Aha Moments

This month’s video is especially for those that wake during the night and battle to get back to sleep. I find Sarah’s video informative, practical and useful.  I hope you’ll try out her suggested strategies and see what works for you.

So as we dive into Spring, remember Dov Davidhoff’s words: ‘Lack of sleep is only bad if you have to drive, or think, or talk, or move’!

Wishing you a good night’s sleep!

For example, many of you would have heard of the Relaxing Breath – where whatever count you inhale for (e.g., 3), you double the exhale (e.g., 6) to experience a relaxing effect.  Click here to try it out.

Or perhaps you’ve heard of Box Breathing – which is used to become calm and focused.  Excellent to use before or during a stressful time, like exams.  Its name refers to the fact that a box has four sides, a concept represented here by breathing while you slowly count to four for a total of four times — four counts of breathing in, four counts of holding your breath, four counts of exhaling and four more counts of holding after your exhale. Click here to try it out for a one minute.

Today, I want to introduce you to the Physiological Sigh. This controlled double inhalation followed by long exhalation lowers heart rate, calms the mind, and relieves stress in just 60 seconds. It’s a portable way to press pause on your day whenever you need.  Dr Huberman has such a great way of explaining and demonstrating this technique.  I hope you will enjoy this short video and also try out the other two techniques mentioned.  It’s wonderful to have these tools available to us literally at our finger lung tips, to help us self-regulate when we need it most.

Happy breathing!

So this talk caught my attention.  Wendy invites us all to slow down and look at the world around us. She believes drawing can spark deeply human, authentic connections. “Drawing is looking, and looking is loving,” she says.

She believes drawing is an essential tool to help everyone — young and old — slow down, look closely and connect with one another.  “If you slow down, pay attention and really look. You will fall back in love with the world and everyone in it.”

1. Eat well
2. Sleep well
3. Move well
4. Connect well
5. Stress well

What I love about this video is that it highlights the practical and often very simple actions that we can take to invest in ourselves.  I know that some days we win and some we lose, but it’s a useful reminder of the key things we need to build into our daily wellness routines.  So why not make this month the month of ‘self’love?!

If you’d like a more detailed talk about sleep, and how it is the bedrock of mental and physical health, please watch/re-watch my July 2019 Talk by Matt Walker who declares Sleep to by our Superpower.

So as you race into 2024, remember Dov Davidhoff’s words: ‘Lack of sleep is only bad if you have to drive, or think, or talk, or move’!

I want to add my ‘hot tip’ for this practice.  A few years ago, I took a beautiful journal and divided it in 12 sections – labelling each section with the months of the year.  I started a few years ago in the January section and wrote in it every few days – noting the date and 3 things I was grateful for and why.  I really enjoyed this quick reflective time before going to sleep, and I can attest first hand to how it helps improve one’s quality of sleep.

To be honest though, there would be weeks and sometimes even months that I’d forget or be too busy to write in it.  But then I’d see it next to my bed and pick it up again – turning to whichever month I was currently in and adding my 3 things I was grateful for that day.

The beauty about this ’12-part’ book, is that once I clocked one year – I didn’t throw the book away, but just started in January again, and this time, every time I note my gratitude I continue on the list of that month’s gratitude – I scan back to see what I was grateful for that month a year or two ago.  It’s like gratitude with compound interest!

I know that new year’s resolutions have a bad rep, but if there is one practice that I urge you to start in January it is the practice of gratitude.  Read/watch on to realise the huge benefits that await you:

• The Science of Gratitude
• Shawn Achor in Hack Your Happiness (see also his talk I posted back in Sept 2017)

Whatever methodology works best for you, make sure you take some time for you, to realise what it is you need going forward.  If you like the idea of being guided in your process, I highly recommend signing up for Denise’s next workshop in January via this link: https://www.denisesohandev.com/product/vision-board/.

So here’s a short video on his Time-Block Planner. It is easy to use. Each day you fill out a time block grid with a preliminary plan that gives every minute a job. If you get knocked off this schedule, you simply update it the next time you get a chance. Next to the grid is a collection page – this is my favourite part – it’s a space to quickly capture tasks, ideas and notes to process later so that you don’t have to disrupt your current time block. And that’s all there is to it!

I think his process is better than my current ‘what’s next’ approach!  I don’t know about you, but I think it’s worth a try.

The truth is that the art of listening is more than the act of hearing.  It’s creating an environment in which the other person FEELS heard.  This creates connection and trust.  If we truly listen to someone else’s perspective, we can gain understanding and engage in more meaningful dialogue.

Larry King once said, “I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything.  So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.”

We need to remember that we have two ears and one mouth – and to use them in that ratio in life!

Mmm, really good food for thought!  For a while now I’ve been feeling more and more uneasy with my, and others, increasing use of social media and its effects.

The research shows multiple, well-documented and significant cognitive and psychosocial harms. Are we losing the ability to sustain focused attention?  I feel I am, are you? After ‘doom scrolling’ do you feel lonely, inadequate and anxious?  The data says this and more.  Add to that, the fact that most social media platforms are intentionally designed to be addictive. I really like Cal’s analogy of the slot machine.

In his talk he shares some useful responses to our common reasons why we ‘can’t quit’. When I floated the idea of this talk with my 14yr old daughter, she said “We should all quit. Social media is more harmful than good”. I find it interesting that most of us feel this intuitive sense that it’s not good for us, but few of us do anything about it.

Towards the end of the talk, Cal uses an image of a bench in an open landscape to explain what life without social media feels like.  This image looked so beautiful to me – so peaceful and calming.  I think we could all do with more of this in our current lifestyles!

I hope you enjoy this talk, and can sustain the 14 minutes of focused attention to watch it right through to the end.

Again I diverge from a TED Talk – this time to include a workshop session video of a song from the movie ‘The Greatest Showman’. Well worth a watch if you haven’t seen the movie yet.  This stunning song, which carries such a wonderful message with such power and heart, never fails to move me.  I think it’s the ‘behind the scenes’ nature of the video that I love so much.

So many people in life, due to past trauma and/or current anxiety, try to make themselves smaller.  They try to fly under the radar of life, to avoid the risk of living too loudly and being judged too harshly.  I hope this song inspires you to be courageous and ‘be you’.  And remember, courage is not the absence of fear.  It is feeling afraid and doing it anyway.

“This is me” encourages us to do just that – to embrace who we are and live an authentic life. So together let’s work at being present and not feeling overwhelmed or consumed by others’ expectations or opinions – it’s not always easy, but it is so worthwhile.  I find a useful mantra to put things (and people’s opinions) into perspective is “People who mind, don’t matter.  And people who matter, don’t mind”.

February – the month of love!  Historically, I have always chosen a talk in the month of February that somehow links to relationships and love.  This year is no different.  I love Esther’s talks, and I’m willing to bet that you will learn something useful in this one.

In long-term relationships, we often expect our beloved to be both best friend and erotic partner. But as Esther Perel argues, good and committed sex draws on two conflicting needs: our need for security and our need for surprise. So how do you sustain desire? With wit and eloquence, Perel lets us in on the mystery of erotic intelligence.

I love listening to Julian, he is a Treasure ? If you enjoy this talk, he has a few more TED talks that are also excellent.  Happy listening!

In addition to controlling things like our heart rate, digestive tract, lung function, our ability to swallow, and even bladder control, it also affects our mental health.  Stimulating it has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and even PTSD symptoms.

I love Kati’s YouTube channel.  I hope you enjoy this practical video where she teaches how to stimulate the vagus nerve.

She shares how to go from ‘crazy busy’ to ‘ready mode’ in three steps:

1. Relentlessly Triage
2. Expect and design for crazy
3. Get out of your own head

This is a life skill that, once learnt, will pay dividends for the rest of your life!

You’re also likely perceptive, empathetic, intuitive, and self-aware. HSPs are usually emotionally intelligent and incredibly creative, passionate, people.  As you can imagine, though, feeling and processing more intensely has some downsides. This video shows some common struggles that HSPs will really relate to.

It is useful to identify if you are an HSP as you’ll be aware of your strengths and appreciate them more, and be more aware of the areas that you need to manage better.

Remember, what we know we can manage.

“I hope that each person here has the beautiful luxury of representing difference in some context in your life. But with that privilege comes a very sincere temptation to hold back who we are, and if we hold back who we are, we’re less likely to be trusted.”

Now that’s an idea worth sharing!

Shona decided to say yes to the question ‘momma, wanna play?’ She shares her journey from her broken ‘hum’ to how she found it again.  She does it in the most beautiful, eloquent, poetic way.

I love this talk, every word, and, at the start of this new year, it serves as an important reminder to pay attention, to be still, to be grateful, to be uninterrupted, to love and be loved, and to be mindful of the things that really matter.

By the end of the talk you’ll know what ‘learning for mastery’ means, or ’10 in a row’, and ‘flipping the classroom’.  You’ll learn about how Sal Khan created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. You’ll also have access to a free resource that could be a game changer for your (or your kid’s) learning journey.

I love this talk because it shows how talented, inspired and insightful people can revolutionise a field, and create massive value!  How we can, and must, keep challenging the status quo, and how technology can be leveraged to have more connection time.

As most of you know, I love love love the science of happiness and gratitude.  And I enjoyed Dr Shibley’s talk about gratitude being the route to happiness.  It’s true that we live with a lot of anxiety, and the research shows that one antidote is gratitude.

He references Aristotle and ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ – a book currently on my bedside table.  And, my favourite, he quotes a modern-day philosopher, Sheryl Crow: ‘It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.’  Ike encourages us to write a detailed, daily gratitude list.

So, if you want to be happier, the power is in your hands, and in your pen.

“When the Jacaranda’s fall, it’s exam time for all” – is a saying my daughter made up years ago.  And so, if you look around, you’ll realise that exams are not far away.

Many people battle with exam stress, so this month I thought I’d highlight the Pomodoro Technique (named after the Italian’s tomato-shaped timer).  A simple study technique which can improve your productivity and in turn decrease your stress levels.  The technique is based on the data that shows that our concentration wanes after 20-30 minutes.  This technique uses this information to ‘reset’ your concentration levels, thereby allowing you to work smarter, not harder.

In addition, the Pomodoro Technique helps you resist all of those self-interruptions and re-train your brains to focus. Each pomodoro is dedicated to one task and each break is a chance to reset and bring your attention back to what you should be working on.

Go on, try it out.  What have you got to lose?

Here’s a talk that could literally change your life. Which career should I choose? Should I break up — or get married?! Where should I live? Big decisions like these can be agonizingly difficult. But that’s because we think about them the wrong way, says philosopher Ruth Chang. She offers a powerful new framework for shaping who we truly are.

Ruth says “Far from being sources of agony and dread, hard choices are precious opportunities for us to celebrate what is special about the human condition, that the reasons that govern our choices as correct or incorrect sometimes run out, and it is here, in the space of hard choices, that we have the power to create reasons for ourselves to become the distinctive people that we are. And that’s why hard choices are not a curse but a godsend.”  So embrace the tough decisions and exercise the opportunity to become who you want to be.

In this short video he shares two steps to help us help someone (child or adult) who is experiencing intense emotions. Using his ‘handy brain model’ he explains how we must first

1. ‘Connect and redirect’ and then
2. ‘Name it to tame it’.

Dan explains how this process is working at a biological level by “squirting soothing neurotransmitters” in the brain.  So when your ‘downstairs brain’ is feeling overwhelmed, anxious or fearful, use your ‘upstairs brain’ to calm it down.  Such an important life hack for us all to know and use – especially during these challenging times.

So many of us are dealing with high stress levels, resulting in high cortisol in our bodies.  This is not good for us on a long-term basis.  To bring these levels down, it is helpful to know about the ‘stress bucket’ analogy.  This video uses the bucket analogy to give an understanding of the various sources and effects of stress and coping skills we can use to better regulate stress.

What is the size of your bucket?  What ‘false taps’ do you use?  What healthy coping mechanisms can you add to keep the water at a healthy level?

During this level 4 lockdown, please make a real effort to ‘Keep Calm and Stay Safe’.

Christina, a psychology instructor and researcher, has long studied, taught and believed in the healing aspects of practising gratitude. In her talk, she shares putting the theory into practise as she lives with (doesn’t fight with) a brain tumour. Such a real and human talk.  Loving your body doesn’t have to be conditional and we can use our brains to build resilience.

So… go ahead, ‘kiss your brain’ and thank it for all it does for you. Harness the power of gratitude.

I’m deviating from my usual TED Talk format, as I want to share a practical video about how and why you should start practicing gratitude.  Gratitude works its magic by serving as an antidote to negative emotions. It’s like white blood cells for the soul, lowering our stress levels, improving our quality of sleep, and helping us focus on what is really important in life.

Shawn Achor (my Sept 2017 Aha moment) shares how getting people to write down three new things each day that they’re grateful for can change so much. And at the end of 21 consecutive days, the brain starts to retain a pattern of scanning the world not for the negative, but for the positive first.

So choose a special notebook and adopt an attitude of gratitude!

In a lyrical, unexpectedly funny talk about heavy topics such as frayed relationships and the death of a loved one, Elizabeth Lesser describes the healing process of putting aside pride and defensiveness to make way for soul-baring and truth-telling. Her 3 foundational and guiding lessons are:

1. Uncover your soul
2. Stay open, stay curious, even (and especially) when it’s painful
3. Step off your hamster wheel into deep time – just breathe, just be

“You don’t have to wait for a life-or-death situation to clean up the relationships that matter to you,” she says. Elizabeth gently encourages us to become braver about being authentic with the people in our lives, so say our truths, but more importantly, to seek out the truths of others.

Understanding what zone one is in, or expected to be in, can go a long way towards curbing that anxiety and freeing you to do what you need to do.  Eduardo encourages us to consider “What would happen if, instead of just learning or performing, we also focus on exploring, asking, listening, experimenting, reflecting, striving and becoming?”  So here’s to becoming.

Brené encourages us to stop numbing ourselves, to let ourselves be seen, love with our whole hearts, practice gratitude and lean in to joy.  And most importantly to believe we are enough.

In a poignant, funny talk, she shares deep insights from her research, that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. A talk to share, especially in February.  Let’s make it the month of connection.

Some notable quotes from Sam are:

“Be OK with what you ultimately can’t do, because there is so much you CAN do.”

“Surround yourself with people you want to be around.”

“I don’t ignore when I’m feeling badly. I kind of accept it, I let it in so I can acknowledge it and do what I need to do to move past it.’

‘Being brave isn’t supposed to be easy, but it’s the key way to keep moving forward.’

Imagine the world if we all had his perspective.  My wish for you for the New Year is that we are all able to channel Sam and his philosophy for a happy life, that we dig deep, that we are brave and that we love fiercely and keep moving forward.

I remember, some time ago, reading about how holidays (staycations included) are the best investment in happiness. Ian captures this sentiment and more in his talk today.  Not only do you have the sweet anticipation of time off, we obviously get to enjoy the actual holiday, and interestingly our memories of a holiday are enhanced over time.  It’s a win-win-win situation.

So use Ian’s formula to make the most of your downtime this festive season:

Anticipation + relaxation + capitalisation = maximum vacation happiness!

• ‘Anything worth doing is worth doing badly the first time’.
• Forgive yourself – get rid of your ‘constant critiquer’
• Find your purpose and meaning in life – what does life expect from you and what can you do for others?

With exams about to start, please consider sharing this with someone you know who battles with anxiety.  It may make a world of difference.

Learn more about the difference between being happy and having meaning as Emily offers four pillars of a meaningful life: Belonging, Purpose, Transcendence and Storytelling. As a narrative therapist, I just love the 4^th pillar and her whole talk.  I hope you will too!

Alex Rosenthal details the three main strategies governments can use to contain and end a pandemic. I found it a useful message – short and sweet.  It is also a reminder that ‘this too shall pass’, and we will be able to hug freely again!

For those wanting to revisit her three strategies:

1. 7:10 – acceptance/acknowledgement of situation as part of life
2. 8:18 – selective attention (focus on things you can change/ on positive things, e.g. name three things you are/were grateful for)
3. 12:20 – “is what you are doing helping or harming you?” (control over situation/ be kind to yourself)

Why?  Because laughter boosts our immunity, lowers stress hormones, decreases pain, relaxes your muscles, prevents heart disease, adds joy and zest to life, eases anxiety and tension, relieves stress, improves mood, strengthens resilience, strengthens relationships, attracts others to us, enhances teamwork, helps defuse conflict and promotes group bonding (virtual or in person)!

Sophie Scott, a cognitive neuroscientist, shares surprising facts about laughter in this fast-paced, action-packed and, yes, hilarious dash through the science of the topic.  I especially enjoyed the last minute of her talk where she says:

‘If we can laugh together, we’re going to get through this.  We’re going to be okay’.

One simple and accessible way to bring down your anxiety levels is to focus on our breathing.  Lucas, a yoga teacher, explains three breathing techniques in an engaging, clear and concise way.  You don’t have to know the history or technical terminology, just the knowledge in a clear digestible form.

So my challenge is to use ‘water’ breathing when you need balance, and ‘whiskey’ breathing when trying to fall asleep (or fall back to sleep) – make it a key part of your lockdown routine.  Do it whenever you feel a jolt of panic or adrenalin and feel the immediate calming benefits.  Keep well and stay safe.

Love which manifests in not assuming bad intent, lots of honest questions, staying calm and making the argument.  Add forgiveness, giving others the benefit of the doubt, and the power of seeing each other as human beings. What a winning combination.

These lessons are applicable to any conflict situation – a place alive with possibility.  I think this is a talk for everyone everywhere.

I hope you enjoy Matt’s talk – he communicates his insights so clearly.  And most importantly, the great news is that we can all take practical steps today to improve our sleep and our health.  Sleep well!