One day, a professor entered the classroom and asked the students to get ready for a surprise test.
They all waited anxiously at their desks for the exam to begin.
The professor handed out the exams with the text facing down, as usual. Once he handed them all out, he asked the students to turn over the papers.
To everyone’s surprise, there were no questions – just a black dot in the middle of the paper sheet.
The professor, seeing the expression on everyone’s faces, told them the following: “I want you to write about what you see there.”
The students, confused, got started on the inexplicable task.
When the given time was over, the professor took back all the papers, and started reading each one aloud, in front of all the students.
All of them, with no exception, defined the black dot, trying to explain why it was in the middle of the sheet.
After all had been read, and the classroom was silent, the professor started to explain: “I’m not going to give you a note on this, I just wanted to give you something to think about. No one wrote about the white part of the paper. Everyone focused on the black dot. The same happens in our lives.”
Life is like a piece of paper to write on, observe and enjoy, but we always focus on the dark spots.
Life is a gift, and we always have reasons to celebrate – nature renewing itself daily, friends around us, the job that provides us money to live, the love of our partner, our children, and much more.
The dark spots are very small when compared to everything we have in our lives, but they’re the ones that pollute our mind.
Take your eyes away from the black dots in your life. Enjoy each one of your blessings and each moment that life gives you. Be happy and just live!
Qi Gong is an ancestral discipline born in China about 5000 years ago. It has been influenced by various philosophies, such as Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism.
After having developed within religious and spiritual fields, Qi Gong has been contaminated by fighting techniques becoming in this way also part of martial arts.
Today, more than a thousand forms of Qi Gong are known. Actually, each teacher develops his own technique observing though the same principles and purposes: to stay healthy by keeping the body, spirit and energy in balance.
According to Chinese medicine, good health is the result of a good circulation of energy in the body. Qi Gong is considered a prevention measure.
The search for balance, the precision of intention (Yi), the fluidity of gestures represent not only a path towards self-knowledge but also the pleasure of encountering oneself. With Qi Gong, we learn to love ourselves, to open up to the universe, to live in harmony with everything around us.
In the search for balance, you will experience moments when you focus and moments when you rest. Feeling too much or what is missing, for example when you go from one foot to the other, allows you to become aware of your own fragility. When, on the other hand, you stand on two feet, well anchored to the ground, you feel then balanced, and stronger.
Working on balance brings a feeling of lightness and freedom, without forgetting that through the movements and stimulation of the meridians (energy circulation paths), organic functions improve (circulation, digestion, breathing).
The body is at the centre of the relationship with oneself, with others and with the environment. Body awareness passes through listening to your body at first, by observing muscle tone, tensions, balance, posture and the direction of movements.
Qi Gong can be considered above all as a search for energy balance and harmony between body and spirit. By paying attention to the gestures, we realize that our way of thinking also changes and we get a more peaceful look at the world.
Letting go of the burden of the past is important to your happiness.
Many people live in the past; they remember what they were, the love stories that did not go well, their failures and disappointments.
Such a burden takes away space and energy from the present, which is actually the only time you can live actively.
I read somewhere that happiness consists in enjoying good health and having a bad memory.
Actually, you should learn to let go of the past, forget about the insults received, the bad events and the mistakes, in short, all the bad memories, and learn to focus more on the present.
Photo by Ian Dooley on Unsplash
Here are some tips you could follow.
The best antidote to guilt, resentment, or anger that takes you back to the past is to devote energy to building the life you want.
Stop playing the victim and become an active protagonist of your life
Your memories change while time passes by, they may distort, and they do not really reflect what happened. Try asking a person who shared an event with you to tell you about their memory and then compare it with your memory. You will see that you and that person remember different aspects of the same fact.
Prioritize your well-being. Life is too short to spend arguing and complaining. What happened could be a source of stress and even discomfort. Continuing to feel anger at a past event drains up your energy. It is more important for your physical and mental health to live quietly than to be right at all costs.
The past, however, also brings with it good memories and lessons learned, which shape your personality.
Have a look at what Buddhism teaches: “Joy and happiness arise from letting go. Sit down and take an inventory of your life. There are things you have been hanging on to that really are not useful and deprive you of your freedom. Find the courage to let them go.”
The society we live in often leads us to reverse priorities and put work first. This can negatively affects our quality of life and physical, mental and emotional health.
According to researches carried out in France, physical suffering related to work affects 3.1% of women and 1.4% of men, but according to some experts, the figures are higher. The international classification of diseases identifies burn-out as a work-related phenomenon but in reality work is not the only cause.
With the cost of living constantly rising, we are likely to work longer hours to earn a salary that allows us to provide for our own needs and those of our family. Because of this, many elements of our private life are put aside.
We spend many hours working, reducing the time to eat, to rest, to be with the family, and we do not realize how much this can harm us.
While most of us cannot afford to leave their job, a balance must be found between work and private life to prevent stress from building up in a worrying way.
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash
In this period of forced tele-working, it is even more difficult to put boundaries between work and private life. For this reason, many governments have been drafting directives that establish the right to “disconnect”. We need to have the time to do sports, to walk, to take care of our dear ones, to follow our passions or simply to rest.
More and more people suffer from stress, feel exhausted, have problems with nutrition, addictions, or relationship difficulties, and all that because of the long working days, which do not leave us the time to do activities for our well-being.
If you feel you are in one of those situations, know that no salary is worth your health, no job is worth the wear and tear that comes from working days that annihilate your energy and happiness.
If you have no other alternatives to the work you are currently doing, find something positive to balance your life, because otherwise, there may come a time when you will start making mistakes at work and your overall performance will suffer. Start looking for another job but put your health in the first place, because if you get ill it may take a long time to recover.
Your job is an important part of your life, but it is not your life. There is much more: family,health, and friends. Do not allow work to take up all the space in your mind and body, taking the joy away from you.
Remember always taking care of yourself first, because this is the only way you can live a better life.
In this period of mobility restrictions caused by the pandemic, the time when we could travel freely seems a long ago. Last year for Easter, I had planned a trip to Berlin and I would not have expected to cancel it. This year too, I would have liked to leave for the Easter break, but the virus is still among us and it is better to stay where we are.
Covid has changed many aspects of our life and going on vacation is one of them. It is obvious that going on vacation is very important for physical and mental health. You should think about taking rest periods even without being able to travel.
When we work we look forward to the weekend but it is not long enough to fully recharge ourselves. To be able to really disconnect from work we need more time.
Holidays are a period of time that we need, we need it as well as sleep, eat, drink, in short, they are a necessity. If we want to stay healthy, we have to take vacations.
Waiting for the pandemic to pass and then taking a long vacation is not a good idea. It is better to take shorter vacations but more often.
Of course, we cannot travel now, it is strongly discouraged, but this does not mean that a period of rest at home or close to your place, depending on what you can do in the country where you live, will do some good. Holidays allow us to recover and when we come back, we often feel better, full of energy and even more creative.
Photo by Wee Lee on Unsplash
It does not matter where you go on vacation. The main thing is that you can rest and put aside your daily worries. Choose what to do, with whom and when to do it. Not everyone likes travelling. Some like to have time to read more, do more physical activity, spend time outdoors. Others like to take small hikes, without straying too far from home. Some people enjoy long trips, some other like only short ones.
With the health crisis, many of us had their vacations at home. Let us see the positive aspects of it: definitely less pollution, you saved some money and also the stress of travelling.
However, there are people who do not like being at home. They do not know what to do, they get bored, they do not want to tidy up the house (but for this one could call someone to help), and the children (when they are there) need care and attention. They have to think about many things, as if they were working. On the other hand, they may simply want to change air and get to know new places, or return to places they have loved before.
If, however, you are forced to stay at home due to travel restrictions, take some days off and try to take advantage of your free time anyway, as doing so will make you feel better. Moreover, think that the pandemic will be hopefully over soon.
If you find yourself in the position of having to stay at home during your holidays, try these tips:
1. Don’t read professional emails;
2. Do little housework;
3. Establish rules and times for being at the computer or television (both for you and your children, if you have any);
4. Look for new places to discover in your neighbourhood;
5. Spend time in nature because nature is a source of energy;
6. Make a list of what you would normally do on vacation, eliminating the things you cannot do due to anti-Covid rules. For example, in Belgium, where I live, you can ride a bike, but you cannot go to a restaurant;
7. Organize a movie marathon with friends and discuss with them to find out which ones you all liked the most;
8. You can do the same thing with a book. Choose with your friends a book you all would like to read. When finished, you gather together (on-line if not possible a real gathering together) to comment on it;
9. Why do not you sign up for an online course to learn new things? There are many possibilities even for free!
10. Indulge yourself with little vices: buy some chocolate (soon it will be Easter, the best moment to buy it), a good bottle of wine, or have a three-course meal delivered.
For about a year, we have been facing a health crisis that does not give us a break and actually begins to cause psychological effects.
If you feel tired and have little energy to do things, know that you are not alone.
Fatigue is one of the most common consequences of this pandemic. We are exhausted for several reasons. The disease directly causes one of them. Obviously, if you had the Covid, you have been more tired afterwards; it takes some time to recover from it and to get back into shape.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined “pandemic fatigue” the fatigue resulting from always being super attentive to the precautionary measures that we must comply with in order not to catch the virus.
More and more people suffer from nervousness, anxiety and feel pushed to the limit of their ability to bear the situation.
This state of hyper vigilance with Covid represents a constant strain of our hormonal and endocrine system which results in greater anxiety and, sometimes might turn into depression.
The economic situation and the uncertainty about the future we are living now are working our nerves out.
Photo by RD LH on Pixabay
In addition, you have to consider the deprivation of liberty caused by the lockdown.
Knowing that we are vulnerable to pandemic fatigue, we must put into practice measures that help us regain some well-being.
Here are 3 ideas that may help you out:
Normalize what you feel. It is normal for you to feel stressed or sad. These last months are even harder because we are in winter and we do not see the way out (during the 1st wave we had summer ahead).
Your well-being must become your priority. Just as you pay attention to wearing a mask, respecting safety distances and washing often your hands, you must take care of your well-being. Try to eat healthy, practise physical activity even at home, and talk to friends or beloved ones even if you cannot do it in person. If the rules in force allow it, go out, especially when it is sunny. Vitamin D is good not only for the body but also for the spirit. Find a hobby, or if you had one before, start doing it again.
Give your mind a break. Stop listening to the latest news on Covid. Take a break from the news. Give yourself permission to disconnect. If you miss the latest update on the contagion data, nothing will happen. When you talk to someone, try to avoid the Covid topic. It is not a matter of pretending nothing has happened, but simply of avoiding further fatigue.
When I hear about curfews, dark times come to my mind, times of war. Actually we have been fighting a war against Covid since March this year. There are no bombs, we don’t have to be evacuated, we can eat every day because there are enough food supplies. But the curfew has changed our habits, most probably also those related to meal times.
From North to South of Europe we eat at different times. Soon in the north, later in the south. Maybe you are invited to dinner by someone and the curfew forces you to eat earlier because then you have to go home. Or you eat later because you finish work late and don’t have time to buy something for dinner, or to stop by in a restaurant. The restaurants are closed, they only offer take-away service and you must go back home within the time set by the curfew.
A friend from Paris, before the city was put into total lockdown, had to return home by 9 p.m. We know that Paris is a big city and people often use public transport, which is very efficient. To be home by 9 p.m., she had to take the subway by 8:30 pm at the latest and therefore she was eating later than her previous habits. And she began to sleep badly.
If you make an appointment before the curfew begins, you may feel stressed out because you will have to rush to get home on time. Perhaps it would be better to stay at home and respect the government’s directions and limit our social contacts. But sometimes you want to be out for a while, to meet some friends.
The effects of the curfew are not only on your social life, but also on your health as a result of adapting to a new pace of life and changing your routine.
The new schedule imposed by the curfew may have advantages, for example, you stop working earlier, go home earlier and have dinner earlier. For example, you arrive home at 7 p.m., have dinner between 8 p.m. and 8.30 p.m., go to bed around 11 p.m. and get up at 7 a.m. the next day.
This would be optimal for your health. Indeed, you would better synchronize with your internal, external environmental and external social biological clocks (time).
Internal time is what marks your endogenous rhythm, which helps you sleep at night, stay awake during the day and eat at the right time for you.
External environmental time is determined by the alternation of the phases of light and dark generated by the solar cycle.
External social time can alter these balances. If your working schedule, lunch, dinner and leisure are not suitable to your biological type (chronotype) you could enter a phase of temporal disruption that may cause several health problems, like insomnia.
Our ancestors got up with the light and went to sleep with the dark. This rhythm allowed for adequate production of melatonin (the hormone that regulates sleep), which allowed for a perfect balance between internal time and external time.
The habit of eating around 9:30 p.m. or even later goes against these natural cycles and makes it more difficult to rest well. A large dinner ending around midnight could cause difficult digestion at a time when the body should be resting instead.
It is therefore recommended to finish dinner at least two hours before going to bed to avoid poor quality sleep and an awakening marked by fatigue, irritability and low cognitive performance.
If you follow the biological rhythm of your body, you will have a big improvement in your overall health!
I’m sure you use the word stress often throughout your day.
We all feel a little stressed due to the multiple commitments we have, pending deadlines, and lack of time to dedicate to ourselves.
The common denominator of all forms of stress is a feeling of malaise, fatigue, irritability that makes us more fragile with illness and less tolerant of others and of daily problems.
Actually stress is an adaptive response that has allowed our species to survive throughout its evolution.
Hans Seyle, the first theorist of stress, conceived it as an adaptive response that the body puts into force to overcome all the situations that its alarm systems deem dangerous.
The stress reaction is indeed characterized by the secretion of hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline which make the muscles stronger and the person more reactive. In this sense, stress has a value that is not only positive but also necessary for the survival of the species.
Primitive men had to face dangers that were of a short duration. While they were hunting, for example, they might encounter an animal and had to decide whether to run away or face it (have you ever heard of the “fight or flight” response?), but once they made up their mind and acted accordingly, they had plenty of time to recover.
Photo by Crawford Jolly on Unsplash
In the contemporary age, we too have this type of reaction when facing what, on a conscious or unconscious level, we perceive as dangerous (stressor). But today’s stressors are definitely different from those our ancestors faced. Modern stressors are psychosocial and no longer physical. It’s about the work environment, social relationships, financial worries, the huge amount of commitments we have and the limited time to complete them. Above all, these stressors are not momentary but can persist for a long time and consequently we need more time to recover.
Look at these signs that may indicate that stress is becoming a threat to your health:
What can you do concretely to combat stress, when the conditions in which you find yourself do not allow you to avoid it?
Physical activity, especially aerobic, such as brisk walking, swimming and cycling, is undoubtedly one of the best remedies for stress.
Breathing control, like getting used to using the diaphragm and slowing the respiratory rate, is another useful tool against stress.
Other activities may be: yoga, tai chi and meditation. In recent years, mindfulness has become popular. Mindfulness, by increasing the level of personal awareness, carries out an anti-stress action.
Obviously, a good massage that helps you increase the level of oxytocin, a hormone capable of counteracting cortisol, is certainly effective.
As regards food supplement, magnesium is the anti-stress mineral for excellence, also because we are chronically deficient. Remember that a supplement is such because it must be complementary to a healthy diet. Therefore, remember to eat well!
Some time ago I saw a nice pair of jeans in a shopping centre, which were not even expensive.
However, there was no label indicating its origin, no “made in”. Curios as I am, I decided to start a small investigation, first by asking to the shop owner, who had no idea. Then I pretended to be a member of a consumer association, I listed a whole series of regulations that he has been violating so that he gave me the address of the warehouse where he bought them.
Once home, I called that warehouse, always pretending to be an exponent of a consumer association. They started immediately to tell me the story of the jeans, without any problems, as some journalists have already made an investigation before. First of all, they were made with cotton from Benin. The cotton threads are then dyed in Spain, before being shipped to Taiwan to be woven into several separate pieces (pockets, legs, etc.).
The pieces are then sent to Tunisia to be sewn with Japanese polyester threads. The factory also adds buttons, zippers, rivets which are made in Japan with Australian metals.
So the jeans leave Tunisia for a warehouse in France from where they will be sold all over Europe. In short, the jeans traveled about 65,000 kilometres: once and a half the tour of the world.
The production of these jeans is definitely “globalized”: to sell jeans at the lowest possible price, manufactures look for the lowest cost of production at all levels. The manufacturer multiplies the steps to optimize its overall manufacturing cost. Dyeing is less expensive here, buttons are cheaper there, etc.
This causes several problems: the culture of cotton requires a lot of water for countries that do not have much, the working conditions of the workers are very bad, transport consumes a lot of oil and releases greenhouse gases.
At the end the jeans are very expensive for the planet, even if they are sold at an attractive final price for the consumer.
There are so many other examples like this. Danish prawns are cleaned in Morocco and then sent back to Denmark to be marketed. Scottish langoustines leave for Thailand to be decorticated by hand in a large multinational company and return to Scotland where they are cooked and then resold.
But is it worth? Wouldn’t it be better to bring production closer to places of sale, reducing energy and hydrocarbon consumption, finally doing some good to our planet?
Do you feel the need to relax but don’t know which relaxation method to choose? Here are some of my favourite ones! You have to just choose the one that inspires you the most.
Method 1: mindful breathing. Obviously it is not our normal way of breathing, which consists of inhaling and exhaling without even realizing it. It is a conscious breathing, to which you have to pay attention.
How does it work? Sit where you want, on the floor, on a chair, on the sofa. Begin to inhale through your nose by inflating your belly. Slowly breathe out through your mouth, emptying your belly (it’s also a good exercise for your abs). Just focus on the air flow that passes through your body. You will see that your breathing slows down and your body slowly relaxes. The ideal would be to practice this type of breathing at least three times a day. You can do it everywhere, you always breath, you only need to do it mindfully. One minute of deep, conscious breathing will help you to relax.
Method 2: meditation. I am not referring here to transcendental meditation, but to meditation in full consciousness (mindfulness), accessible and easy to apply. Meditation helps you take care of yourself and your mind, allowing you to be aware of the “here and now”, moving away from stress and problems.
How does it work? Close your eyes and concentrate on the sensation of the air going in and coming out from your nostrils. Try not to be distracted, and every time you notice that your mind is wandering, focus back your attention on the breath. A meditation session can last a few minutes for beginners and hours for the more experienced. If you are a super technological type, you can try apps that guide and follow you during your meditation journey. It would be ideal practising this type of meditation a few minutes several times a day.
Method 3: massage Massage eliminates tension and provides a feeling of serenity and super pleasant well-being. So if you have the chance, get a massage. Your stress will disappear. If you don’t find anyone among your family or friends that can massage you (in these confinement times you cannot go to a wellness centre), you can take massage devices, which you can use for the neck, feet, back or head. There are also armchairs that do massages and even a mask that gently massages your eyes and makes you look and feel perfectly rested! A simple solution for the feet could be crushing and rolling tennis balls. It is almost like having a reflexology session. Give it a try!
Method 4: Yoga and Pilates They are two similar disciplines and are both helpful for your physical and mental health. While Yoga focuses on the physical and mental connection, Pilates is more similar to a sport that, however, makes us use deeply the muscles of our body.
Method 5: aromatherapy Aromatherapy uses the aromatic essence of plants to prevent, cure or relax. In the latter case, you can use an essential oil diffuser that allows the atomization of the oils and their diffusion in the home environment.
What oils can you use to relax? Here are some that I like very much:
Lavender essential oil: it has sedative and calming properties and allows relaxation.
Neroli essential oil: it reduces stress and fights insomnia and tension.
Marjoram essential oil: it regulates emotions and protects you from fears.
Grapefruit essential oil: it combats stress and helps you resolve doubts.
Mandarin essential oil: it is relaxing and sedative.
Scots pine essential oil: it helps you control emotions.
Here are my favourite relaxation methods. Choose the one you like most and, if you like, let me know. You can even choose more than one because taking care of yourself is the best thing you can do!
Crisbie Coach 