I saw Dr Phil Hammond (doctor and comedian) on TV recently. I love this concept of his – simple and memorable.
As he says:
“The daily habits of healthy, happy people are easy to say but harder to do. Try to do your daily CLANGERS, and help others to do theirs. Changes in lifestyle are far more powerful than any drug we have to offer.” Continue reading “CLANGERS for all…!!!”
On one of my seafront walks recently I noticed someone sitting by themselves on the beach, gazing out to sea – much like the person in the photo here.
Given my particular interest in suicide prevention I needed to make a judgement call as to whether this person seemed in distress and, if so, whether I would approach them. In this case they seemed just fine.
But it started me thinking – they were there alone, perhaps by choice, but maybe not.
I love this quote from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama which seems to say so much about how we live today:
“We have bigger houses but smaller families;
more conveniences, but less time. Continue reading “The Paradox of Our Age”
“Dear Mum, I wasn’t meant for this planet. You did everything you could so please don’t panic. No one likes me so I might as well vanish….”
The opening line of a fictional suicide letter from a boy to his Mum, this is an extract from the keynote speech given last year in Thailand to 1,300 One Young World delegates by Hussain Manawer, a 24-year-old poet and activist from Ilford – which won him a trip into space in 2018.
He says he’s dedicating the trip to “every single person who has suffered from mental health [problems]”. Continue reading “Dear Mum, I wasn’t meant for this planet…”
A close friend of mine recently sent me a link to the You Tube video of Carole King performing ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ in Hyde Park. Watching this (which I really liked) made me think of the words of another favourite song: ‘Lean on Me’ by Bill Withers:
“Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on”
If my recent post on Men and Masculinity caught your eye, now that the Grayson Perry documentaries don’t seem to be available to view in full, his interview on ITV’s Loose Women will give you a good flavour: Continue reading “Grayson Perry on Loose Women”
What does it mean to be a man in today’s society? The age-old ‘nature versus nurture’ debate rages on, as does to what extent we all can (or want to) overcome any of the predisposition or (pre-)programming that exists from either source. Some of what’s out there may be generalisation but, even then, I quite often find ‘nuggets’ that might hold true. Continue reading “Men and Masculinity”
I’ve been on a few courses on mindfulness in recent years – it seems to be a bit of a buzzword at the moment, and in danger of being promoted in some circles as a bit of a ‘cure all’ perhaps? There’s a good deal of research being done with the aim of demonstrating how mindfulness might help us increase our alpha brain waves which could increase our creativity and also help relieve the symptoms of conditions such as depression, anxiety and chronic pain. Continue reading “Mindfulness – My Way”
I was talking to someone about resilience recently and was reminded of a CIPD branch event I went to a couple of years ago. The speaker was Andy Gibson, ‘Head Gardener’ at an organisation called ‘Mindapples’. Continue reading “Mindapples: five-a-day for our minds”
Whole People 