In Equilibrium 28
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In Equilibrium 28
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THIS MONTH
We have 3 things to tell you about in this issue:
- Have you seen our flowchart 'Best Practice in Preventing and Reducing Stress at Work'? It gives you a quick overview of the main actions required.
- Did you know that we can offer presentations to your senior management team to get their committment to do something about stress? Get in touch if you would like any more information.
2. Stress Tip: Avoid Isolation
Social support through community and family interaction is essential to good health and stress management. We also need interaction with others to provide feedback on our own behaviour. A loving supportive environment is the best buffer against the stresses of life.
"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily."
Zig Ziglar, Author and Trainer.
4. Book Review: Perfect Health by Deepak Chopra
Published by Bantam ISBN 0553813676
Deepak Chopra is sometimes viewed as ‘Guru to the Stars’ but his background is in conventional medicine and Ayurvedic medicine. Ayurveda refers to a 5000 year old medical system from India.
Dr Chopra’s view is that far from the body being solid, it consists of interweaving energy systems that are used and renewed all the time. In this way we have new stomach linings every 5 days and new skin every 5 weeks. Although you appear the same outwardly, you are actually a building whose bricks are constantly being renewed. 98% of your atoms are replaced every year – radioisotope studies have proved this. To stay healthy we must provide our selves with the best building blocks possible. Every cell in our bodies is made from the chemicals we ingest, whether in the form of foods, supplements, drugs or environmental substances. We have all seen adverts where someone demonstrates how much dirt a certain cleanser removes from their face, but that dirt/pollution can also enter our system through our lungs and it can be more of a challenge to remove it from the fabric of our cells.
This book allows you to analyse your body type according to the Ayurvedic system and find out if you are predominately Vata, Pitta or Kapha, or a combination of them. Having established this, the book then gives you a step by step programme to re-establish your body’s balance and strengthen the mind-body connection to enable you to have ‘Perfect Health.’ For example, Pitta types tend to be of medium build and medium endurance; they have a sharp intellect, an aversion to hot weather and can feel ill if they skip meals. When they become imbalanced they become self critical, intolerant and can have skin problems or heartburn. To re-balance themselves they can eat cool or warm foods, but not steaming hot foods. A breakfast of cold cereal with juice will be better for them than coffee and bacon and eggs as this would help calm their over fiery system.
I find this book very interesting as I am fascinated by other ways of approaching health and well-being. I feel the book’s step by step method is particularly helpful in understanding a different concept of wellness and I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to improve their life.
Alastair Taylor
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5. Al's Column: The Merseyside 'Root' canal: A not-very good week in the life of a stress consultant.
Friday. I thought it would be a great idea. Mrs B would accompany me to Liverpool. We'd stay for a long weekend ('long' doesn't even begin to do it justice) and I would speak at a conference on the Monday. The rest of the time would be for fun and frolics. After all, Liverpool is a 'happening' place, loads to see and do, the people are great, Red Rum, The Grand National, European Cup, etc, etc.
The week before this meticulously planned R and R, I'd had some dental 'issues' (toothache), so I arranged to see my dentist before flying to Liverpool. Anyway as Murphy's law would have it, I deteriorated rapidly after seeing the dentist so by the Friday evening, I was in a bad way - couldn't eat solid food, in unremitting agony, and taking painkillers like sweeties with no effect.
Our hotel was situated between a rough area and a very rough area. We got to know the very rough area very well as we had to walk through it several limes in search of drugs (legitimate painkillers!) and emergency dental treatment.
Let me give you an indication of how rough it was. Have you ever seen a 'walk-in custody suite' parked in the street? Me neither. Interestingly, the clearly well-appointed suite had an entrance but no exit. Possibly deliberate.
After groaning and moaning through Friday night and Saturday morning (I can assure you passion was not involved), I finally received emergency treatment on Saturday afternoon at the 'Old Swan drop-in centre' An abscess was diagnosed and two powerful antibiotics were dispensed along with a instructions to double the dose for 2 days. (NO ALCOHOL!) Of course the only problem with this is that anti-biotics take some time to work, so the moaning and groaning continued, along with a lack of sleep.
Time dragged on so slowly it was like being a sloth on mogadon. I developed some unusual coping strategies, much to the amusement (not) of my better half. One was walking up and down the length of the hotel room, counting. One night I did 553 lengths, waiting for the pain to subside.
I felt a little better on the Monday, so, did my bit at the conference, and ate my first meal on the Monday night (very slowly, very soft). Believe me, food has never tasted so good!
We flew back to Edinburgh on Tuesday afternoon, picked up my car and drove home. In the half-hour I was home I packed for my next trip while Mrs B made me a nice cup of tea. Then I was off again to drive to Edinburgh airport, fly to Stanstead, hire a car, drive to Cambridge, to deliver a one-day seminar the following day, drive my hired car back to Stanstead, fly to Edinburgh, pick up my car and drive home. It was now 11.45pm on Wednesday night and I fell into bed.
Bliss!
Thursday afternoon after a hectic morning I played golf at North Berwick. It rained all day, Typical! However I went round in 72 blows, so clearly my golf game responds well to adversity. John, my playing partner put it down to the fact that I hadn't had a drink for a week (he may have a point).
Friday: more meetings, then a much anticipated and expensive return trip to the dentist, for extensive root canal work.
THE END.
Post-script
Some pain-free weeks have passed now since undergoing 2 sessions of root canal work, which were not as bad as I expected (my Dentist is a star). I am now chewing on both sides and my body is rapidly returning to its normal 'ample' proportions, as I make up for lost time (meals).
Our editor (she who must be obeyed - advice: never cross a woman who is less than 3 weeks from giving birth) encouraged me gently to 'lighten' this column and provide a happy ending. As I remember it, it was something along the lines of 'There's no way we can publish this Alan, people will be considering slitting their wrists.' I was of course glad to oblige, seeing as I am now so much happier and back to my full fighting weight.
Happy Chewing
Alan Bradshaw
6. Web Resources: Evaluating Health Web Sites
This American website of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine contains a short article on evaluating Health Web Sites. If you spend much time browsing the internet and have an interest in health, be it for work or personal use, I would recommend reading this article. It gives you some valid pointers to keep in mind.
Because of the ever growing amount of information on the internet, it is important to evaluate the quality of the information that you find. It is possible for virtually anyone to post information on a web page, consequently information can not be taken at face value but must be judged for accuracy.
7. Stress Technique: The Jigsaw - A Metaphor For Life
Recently, I felt impelled to buy myself a jigsaw puzzle. I haven't done one since I was a small child, but when I saw them in a shop one day, a curious desire stayed with me until I eventually had to satisfy it.
Since there was no agenda to this exercise, such as completing the puzzle as quickly as possible, I decided to do it without looking much at the photo of the completed picture. Hence, I was going, for the most part, without a map. Instead, I was assembling the jigsaw one piece at a time. The only strategy I allowed myself was to initially search for all the edge pieces and assemble those first.
Apart from being a very calming meditative process (and highly recommended for that reason alone), I began to notice how this jigsaw puzzle was a very interesting metaphor.
Life is like a jigsaw, consisting of a very large number of coloured pieces, and coming in all shapes and sizes. In fact, it begins with the very choice of which puzzle you're going to buy at the shop. Many people believe that they were already given their specific jigsaw at birth, i.e. that they have a preordained "life purpose". This may be true in some cases (Mozart, for example), but for most of us, we can choose which puzzle we are going to do.
In other words, you can determine your own life plan/purpose and then go about constructing it, piece by piece. If you don't like the way the picture is turning out, you can always get yourself another puzzle and start on that one. You are not tied to any onelife jigsaw, and you do not need to be perpetually agonizing over which jigsaw you were "meant" to be doing.
Assembling a jigsaw puzzle, and constantly looking at the photo of the completed picture, is analogous to goal-setting, where you set yourself a life goal, assemble all the disparate pieces needed to achieve it, and then go about building them together, while repeatedly keeping your eyes on the final visualized picture, in order to ensure that you are on target and that you are assembling and placing the pieces of your plan in the right place and order. Hence, this jigsaw exercise is an excellent mental training in persistence and patience within the context of goal setting. It can actually help develop mental endurance that you can use towards the task of achieving your goals.
Doing a jigsaw without looking at the plan is rather more like real life as we usually experience it. There IS an overall design and purpose, but there are MANY pieces - hundreds or even thousands - and your task is to make sense of seeming chaos. It often looks like chaos, and yet it is not. You may put some pieces in the wrong places initially, until you later realize that the overall pattern does not fit. Some areas, analogous to your nàtural talents, come together easier than others. Other areas elude you for ages, or you never seem to be able to find the right pieces. You simply may not be looking to start on that piece of the puzzle at all. This may be in the area of your job, your relationships, your finances or whatever.
Yet, there ARE pieces that fit together in these areas too, and it's for you to find and assemble them, each in its own place, to create the overall pattern. As you do so, with perseverance and patience, the overall picture of the life you are designing slowly comes into view.
We need to be working on all the key areas of our life at the some time to the best of our ability. You may not get it all right all at once, just as you cannot assemble all the areas of a jigsaw simultaneously. However, by taking the big picture approach, you ensure that you are building consistently towards the final picture. By contrast, if you achieve great success in one area to the exclusion of all others, it can be very difficult to later develop those weak areas, because your mind is so polarized on your one area of success. You have no references of success in other equally important areas.
One time, while my puzzle was lying incomplete, my cat leaped onto it, displacing the whole thing and sending some of it flying. It took me some time to restore it. This is also symbolic. We may well have a legitimate balanced pattern for our lives that we are working towards. However, the universe will still test it to see if we are really serious! You need to know that "stuff happens", even when you are on the right track. You have to accept that as part of the story. Life is about meeting obstacles and overcoming them, and then moving on to the next challenge. You cannot play ostrich and bury your head in the sand. If you do, your life puzzle will never complete. Instead, over time, it will face ever more disruptions and eventually come apart altogether.
As you may have inferred by now, I would highly recommend you buy yourself a jigsaw puzzle (at least a thousand pieces) and go through this exercise for yourself! You may learn a lot about yourself and life too. It's an excellent meditative practice, as long as you have no time objective on it, and take it one piece at a time. Keeping focused and contemplative is the key to success here, as it is in the larger puzzle of life.
Copyright 2004. Asoka Selvarajah. All Rights Reserved.
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