them self, the family and the child for their departure. Talking about it obviously helps but it the practical issues and skills that effect a child most. These might include…

Using money

Knowing how to budget and pay bills

Making a shopping list

Basic cookery skills

How to use a washing machine 

The art of ironing

The rules of engagement

Agreeing all the rules of contact and money and doing their washing should all have been discussed prior to the event. As long as they know that they can get you when they need to they will be okay. So what about you? Looking at this change….

 …who are you now?

If you have been a full on parent the chances are that you have lost the sense of who you are, what your own real needs are and what it is that you want to do with your life now.

Many couples caught up in the rush and business of raising a family lose contact with each other. Often in the silence of the empty nest two people stare across the void at each other thinking ‘Who are you?’ It may have been a long time since we really had ‘us’ time. For many of us this is the chance to get back in touch. Talking, sharing and date nights can help. The question ‘who am I’ extends to ‘who are we’ and ‘where are we going from here?’

I guess that over all empty nest syndrome just like bereavement is not an illness it is a process and the better prepared for it the better we process it when the time eventually comes.

My resource for the podcast is to look at John Bowlby’s attachment theory. Our ability to deal with endings is dependent on what happened to us when we were young and how we learned to attach and detach in our relationships. What we learned as children is played out in adulthood. The good news is that even if you do not like you current attachment styles you can re learned and re frame them so that they serve you better.

The biggest gift that we can give our children is independence and confidence. We have to learn to let them go and allow them to live and make their own mistakes.

Covid has added an extra dimension this year as many of the chicks are feeling anxious about leaving the nest. Okay, so the majority of young people still can’t wait to get back out there and party, party, party but there is a high proportion who are facing the prospect and anxiety and fear which is sad. This is a time in life that should be embraced and enjoyed.

Take care and be happy. If are a anxious potential student try and let go and enjoy the newness of the experience. If you are an anxious parent try and step back and allow your children to leave.

Sean x

Midlife Crisis or Long Covid?

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The theme of this year’s World Mental Health Day, October 10th, is ‘Mental health in an unequal world’. Equality comes when we all show each other the respect that we deserve or as I like to say…

If we all look after each other we will all be okay!

When look at mental health it is important to acknowledge that normal does not exists. In that sense we are all bonkers, just different kinds of bonkers and when we struggling it is okay to admit it and talk about it.

I think that it must be another sign of the effects of Covid but I keep talking to people who are telling me that they are having a midlife crisis. The thing is that the symptoms that they are describing are very like the effects of long Covid. Now, it could be that covid is having an effect or it could be that the general state of the world it taking it’s toll on us all. Then again it could that people are in a midlife crisis.

What on earth is a midlife crisis? What is midlife come to that?

Well, when it comes to timings, in theory at least, the midlife crisis has to be happening later these days as we are living longer. In previous generations people were lucky to live to 60 which would mean that their 30s would have been midlife. Now as we are all moving towards living to the magic 100 the 50s and 60s have become the new 30. In psychotherapy we are now suggesting that the people are about 20 years younger than the previous generations. That is, people at 60 are doing what their parents were still doing at 40. I guess the timing of a midlife crisis is a moveable feast. 

Midlife crisis is a term first coined by Elliott Jaques he suggested that it occurred somewhere between the forties to early sixties. He looked it as being points, or periods of change and transition in life. However, there seems to be little evidence that the midlife crisis in in any way a universal phenomenon and seems more to do with the industrialised and urbanised western culture rather than the agricultural societies of Africa and Asia.

I have a theory that is born out of developmental psychology in the school of analytical psychotherapy. It is this…

… at around the age 3 to 4 most of us have set our gender role and identity. By this age we understand the concepts of male, female, mother, father, brother, sister and so on and we understand where we fit into these patterns. We also have developed internal working models, or inner concepts, that enable us to make sense of our percepts, or what we perceive to be out there. A concept is like a box full of information that explains things. So in the mother box will be all the information that we have gathered about what a mother is. So, when we see those things ‘out there’ we know what they are. We have concept boxes for all things, people, roles, talents etc.

I guess it is fairly obvious that if the things that end up in the concept boxes where mixed up we may have some odd ideas. Let’s say that when we were gathering information about mothers, to fill our mother concept box, our mother was always beating us with a stick, then we are unlikely to be able perceive that woman out there is a mother unless she is carrying a stick and beating people with it. It also follows that when we grow and become a mother we might feel that beating people with sticks is a part of the deal that we have to do to be a real mother. Anyway, I digress.

After our basic concepts have been established at around the age of 4 we enter what is termed the ‘latent’ period. This is where our focus moves from being self centred to attempting build and understand relationships. This phase is also termed ‘socialisation’. It is not until we reach adolescence that the early concepts gathered at 4 years are re-examined, re-evaluated and, if required, re-built.

It is in adolescence that we challenge all the basis assumptions that we took on early in life. This also means challenging the beliefs of our society, religion, culture, family and so on. Often this includes experimentation with various version of ourself until we find one that feels comfortable that we can own into adult life. Growing your hair down to your knees, or dying it green, or hanging your face with cutlery, or getting tattooed, travelling experiencing and experimenting are all a part of the adolescent phase. It seems to me that those people who don’t go through the rebellion of adolescence, those that do not question the current order and challenge their early concepts are vulnerable to a mid life crisis.

 

When people have a mid life crisis, go ‘off the rails’ or ‘lose the plot’ or do something completely out of character are now doing the things that they would normally have done in adolescence. Their behaviour often appears out of place belonging in adolescence not in middle age. We can all be vulnerable to midlife crisis because we all, or at least most of us, failed to do all that we could have done in the adolescent phase. There is the added issues that the current circumstances may be such that we feel the need to regress to adolescence in order to deal with and survive the issues.

I am using as my resource for this podcast an article from the Telegraph ‘The six signs that you could be suffering from a midlife mental crisis’. Not too sure about the word ‘mental’ in this context. It is probably better to use the word emotional. Anyway, the six symptoms or signs identifies are…

1: Two or more weeks of low mood

2: Tearfulness

3: Irritability

4: Sense of hopelessness

5: Memory loss

6: Problems sleeping

As I said all of the above have been reported to me as symptoms of long covid. But if it isn’t long covid how can we avoid the midlife crisis?

Avoiding a midlife crisis

Most people that I see who are in a midlife crisis are those feeling stuck in their current way if life or circumstances. They are seeking change, a relief from the present issues and are looking a foe new or enlightening experience. The mother when the last child leaves home. The man in his mid fifties who still have a mortgage to pay and children at Uni who need supporting. Doing the same job for years has become Groundhog Day and you feel that you have had enough. Often it is those who have had enough, that have run out of steam, motivation and energy often driven by frustration. Over all they need some fun, excitement and new experience.

To avoid the midlife crisis make sure that you are enjoying life and experiencing new things and having some fun. When we learn to express ourself and if we are enjoying who we are and where we are, then the need to do something drastically different tends not to happen. And, if it does we can do it cooperatively with our partner, family or friends.

The trick is be happy and have fun

Sean x

The Joy of Pets

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I couldn’t let this one pass. Last week Ed and family acquired a lovely little dog call Cooper. I think we should insert a picture here Ed. I know that Cooper is and will be loved, you just have to see the look in Ed’s eyes when he is talking about him, a real positive addition to the family. Dogs really can be man’s best friend. Sadly man is not always a dogs best friend.

So many people have dogs as companions and friends and there are many help and support dogs. I have clients who have hearing dogs to help with their deafness, seeing dogs to help with blindness and even seizures dogs who can tell their owner that they are about to have a fit before they realise it so that they can get to a place of safety. All animals are wonderful though dogs have lived with us throughout most of our evolution and have a special place in our hearts.

One day I was running with my trainer Conrad. As we ran down the road I notice a brown dog ahead of us. She saw us coming and stopped to allow us to catch up with her. As we passed Conrad and I both naturally greeted her and she fell into step running between us. She seemed a perfectly nice and happy person very comfortably joining in with us. It led me to wonder what was it that was going in her mind. Did she feel that she had joined the pack? Was this the natural instinct of a pack animal off for the hunt? Perhaps she thought ‘two mad humans here running around, I wonder where they are going? I’ll go with them and see’, perhaps she thought, or didn’t, think of anything that I, as a human, could conceive or even begin to understand.  I wonder does Cooper now feel that he is a part of Ed’s pack or even that he a little human?

We often treat animals anthropomorphically, just as I did with the brown dog, and we project our own feelings onto them and assume that we know what it is that they are feeling or thinking. The worst thing that I ever hear is when a human projects a lack of feeling and emotion onto an animal in an assumption that the animal has no feelings at all. Fishermen tell me that when they stick a hook through the mouth of a fish, and pull it by the line from the water into the air, something that is suffocating for the fish, that the fish doesn’t feel a thing ‘because they are cold blooded’. Interesting thinks I.

I find it strange that we divide up the animal kingdom into different emotional categories to suit our human selfishness. 

Nature

There are those animals that live in the wild that we cam admire. These might include primates, the large cats, lizards, birds, elephants, rhinos, zebras and so on. We humans make documentaries about them and wonder at their life styles and antics, their social connections and disputes and their various mating rituals and habits. Over all we love them and pay a lot of money to go and see them in the wild or in the captivity of zoos and parks.

Vermin

Vermin are those animals that we as humans have decided have no use for us, not even as objects in documentaries. Those that we decide should be removed from the planet. So we trap them poison them and kill them in any way that we can. For householders these might include rats, mice, spiders, ants and so on. Non householders might include the coypu, mink, snakes, foxes, badgers, crows, magpies and so on.

Food

The animal group that we have defined as food, that is they are there for us to eat, varies from one country to the next and we can all share our disgust at each other’s habits. When a country eats frogs, dogs, or horses Brits can become very angry or disgusted. A while ago horse meat was found in British mincemeat which upset a lot of people, yet the French will happily take our horses from Dartmoor and Exmoor for their dinner table while we will take their cows for ours. The staple meat diets of the western world has been cattle, sheep and pigs plus the occasional goat. We will eat chickens and ducks but will be disgusted by those that eat song birds. We make the distinction between Kentucky Fried Chicken and Kentucky Fried Rat, though they would probably taste and feel very similar once the spices had been added to the coating. For some rabbits are simply four legged chicken while for others they are cuddly bunnies and venison may be seen as strong beef or the murder of Bambi.

Fashion

If you wear a leather pair of shoes or a leather belt you are wearing an animal for fashion. The reality is that there are many alternatives to leather but if you eat the meat I guess that you might as well wear the skin. However, this does not seem to hold true in the case of fur. Would a fur coat be more acceptable if we ate the meat as well as wearing the skin? The British army has spent generations wearing bear skin hats, I doubt  that they ever ate the meat. 

Pets

Pets are animals that we assume like to be with us. We use animals without really understanding what it is that they want or need. Before a horse allows a rider to sit on it’s back it has to be ‘broken’. This means that it’s will to resist, and simply be a horse, is stripped away from it until it will tolerate the rider and respond to being directed by a piece of metal in their mouth, often kicked in the sides and being beaten with whip. We put birds in cages to prevent them from doing what is natural for them, flying. We take the doggie-ness away from a dog until it believes that is a part of our human pack.

The symbiotic connections

We hear stories of the dolphin who appeared in the sea and held a human up in the water until help arrived or they had taken them to the shallows so that they could then stand. There are those moments when an animal and a human just connect. Many dogs do have a symbiotic relationship with a human being. Their intuitive connection allows them to know and understand the humans feelings and to respond in a sensitive manner. This may also include bereavement at the loss or death of a human that they are close to. We see this as a wonderful example of how a dog can have deep feelings for a human. Perhaps we should realise that this is how dogs live in their normal situation and that the deep emotion that we see, and assume are for us, are really the emotional power that keeps the pack together. Just as dogs belong in packs, horses belong in herds and were never designed to live on their own or with just a few other horses or human beings. 

Unless an animal comes to you willingly, just like the dog who chose to run with Conrad and me for a while, are we simply interfering in it’s naturalness to make it be what we want it to be.

I often see pets who are not experiencing joy, the joy of pets is all on the part of the human who ‘owns’ and ‘controls’ them. As I sit in my studio I often hear two dogs in the gardens around me. One is very unhappy and cries a lot at being abandoned by it’s human owners. The other howls in a desperate attempt to call to other dogs as though it is playing out some strange memory of the pack. As it howls other dogs, even distantly, respond and on the air they have a conversation that I will never understand but I keep hearing the plaintive cry of ‘tell me I am not alone’. Perhaps I should call this ‘Howling Dog Studios’.

I am sure tha Cooper will have a happy life where he will be loved and be able to love his new family. I keep saying it but…

If we all look after each other we will all be okay… 

…in the ‘all’ I would include all animals be they food, pets or vermin.

If you have pets, eat meat or wear skins have a think about the joy of pets and other animals. Is the joy one sided? Is it all played out for the good of human beings? Do the animals have feelings and if they do are we responding to them?

Food for thought!

Take care and be happy

Sean X

Anxiety, Panic and Shortages

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Anxiety and panic are on a spectrum mild to severe from simple fear or apprehension through to full panic attacks. This is what we have been seeing during Covid with our tendency to panic buy. It started with toilet rolls and pasta, moved onto holidays and now we have moved on to fuel for our cars. It is probable that we will have more to come as we face the expected food shortages at Christmas.

A lot of what we are panicking about is socially and based in both Brexit and Covid as we tend to act on rumours in the news and on social media like sheep. In this blog I will try to explain a bit about the brain and our emotions and the different forms of anxiety that are effecting us at the moment. At a scientific level our understanding of the neuropsychology and anxiety has come on leaps and bounds. 

When we are queuing on the garage forecourt we may well be experiencing a very real anxiety as fear that we will not be able to get to work, tend to a sick relative, get the kids to school and so on. What we need to understand is that all anxiety is not about what is happening right now it is about what we fear will happen next, in the future. I can be worrying now, in September, about not having food for Christmas dinner to feed the family as I had intended or was expected to do. Do I now start to panic buy to ensure that me and my family will be okay for the festive season? The key here is that actually it is not happening right now. Right now, in the present moment, we have food, our bellies are full and we have nothing to worry about.

Now it maybe that we will not have the food that expect or that we are used to this Christmas however, evolution has given us an amazing tool that we can use right now. It is called creativity. This means that we can creatively solve any problem that life throws at us if we are positive and creative and don’t become swamped in the fear of what may never actually happen. 

Panic and fear based anxiety is emotional

Fear is an instinctual response, often a reflex, in the amygdala in our brain that may lead to the physical, even violent or, fight, flee or freeze responses that are activated in the brain stem. This process tends to be highly emotional, often below our awareness. When people have an anxiety/panic attack it is a fear reaction. They will be temporarily out of control. Once they have calmed down and the cognitive brain is back on line they may be filled with remorse and even be shocked or horrified by their previous instinctual behaviour. 

The amygdala is a dual almond shaped organ, one in either hemisphere of the brain though usually termed in the singular. The difference between the two amygdalas, which has not yet been studied in the west, is in Ayurvedic neuropsychology recognised as a part of our intuitive function, that sense of knowing without knowing why we know. As such it’s function is both above and below our awareness. When it is functioning above our awareness we call in intuition. When it functions below our awareness we see it as the primal response of instinct. It is these instinctual responses that create the hoarding behaviours that we are seeing at the moment. This is panic, fear and panic buying.

Panic

A dictionary definition of panic is a sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behaviour.

Do we really need this fuel? Or, do we need this much fuel? Do we really need a Turkey for Christmas?

The Mayo clinic defines panic as…

“ …a sudden episode of intense fear that triggers severe physical reactions when there is no real danger or apparent cause. Panic attacks can be very frightening. When panic attacks occur, you might think you’re losing control, having a heart attack or even dying”.

Both anxiety and panic are normal emotional responses that as such have no logical connections. When cognition balances the emotion of panic the system is in balance. In balance we can plan in panic we simply react.

Worry Based Anxiety is cognitive and leads to as plan

Worry based anxiety is completely different to emotional based panic anxiety. The anxiety that is experienced in the cognitive brain is completely different to primal amygdala responses in that it is experienced as a reasoned response based in logic. 

The reasoning and the logic may, in reality, be faulty but it is experienced by the person as factual. People will say “it is a known fact that…” when it is nothing of the sort. Worry based anxiety also comes from the person not living in the present moment. They have projected themselves forward into ideas and experiences that may never happen but they are living them in the present as though they have. The tools of worry based anxiety are obsessing, which may lead to obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD, rumination, ‘dog with a bone syndrome’, where we cannot let it go and tend to go over and over the same issue again and again. 

Ayurveda

In Ayurveda worry based anxiety, in the cognitive cortex, is seen as part of the process of the imagination. People with a poor imagination do not get worry anxiety because they have difficulty imagining negative futures to become anxious about. Cognitive anxiety is dealt with by Tantric therapy, which is not all about sex it is about dealing with and controlling the imagination. Worry in the amygdala is dealt with in the Raja therapy which is mindfulness and meditation. 

Tantric therapy is based in using visualisation to create future images that are positive and do not have the worry attached to them. The habit of attaching worry anxiety to a particular thought or image is replaced with new positive images that are the new worry free habit. Raja based therapy as mindful relaxation and meditative practice reduces the levels of stress hormone in the body system reducing the instinctual feelings of fear. 

I am never keen on the ideas of control but ion this case I am. When we take control of anxiety we are not overwhelmed by it. We are in control of it and it is not in control of us. Sometime we will need some therapy to equip us with the skills to deal with our anxiety.

Therapy

If your anxiety if based in logical reasoning seek out a cognitive therapist they will be great for you. If your anxiety is fear based find therapist skilled in emotional work they maybe psychodynamic, cognitive analytical (CAT) or Mindfulness based stress reduction MBSR, therapies and courses and you will get what you need.

Most importantly none of us need to suffer anxiety, If you do then please do something about it.

Two resources

1: An eight week completely free MBSR course at palouse.com

2: A book: Rewire Your Anxious Brain By Catherine Pittman and Elizabeth Karle

Take care, don’t panic and be happy

Sean X

Happy Body, Happy Mind!

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“Here we go again” – it is detox time.  

At the change of the seasons it is my custom to detox. At both spring and autumn are the times for a clean out.  Many people get into the idea of ‘spring cleaning’, well I like an autumn clean as well.  I have been doing it since I lived the ashram when I was a young man. Often as a yoga/meditation teacher students would join for the clean out. These days each year I invite all those around me to have a go.  So, if you are game for a laugh go to liveinthepresent.co.uk and download the thirteen day detox.

The first question people tend to ask me is “why do you want to detox?” For many the idea of spending a couple of weeks on a restricted diet can be scary and even seem impossible. The first time it is a bit strange as we are learning but after that it is easy. And, you will feel so much better for it.

Using the thirteen day detox program you sequentially exclude food over a week leaving you with three magic days when you can really flush you system.  These three days will vary in intensity depending on your experience, needs and commitment.  It might just be three days on fruit.  It could be three days on fruit juice.  Or, you might go for a day on fruit juice, and day on honey, water and lemon, then another day on fruit juice as you work your way back up again onto you full diet. With a spring detox she it is warm I might stay of just the water for a few days. In the autumn it is harder as we need to keep warm and our diet helps us with that.

Across the world people use fasting for both physical and spiritual reasons. In Ramadan Muslims fast throughout the ideas of day light. For Hindu and Sheik communities it is common. In Buddhist and mindfulness communities it is seen as a strong discipline just like meditation. For Christians the fasting or limitations on the Lent period the same. However, in the modern age there is a lot of evidence that that fasting or calorie limiting is good for the body and is a part of our hunter gatherer heritage. Michael Mosley developed the five two diet which is similar.

Even so, for many people, in the west at least, the idea of going without food is scary, and potentially undoable.  Yet many people in the world will go without food for several days a week or be living on a severely limited diet.  A detox is much more than a physical thing.  It is also a time when we can clear our mind and make decisions about, life or lifestyle, that enable us to grow and develop as people.

I will be starting my Autumn detox on the week beginning in the week of September 27th.  Many people use the detox when they are seeking changing their relationship with food, alcohol, nicotine and other substances or behaviours.  A detox is the perfect opportunity to get your life back on track, to set new goals and to consider what it is that you really do want from life. It also gives us time to consider what it is that need to do to make it happen. I find it is like drawing a line on what has gone before and creating a new beginning.

You can download the detox from the liveinthepresent.co.uk website. If you have questions about it drop me an email.

I do say in the program that you need to be aware of your own health situation and I always suggest that if you are unsure then you should run the program by your doctor before you are it on to get the go ahead.

Take care and happy autumn cleaning 

Sean x   

The Amazing Benefits of Community Living

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Last week Ed organised a family/community gathering based around his loved subject of cycling. People rallied around and helped and many people turned up to enjoy the day. There has been a real sense of community. Ed is becoming a community nut in his drive to make our roads safe and encourage people to take to their bikes. He has a strong sense of community.

Ed shared a lovely picture of his Grandmother Beryl at 92 sitting on the back of his bike.

It made me think about the documentary series on Channel four that showed the interaction between a home for older people and a group of four year old children. It shows the huge benefits and gain made by both the old and the young through communication, caring and creating of community. Why do we put older people in homes rather than maintain the extended families that allowed for the interaction and support of all ages. 

Events like Ed’s give us the opportunity to meet together and get to know more people who are actually our community the people that we live around. I guess that in any community there will sometimes be conflict. However in a true and supportive community any stresses will be minimised and the more that we meet and talk the easier it is to resolve problems. 

We all have a choice to invest in and create our own communities. Community has no cost it does not require wealth it is all an attitude of mind.

So what is community other than a group of like minded people?

1: Safety

A community that is safe allows for trust between neighbours where you feel safe to be out at night alone. We can leave our child sleeping in their pram outside the front door in the sun and fresh air without fear. We need not worry if the house door or the car is left unlocked or the windows open. We know that those around us will look out for us.

2: Community

Community is big a family and a big family is a community. The warm social experience of groups and friends socialising and simple parties and gatherings are community. It might be a group of mums meeting for a coffee after dropping the kids at school. It might be the gathering of a group of line dancers, or even the camaraderie of the gym.

In years gone by communities gathered to celebrate christenings, engagements, weddings, birthdays, national holidays and every other excuse to gather and celebrate the fact that we are all one community. 

3: Exercise 

In a community, as Ed would confirm, a walk or a bike ride is good. But, if you are going to do it why not doing with friends, do it as a group. We know that exercise is good for us. Many people now seek to hit the ten thousand steps a day to keep fit and at a moderate weight. We also know that when you move your body your brain secretes endorphins that are the happy hormones. When we do things together as a community those endorphins are bending, they bind us together,

4: Environment

How many times do we see a town or village with the streets full of litter, or the phantom pile of fly tipped rubbish? Looking after our environment is looking after our community. Clean and tidy spaces leaves us with a calmness that allows us to live in a harmonious place. And, harmonious place equals harmonious mind, equals harmonious community.

5: Reduce the stress

When we live in complex communities they require us to make decisions all the time. Our larger societies are complex communities. Indeed, we could describe the entire human race as one large community and planet earth as our village. But, do we look after it and keep it clean? We have a choice and yet choice is both liberating and disabling. 

Choice can be overwhelming. If the choice is do you want brown bread or white bread the decision is simple. If we walk into the supermarket and are faced with fifty different loaves of bread the decision can become very stressful. Community, local shops are smaller and require less choice. Shopping malls and supermarkets often break up communities and also create stress.

6: Give your community value

This might be your local community, school community or work community. Do we see them as important and give them the value that they deserve? Often we will give more value to he people that we identify as within our community and give less value to strangers. In the Mitch Albom’s book ‘The Five People That You Meet in Heaven’ he describes strangers as ‘family that you have yet to get to know’. I really like that concept. In my life I have found so many people who have been and are my family. 

What value do you give your community?

This is one of those topics where I can climb aboard my hobby horse and stride off into the distance. The important things about all community, and the community of all the human race is simply this…

If we all took the time to look after each other we would all be okay

That is community.

The work that Ed is doing is  actively bringing community together. I wonder how many people thought they were just going for a cycle ride but actually met new friends?

Be happy and look after each other and nurture our community

Sean x

Food and mood – Is there happiness in what you eat?

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As we move towards winter our diets tend to change and the level of carbs that we will be eating almost certainly will increase. We call this comfort eating.

Food and mood is a fascinating subject. In current times the drive for our diet to become plant based or vegan seems to be everywhere. Many people, that I know, consume animal flesh without making to connection between what is on their plate and what is running a round in a field. For there is the need, often verging on agitation, to not damage another living soul in any way. It leaves me wondering why we each decide to each what we do?

It has been known throughout time that food and mood go together. Foods have been used to enhance energy, intelligence, healing and for aphrodisiac properties. The thing that is never clear is, when food is associated with mood, are the moods the result of the food eaten, or if it is the mood that leads us to be attracted to certain foods in the first place!

When I was a child my parents told me that “fat people were always happy and jolly”, and I could see the truth of that, Mrs Pye, a very large lady who ,live across the road, was indeed always laughing. Then at other times I was also told that people who were always happy were stupid because, according to my parents, life was supposed to be hard, and life was supposed to be earnest. As a good Christian, of Irish decent, my mother taught me that “every one has their cross to bear”, that everyone had their difficulties to face and overcome. I grew up with believing that, in life, we were not supposed to have a good time and that it was supposed to be difficult, and that in some strange way, living with difficulty was the sign of the pure life. So, in many ways the more miserable that you were then the better person you must be. Mad or what?

This created confusion in me. In my mind it followed that if big people were happy they must also be stupid. It also followed that they had no reason to be unhappy because they were not carrying any crosses in life. On the contrary, it seemed to me that big people had every reason to be happy, while skinny people had every reason to be unhappy because of all their crosses that were weighing them down.

To top it all I was very skinny, therefore, in my mind, I was supposed to be unhappy, and I was. I accepted it as the natural order of my life. My dilemma was, if I ate too much I would be fat and stupid or else I would be thin and miserable. As I was thin I accepted that I would always be miserable, and I was.

Obviously with age and experience I now know that this was all nonsense, though at the time it seemed all very real. I say nonsense but well, it is, but not quite. We now know that food and mood do go together. When we eat carbohydrates our brain secretes serotonin, the happy hormone. Comfort foods are exactly that. Eating carbohydrates for comfort is really self medication.

In psychotherapy we now identify the ‘carbohydrate cycle’. This means that as a response to feeling depressed and down, many people will go and eat lots of carbohydrates to get the feeling of comfort. The result of this is that they put on weight. They then go to the mirror and feel bad at the weight they have put on leading them to eat more carbohydrates to make them self feel better.

The self medication with carbohydrates is only one way to increase serotonin. The most obvious route is through medication is antidepressants. However the best way to increase serotonin and feel better is through exercise or by simply having fun. If your heart beats faster for twenty minutes your brain will secrete more serotonin that will make you feel so much better. It makes me realise how much our life-style works against us feeling good. Our, hunter gatherer, ancestors would jog a few mile everyday collecting food and going about their business, and in the process maintain good levels of endorphins, happy hormones. We, on the other hand, live sedentary life styles that create very little of the hormones that we really need.

The question remains, are we the result of what we eat or are we attracted to certain foods because of who we are? There’s certainly a relationship between what we eat and how we feel. If you eat light easy to digest foods you will a light and have an easy mind, the food reflects your mood. If you eat reheated meat pie and chips you will have a mind that reflects heavy stodgy fat food.

It strikes me that in a normal situation we would naturally east what our body needed. However, many people exact with their mind not their body. They are eating what they think they should eat and not what their body is asking for. When I was young I lived in many communities that we solid vegetarian. Well, they were until a visitor would coma and start cooking bacon. Suddenly people began to appear in the kitchen attracted by the smell.

Some people are naturally in touch with their body and eat what is appropriate for them. Some are more in touch with their mind and eat what they thing they should eat. While others have to eat whatever they can get and do not have a choice. I tend toward the Mediterranean diet and I love olives, tomatoes and pasta which is a powerful carb and certainly does make me feel good. A glass of red wine with the pasta goes down a treat.

So what are you having for tea? Does it make you feel happy? If not perhaps you might need to change your diet, or go for a run. Is your diet based around what you think you should eat or what you really enjoy eating?

Take care and enjoy your food.

Sean x