Archive for the ‘Lifestyle’ Category

The Myth of Getting ‘Old’

Monday, January 16th, 2012

Having spent the last 15 years observing what makes one 80 year old ‘old’ and another ‘young’ and indeed witnessing the transformation of some ‘old’ ones into ‘young’ ones, I’ve been pretty humbled.  I never cease to be amazed by human potential. Through a gradual process of mental reflection, dietary and lifestyle changes and therapy, some have been able to turn their circumstances around by realising they had more control over how they felt than they realised and that they had succumbed to the popular myth about age.

Many of our patients are content merely with the removal of pain from their arthritic joints. Some, however, realise that they have become what they have through their choices and actions. They then make different choices and experience different outcomes as a result.

Of course, this doesn’t just apply to old people. These same processes occur in younger age. At the time of writing, I’m 43 and setting myself physical and mental goals that my contemporaries have clearly convinced themselves they can’t achieve. Of course, they can achieve them!They just need to engage in the lifestyle that supports their achievement. They’ve succumbed, like the majority, to societal norms and assumptions that say “you’re getting old now and so you’re going to be weaker, have poorer health and generally start going downhill”

Of course, age does play a significant role in our wellbeing. The older we get, the more time we have had to practice the habits that have determined our health in the first place. In turning things round, it might be a slower process because of this. You’ve been letting yourself go over a longer period of time. However, change you certainly can!

Our minds are far stronger than most of us are willing to admit. One just needs to watch a few episodes of Derren Brown to get an idea of this. Countless studies on the placebo affect also provide fascinating food for thought. Even ignoring the obvious dietary, exercise and lifestyle choices that are proven to affect our health, our minds can convince us into high or low levels of physical and mental performance or health states. So, its not enough to just regulate our diet, and lifestyle. We have to train our minds too. Good health is not a matter of luck, its crafted! I’m  reminded of what Gary Player is noted for having said: “It’s funny, the more I practice the luckier I seem to get”.

And that’s not even considering the amazing folk with significant, life-limiting circumstances who still remain positive.  Like Chris Moon, 49 at the time of writing, the ultra runner who had one leg and one arm blown off by a land mine, then ran the London marathon within a year of the incident!!! Check him out at:

http://www.ultralegends.com/chris-moon-bathurst-to-sydney-1997/

Geneticists estimate that our genes are responsible for about 15% of our health outcomes. The other 85% is down to our lifestyle. In other words, the choices we make in life have the largest effect on our health, by far.

So, check out your self-limiting beliefs, engage in some positive thinking training, and start releasing your latent potential now. Commit to a programme of regular exercise, whether it includes Tai Chi, running, squash or whatever. And guess what, once you’ve got over that initial inertia that inevitably exists when you’ve been inactive for so long, its really enjoyable and feels great! Go get some…you’re more than you think you are!

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Posted in Health, Lifestyle, Mental Health, Uncategorized, Understanding Health | 2 Comments »

I feel good!

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

I have never believed the way I feel is a matter of chance. The life we experience is not a chain of chance occurrences.

I hear a crowd of people disagreeing with me, or at the very least starting to feel uncomfortable. If you are one of these, right now, is it possible that you’re feeling that way because of the responsibility I bestow upon you for your own life experience? Is it just too uncomfortable to admit that the discomfort and pain you have experienced in your life is of your own making?

Sure, external things might be seen to happen by chance, but I’ve seen that my experience of them is of my own making. And, certainly, the choices I make as they happen certainly are. I’ve watched myself descend into the depths of depression because of choices I have made or, worse still, not made. I’ve felt my mood change in an instant because of thinking choices I have made. I’ve told myself, “get a grip, Sean!” and then acted.

This is not to say that it’s an easy process. Indeed, I’ve really struggled on many occasions; had some really dark nights of the soul. However, difficult as it may be, though, it is simple!

My own formula is straight forward: do things that make me feel good about myself. This may involve making choices and taking actions that require great courage. However, these choices must be made and when they are, I feel good about myself.

The tools I use for refining my character and building my confidence are mostly modes of physical culture: martial art, running, golf, and squash. I augment these with meditative practices, although all of these activities involve an aspect of meditation. Even my work I treat as a path of self-discovery rather than just a method of making a living. In all these activities, I need to ensure that I continually reinvent my approach so I remain fresh. On numerous occasions I have let this slip only to pay for it in how I feel about myself.

Try doing something new! You can start with with simple things. Let me give an example. This year in June, I started running competitively again. I hadn’t done so for twenty years. I have pushed myself through mental barriers repeatedly since I started again. Each time I do that, I feel better about myself. With each victory over self, and note that the real competition for me is against myself, my confidence grows. Of course, physically I’m in fantastic nick. Mind and body being one, this is bound to make me feel better emotionally. Each time I set myself a challenge and achieve it, I feel better about myself and my confidence grows.

So, my invitation to you is to choose something, or several things, that challenge you personally and refine your character through their practice. Make sure you set challenging but achievable goals. I have no doubt you will feel fantastic!

Of course, if you’ve never experienced this you won’t be able to relate to it. You’ll will just have to take my word for it. Why not make the decision to change and invest in the effort based purely on faith. Hopefully, what I have said makes enough sense and instils enough faith in you to move you to act. I really hope my experience will help a few other people that read this to follow a path that makes life feel better.

Let me leave you with a couple of examples that may further illustrate my point. Both are stories of men who have lost a leg. If I feel down, I think of these men. I have no room to moan! What will you do today to live life magnificently? Please come back and tell me what you have achieved.

Chris Moon

Manuel De Los Santos

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Posted in Health, Healthcare approaches, Lifestyle, Mental Health, Understanding Health | 1 Comment »

Cultivating Peace, Creativity and Freeflow in our Lives

Friday, June 18th, 2010

I spotted this quote from Susan Polis Schutz today. I guess its another one of those pieces, like “If” by Rudyard Kipling, that reminds us what life might be like if we set our minds to it.

“We need to feel more to understand others. We need to love more to be loved back. We need to cry more to cleanse ourselves. We need to laugh more to enjoy ourselves. We need to see more other than our own little fantasies. We need to hear more and listen to the needs of others. We need to give more and take less. We need to share more and own less. We need to look more and realize that we are not so different from one another. We need to create a world where all can peacefully live the life they choose.”

Susan Polis Schutz

If we can train ourselves to live our lives in this way, we can be pretty sure that our Qi will flow as smoothly as it can do. And, as the ancient Chinese said, if the Qi flows freely, there is no disease. How we do that is up to each of us…but it starts with the decision!

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Posted in Lifestyle, Spirituality | No Comments »

I want to stop being mummy….

Friday, May 21st, 2010

I want to stop being mummy….

 So many women come into the clinic complaining of fatigue, poor digestion and bowel habits, painful periods and so on.  What is clear about so many of us is that we have taken on a role which means that we are mummy to everyone – partner, children, colleagues, friends, parents.  By this I mean that we gradually take over the thinking for our nearest and dearest.

 For example, your partner might always ask you what he should wear to go out, or what he’s done with his keys/wallet/underwear.  Your children are habitually late unless you nag them, or they forget to take things they need to school/Brownies/judo/sleepovers because somebody else is always there to make sure they have the stuff they need. 

 And what do we get from all this?  Children who think it’s ok to be unkind or unpleasant, partners who’ve stopped looking at you, colleagues who think it’s ok to assume that you’ll work late, take up the slack or cover for them.  Parents who become more demanding as they grow older.  

 We can cope with all these demands on our time and energy, but what does it do to our spirit?  How do we find ourselves amidst all this frenetic activity?  What happens when something goes wrong – our children are ill, work is stressful, our partner is made redundant – where do we turn then for comfort, support and sustenance?  Sometimes we have close friends who can give us the help we need, but sometimes there may be nowhere to turn.  That’s when somebody who stands outside your closest relationships can help.  Help you to look into the mirror of your Self, and see what you really  need to become fully expressed as the wonderful human being that you are.  And whether that’s a therapist, a counsellor or a psychotherapist, it’s important that you find someone who can help to unpick the tangle and help you to realise your potential.

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Just dropping off to sleep….

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Do you ever find yourself jolted suddenly awake as you are drifting off the sleep? As if you are falling off the bed? In Traditional Chinese Medicine we call this a ‘hun shudder’. The word hun is a Chinese word which is translated as ‘ethereal soul’, to distinguish it from another kind of soul called the ‘po’ or ‘corporeal soul’. The hun likes to wander off, which it does in dreams, for instance. Sometimes in illness the hun is held too tight, restricted, unable to roam free – this is often the case in depression, for instance. The hun is also responsible for planning as well as dreaming, it is what gives us the ability to formulate goals and have a sense of direction in our life, so when it is restricted we lose this ability and life becomes empty and meaningless. In a way, we cannot dream. We cannot dream of a better life for ourselves.

On the other hand when the hun is too free to wander, we may dream all too much. We have vivid dreams a night, so much so that we wake up exhausted, we have a lot of hun shudders, perhaps we become a bit manic. We have plenty of ideas, plans and dreams, but we are too chaotic to put them into practice.

Interestingly, the hun is said to be housed in the blood. If our blood is depleted, the hun can wander too much. I notice this sometimes with women patients who have heavy periods, or who have lost a lot of blood in giving birth – sometimes these women have very vivid dreams, hun shudders, and experiences of their dreams somehow invading their waking life. Sleepwalking or talking in the sleep are other similar symptoms, and exhaustion often goes with them.. Often a short course of acupuncture or some blood nourishing Chinese herbs are all that is needed to build up the blood and ‘root’ the soul properly.

Is this all just mumbo-jumbo? No doubt these experiences can be explained scientifically, but I rather feel such explanations will lose something important. What is important is summed up in the word ‘soul’; it is no coincidence that we use the word ‘soulless’ to denote a lack of humanity. What I like about Chinese Medicine is that it is rooted in what you might call a ‘soulful’ view of human life. It is a medicine which realises that the ‘soul’ must be nourished and looked after just as much as the body. In fact, quite a lot of illnesses arise because the soul is neglected, and this has effects on the body, as hinted at above. Sometimes these effects are a lot more serious than a few jolts as you drop off to sleep.

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Woman and Superwoman…

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Over the past few months we have seen many female patients who are exhausted, or at the end of their tether.  Many of them are in full time jobs, as well as looking after their families and homes.  Sometimes they’ve had problems with becoming pregnant, had difficult births with their children, or have had several children quite close together.  Often they are worrying about elderly parents or relatives, or have husbands/partners who are themselves facing troubled times in their jobs. 

What we see is that most women are the axis around which their family rotates.  Even when their partners share the load, it is generally women who take responsibility for the day to day running of the house – things like making sure there’s enough loo roll, or cleaning the house ready for visitors!  For some reason we feel that we have to match the standards that our mothers had when perhaps they were not quite so pressured for time.  

The signs and symptoms of general exhaustion are frequently bound up in a generalised state of worry – what’s known as “whittling” locally!  This doesn’t mean that there’s anything major to worry about, it’s those thoughts that wake you up around 2 or 3 a.m., keeping you awake until just before the alarm goes off.  You can feel them rolling around your head and even if you get up and write them all down you don’t seem able to clear them.  It’s like a song that gets stuck in your brain and you can’t get rid of it.  

Women are under immense pressure to “wear their knickers over their tights” and act as if they’re Superwoman.  Magazines and newspapers give us role models who are impossible to emulate:  who can possibly look like Nigella Lawson when they’re cooking, especially when they’re up to their armpits in domestic chores, childcare and looking after relatives?  

The reality is that women have to accept that they can’t do everything for everybody:  if nothing else gives, their health will.  And if the central axis of the domestic universe wobbles, then everything else wobbles too.  So when you feel the urge to down tools, have a cup of tea, maybe have a nap – feel free to do it.  Not only are you worth it, but by doing so you’ll make your own, and everybody else’s life, a great deal more relaxed.

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