Four simple habits to boost your energy levels

One of the most common goals I work on with clients, and something that will definitely have its own page on the new-look website, is boosting energy levels.

Feeling tired, lethargic, and lacking that spark for life is something that is all too common these days, and it's often down to a host of factors.

Here are four healthy habits, one each from the think, eat, live, move elements that form the balance method, to provide you with a truly holistic approach to putting that spark back in your life and a spring in your step:

1. Think: Get checked out

If you've been feeling low on energy for some time, before you do anything else, have a chat with your GP. It's important to rule out common medical causes of fatigue or, in some instances, to diagnose the issue and begin to take appropriate actions.

2. Eat: Small and often (and healthily)

Nutrition can play a powerful part in boosting (or crashing) your energy levels. Food contains calories after all, and it's that energy that you need to make every aspect of your body function optimally.

But it's not just calories that are important. Many nutrients play a role in providing and delivering energy to your body and mind, whilst refined foods and stimulants can have a negative impact.

Before you get overwhelmed by what to focus on though, try this simple technique first:

Eat smaller healthy meals with a good source of protein (think chicken, fish, nuts, seeds, peas, beans, or legumes) more often.

This advice comes straight from the Harvard Medical School, and it's based on the knowledge that smaller meals can prevent you from getting those big energy spikes after eating, followed by that even bigger slump.

Eating small and often, including a good source of protein, can help to better regulate your blood sugar levels. It also prevents too much blood from being diverted away from your brain and muscles to your stomach (to digest the large meal you've just eaten), keeping you more alert as a result.

3. Live: Establish a sleep routine

If there's one thing you can do quickly to improve your sleep, it's to practice going to bed and getting up at the same time EVERY DAY. Yep, that means weekends too.

It helps to reset your body clock (fancy name, Circadian Rhythm), which manages your energy levels, alertness, and all of your major bodily functions throughout the day on a set timer.

Do the same things each day and you help it to literally get into its rhythm, leaving you tired when you should be, and full of beans when you need it too!

4. Move: Feeling tired? Go for a walk

Research has suggested that a short, gentle walk outside (just 20-30 minutes) may be more effective for boosting your energy levels than a nap, using stimulant substances like caffeine, or even stimulant medications.

Why? It doesn't seem to make sense, does it? When you're tired, doing exercise should surely make you even more fatigued. But, much of how energetic you feel is to do with your hormones, and gentle exercise is brilliant for balancing them.

Being stressed all day can lead to constantly high levels of adrenaline and cortisol, but moderate activity can help to bring these down, whilst at the same time boosting levels of feel-good hormones. The result: more energy. Oh, and better sleep too, which will give you even more energy. And better blood sugar control, which...you get the idea! More energy!!!

Getting outside and active early in the day seems particularly effective but, as long as you're not pushing yourself hard too late in the day (when it can delay sleep), being active at any time can help you to feel more lively.

Make a change the balanced way

If increasing energy is your goal, pick just one of the four tips above to work on this week.

Start small. Be consistent and don't be afraid to ask me for help if you need it. I’ll be happy to chat and offer advice to help you find your balance.

What would a perfectly balanced day look like?

If finding your balance is all about repeating good habits over time, then the first step is to work out what one perfectly balanced day looks like, and then repeat it as often as possible.

Let’s have a look at what that nicely balanced day might contain…

1. Seven to nine hours of sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation, most adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep each night. That means the perfect day actually starts the evening before, going to bed at the right time in order to meet your requirements. One scientific study even went so far as to calculate the ideal time to get out out bed - apparently it’s 7:22. The researchers found that people who rose at or after this time had lower levels of cortisol, possibly because it enabled them to get adequate amounts of sleep.

2. The ideal breakfast. Some would argue for porridge; the oats and low Glycemic Index serving to fill you up and energise you throughout the day. If your dietary choices allow for them though, you can’t go wrong with eggs. They’re packed full of important proteins to stave off hunger and increase alertness, there’s vitamins for a healthy body and good fats to keep your brain and heart in peak working condition. A study by Direct Line, yep the ones with the musical phone, found that giving yourself 22 minutes to enjoy your breakfast in a calm environment was optimal.

3. The work bit. Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones, a book about why it is that people in certain parts of the world live longer, happier lives, has reviewed research on more than 20 million people worldwide through the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index, and says “When it comes to your work, try to work part-time, 30–35 hours a week.” Working less is consistently linked to increased health and happiness, but maybe surprisingly, doesn’t seem to affect productivity - people get the same amount done in less time. A working day starting at 9/9:30 and finishing around 4/4:30 would meet these requirements comfortably.

4. Free time. Returning to the Direct Line survey, they claimed we should all have 6 hours 59 minutes of awake, non-work or ‘free’ time. This includes 18 minutes on social media (some of us may need to work on this one), 2 hrs 21 minutes eating, including 53 mins for lunch, 1 hour for TV watching and another hour for ‘me’ time.

5. Exercise. In terms of cardiovascular activity, the current guidelines are actually based on weekly totals - either 150 minutes of moderately hard exercise or 75 minutes of very hard training; working harder gives the benefits in half the time. As a daily average, that equates to around 21 minutes, 30 seconds of moderate activity, or 10 minutes 45 seconds of hard effort. A very short amount of time for a very large level of reward.

6. Socialising and family time. Back to Direct Line world again, where everyone is comprehensively insured. Their report suggested we get 45 minutes-1 hour of socialising each day and research is clear; people who spend more time with friends live longer, happier lives. Another hour is given for quality family time, whether you want it or not. ;-)

7. Bedtime. And so we’re back where we started, where all days start and end. Matthew Walker, author of Why We Sleep, says that whilst there’s no specific time to get to sleep, there does appear to be an idea window somewhere between 8pm and 12 midnight. As I talked about right at the start, it’s worth working backwards to ensure you get your 7-9 hours. If you’re getting up at 7:22 this means anywhere from 10:22-12:22 should be fine. If you’re a night owl you may shift this later if you can rise at your own leisure, whilst if you’re a morning lark you’ll likely want to shift this forwards.

And there we have it, seven habits for a balanced day. Repeat them often enough and health, fitness and happiness are just around the corner. :-)

Body Clock: What makes you tick?

A fantastic Horizon special this week saw Ella Al-Shamahi, a paleo-anthropologist, standup comic and excellent presenter, working alongside a team of scientists following former commando Aldo Kane, equipped with lean physique and fashionable strongman beard, as he spent ten days inside a nuclear bunker. With no phone or watch and no other way to tell the time, Aldo was observed on camera 24 hours a day to see how it affected his natural rhythms, almost like a Body Clock Big Brother.

They put him through various experiments to see how his internal clock deep within the hypothalamus in the brain (known as the biological clock or circadian rhythm) was impacted. Watch as Aldo struggles to guess the time (he’s out by around 2-3 hours generally) and his mental and physical state alters over the course of a week and a half underground. He’s a super-fit chap so there’s a funny bit when he says how hard the experiment is hitting him, so hard that he’s finding it tough to do even an hour’s training!

They show how there are generally three types of people according to the research:

• 25 per cent of us are ‘early birds’, better in the mornings and early to bed ideally

• 25 per cent of us are ‘night owls’, better lying in late and more alert in the evenings

• 50 per cent of us lie somewhere in between

They meet a range of experts and everyday folk to uncover ‘hacks’ you can use to live more in sync with your particular body clock, and be fitter, healthier and happier as a result. Now of course, I don’t call them hacks, they’re behaviours, things you may be able to add to your routines to make improvements. Here’s a selection of the behaviours they uncover. How many do you do? Is there one you could change to help you find a little better balance?

1) Eat bigger meals in the mornings and smaller meals if eating late in the evening. That’s because your digestive system is actually most active first thing and less active just before you go to bed.

2) Carry out tasks that require lots of brain power in the late morning. This is when we tend to excel at complex processes and things needing logical thought.

3) Exercise late afternoon/early evening. This is when strength, power and reaction time tend to peak meaning you can perform at your very best.

4) Get outside as much as possible during the day. Exposure to natural light helps to sync your body clock and leads to better sleep. The light that we’re exposed to in cars, homes and workplaces, even with windows is hundreds of times lower and doesn’t have the same positive impact. Our balance events are a great opportunity to get out into nature and improve your sleep in the process of course! ;-)

5. In an ideal world, live by your clock. Today’s society doesn’t always allow for this, so if you can’t, read below for more helpful tips.

6. Whatever clock type you are or your daily routine, stick to the same sleep schedule ALL the time. Avoid lying in and catching up on sleep at weekends or days off as it throws your rhythm out again, find something that works and stick to it. Here are those tips I promised:

Night owls

If you can’t work to your rhythm and you struggle to get up in the mornings…

• Get as much natural light as possible when you wake up. Get the curtains open, get outside, or make your commute active an active one.

• Shut out/cut down on blue light after sunset. Body clock expert Professor Till gets people in the show wearing special orange sunglasses to do this, but if you don’t have access to these then avoiding tablets or phones after dark or switching them to night shift function can make a difference

Early birds

If you need more sleep but find yourself awake and alert early regardless of how little you’ve had…

• Block out the morning light. Use eye masks or blackout curtains to make the room darker. This is especially good for nightshift workers who need to get some shuteye during the day.

• Get as much light as possible in the late afternoon/early evening. This can help to synchronise your body clock to your new time schedule.

Similarly, if jet lag is a problem for you, when you fly east, get out into daylight as early in the morning as possible, whereas if you fly west, get natural light as late in the day as is possible.

Better balance

Remember as always, if you feel it would help you to make a change, do ONE thing only. Try it, don’t expect it to work every time straight away, be patient with it and you’ll get there.

Oh, and here’s the link to the show in iPlayer if you fancy watching it for yourself:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bn5ys4/horizon-2018-9-body-clock-what-makes-us-tick#

Five ways to get a better night's sleep

Sleep does all sorts of wonderful things for your mind and body, yet according to the National Sleep Council, nearly half of the population get less than six hours sleep each night and four in five feel their sleep is disturbed, inadequate or extremely bad.

So here's five handy little tips to help you find better balance with your snoozing...

1) Get into a rhythm. 

Setting a routine for your day with consistent wake-up and bed times helps to train your body and mind. All of us have an in-built body clock, known as our Circadian Rhythm, and by being consistent with when we do things, we help to set our system to naturally wake up and fall asleep when we want it to. It's essentially like writing code for a computer programme.

2) Go dark

Light is a stimulant to you body in much the same way that caffeine is. When your eyes and skin cells detect bright light, they think it must be coming from that giant ball in the sky and that it's time to get up and move around. That's because for the vast majority of time our species has spent on the planet, lightbulbs, computers, iPhones and Kindles didn't exist. The problem now is that these advances in technology are tricking your brain into believing it's time to switch on, when late in the evening the exact opposite is true. Here are a few ideas to help your body to know it's bedtime:

• Set your electronic devices to dim in the evening.

• Better still, set yourself an electronic device curfew time of a couple of hours before bed

• Get yourself a set of blackout blinds or curtains for your room

• Dim the light switches later in the evening

• Read a paperback occasionally instead of always using an e-reader (then recycle it of course)

3) Cut down on the stimulants later in the day

Your body actually starts to wind down for bed mid-late afternoon, so cutting out teas, coffees, energy drinks and high sugar foods after around 4pm can help you to prepare for a good night's kip.

4) Relax

Many of us find it hard to sleep as our brains are still whirring away with thoughts of the day; work deadlines, family pressures, money and everything else that makes life so busy. I know only too well that I can sit working late into the night and when I go to bed, my mind is still running through what I've been doing and what's next. Much like screen-time deadlines and closely linked, it's worth setting a curfew time for work. Choose an enjoyable task to do afterwards; read, listen to music, take a bath, enjoy a hobby, meditate, whatever it is that works for you.

5) Boost your melatonin

Your what? It's a hormone your body produces naturally that is strongly associated with sleep. As the day wears on, levels of a stress hormone named cortisol decrease, largely because the time when you are supposed to have gone and done all of your hard work has finished. As this happens, melatonin increases, helping to relax your body and begin the process of repair and recovery. It's a wonderful system when it works well, hormones acting in pairs to balance each other out nicely.

Darkness is known to boost melatonin levels, so following the tips in point 2 will help, but you might also get some benefits from nutrition too. Certain foods are high in a protein called Tryptophan and this is the thing your body uses to make melatonin. The research is still hit and miss, but the theory is that if you increase Tryptophan levels, you may just boost melatonin and therefore improve sleep. Try these as part of little evening snacks to see if they make any difference for you:

• Milk

• Turkey

• Cheese

• Lettuce

• Wholemeal bread

Summary

Hopefully there are a few helpful tips there to help you find better balance. As always, we'd suggest choosing just one to try first so that you can successfully embed it into your daily routines. Any questions, feel free to post here or get in touch.

Sleep well,

Paul and the balance team :-) 

Water: the stuff of life

As it's the hottest week of the year so far, I thought it might be useful to give you some helpful hints and tips on water and staying hydrated. Hopefully something in here helps you to find your fluid balance.

How much fluid do you need?

Use this calculation to work out your base needs...

• Age: up to 30 = 35-40ml of water per kg body weight (multiply your weight in kg by 0.035 or 0.04)

• Age: 31-54 = 30-35ml of water per kg body weight (multiply your weight in kg by 0.03 or 0.035)

• Age: 55-65 = 30ml of water per kg body weight (multiply your weight in kg by 0.03)

• Age: 65+ = 25ml of water per kg body weight (multiply your weight in kg by 0.025)

So, for example, Bob is 56 years old and weighs 80kg, the calculation he needs to do is:

80kg x 0.03 = 2.4 litres per day

What about exercise?

The more exercise you do the more fluid you'll need. Hard exercise can increase your daily fluid needs by up to a litre for every hour done. Check out the tests later in this article to work out if you're getting the right amount for your needs.

What counts towards my fluid intake?

There's water in your food, so if you're eating a healthy, balanced diet, it's thought that around 20% of your basic water needs are met. So for our example above, Bob would be getting just under half a litre each day through food  and need to drink around 2 litres each day.

Drinks that count towards hydration include:

• Water

• Squash

• Milk

• Fruit juice (this will hydrate you but can be higher in calories so you may want to dilute it with water)

• Fizzy drinks (yep even these hydrate you; again though they'll often be higher in calories so limit the amount you consume)

• Tea and coffee (the vast majority of what's in your mug is water so it serves to hydrate you, outweighing the diuretic effects of the caffeine. If you're sensitive to caffeine you may want to limit the amount of coffee you drink to just a few each day)

• Shandy (yep because there's very little alcohol in here, it can hydrate you. Too much booze though will dehydrate you, so either limit the amount or drink plenty of water at the same time)

How do I check that I'm getting the amount I need?

Every one of us needs a slightly different amount of fluid. Whilst the calculations above are helpful, you'll likely need to make tweaks to how much you drink based on:

• Your genetics

• Your training regime

• Your diet

• The weather

• Illness

• Age, gender, pregnancy, the number of diuretics like alcohol you've been cons,ing, sleep, stress and medication

Because of this, there are some great tests you can do to see if you're getting what you need:

1) How do you feel? Tiredness, dry mouth and skin, headaches, irritability, unusual hunger and aching muscles can all be signs that you're dehydrated. Listen to your body and if you think you're thirsty, drink fluids little and often to help rehydrate yourself.

2) The pee test. Urine should be light or straw-coloured. Darker urine or even only urinating a few times each day suggest you're dehydrated. The NHS suggests that going to the loo less than 3 or 4 times a day is a good sign.

3) For the exercisers out there, weighing yourself before and after training can be a great marker of hydration. Sadly if you've lost three pounds during your workout I'm sorry to say it won't all be fat! Much of it will be water and will mean you need to rehydrate. 

Even just a 1-2% decrease in weight after a workout will mean you are dehydrated and need to replenish your fluids. If not you may feel unwell, tired and your exercise and mental performance can decrease significantly.

Just as an example of how small a weight loss this can be, for me, weighing in at 70kg, even a loss of 0.5-1.5kg (1-3 lbs) after a session means I'm dehydrated. This would likely need me to drink somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5 litres of fluid to replace these losses.

Summary

Drink little and often across the day using any combination of the drinks outlined. Monitor your hydration levels through how you're feeling, your urine colour and your weight post-exercise.

Over time you'll learn the timings and amounts that work for you to maintain your fluid balance.

Bring me sunshine - how the yellow ball in the sky impacts your health

We all enjoy it when we wake up, peek through the curtains and discover that the sun is shining. Just what is it that makes catching a few rays so good for us? Here are seven great reasons:

1)   Sunlight boosts your stores of vitamin D, which works with calcium to give you healthy teeth and bones. What you may not know is that it also plays a role in keeping your eyes healthy and may help protect against heart disease, cancers, diabetes, arthritis and MS.

2)   Exposure to sun and heat improves your body’s ability to sweat efficiently, enabling you to stay cooler better. Effectively it helps you develop a better air conditioning system.

3)   Sunlight has also been shown to boost testosterone levels in men, which may help to improve muscle growth and increase your sex drive.

4)   It boosts your body’s natural defence mechanism; your immune system by improving the function of special cells whose job it is to protect your from illness.

5)   Sunshine increases levels of a substance known as Nitric Oxide within your body. This causes your blood vessels to widen and can lower blood pressure as a result.

6)   Ever wondered why you feel so happy and relaxed on sunny days? Well, one reason may be that it boosts levels of serotonin, a chemical in your brain known to elevate your mood and regulate your appetite. This may also be why we find it easier to eat lighter meals in the summer.

7)   It’ll help you remember everything you’ve just read! Exposure to sunlight has been shown to improve memory and help you get better sleep. Getting more of the latter also improves memory.

The clear message – be sure to get some sunshine as often as you can. Be sensible though; too much in one go on very hot days can lead to sunburn and may increase skin cancer risk in the long-term; as with all things it always comes back to balance. 

Stressed? Here's how to find some balance.

Do you often feel stressed? How do you know? What do you feel? How do you feel? What do you see and hear?

The word stress is one that you’ll probably hear many times these days, but its meaning is probably more complex and controversial than you may imagine.

The word stress comes from the Latin word stringere, meaning to draw tight. This is a good analogy, as it’s true meaning is to put strain on something. When thinking of it in relation to you, it relates to anything that challenges your body and takes it out of its comfort zone. This could be a mental stress, challenging your brain, a physical stress challenging your body, or both.

When most people think of and use the word stress these days, it generally carries a negative meaning, yet that does not always have to be the case. There are in fact two distinct types of stress:

Eustress

This is good stress. What’s that you say? How can stress be good? Well let’s look at a few examples.

Exercise - you know it’s good for you, or you do if you’ve been reading the balance blog and Facebook posts! Exercise involves physical exertion, placing stress upon your body. In fact, one of the key principles of exercise that any fitness professional can tell you about is called overload. In simple terms, your body will not adapt and get fitter unless you challenge it. Why would it? If you’ve ever taken up exercise, you’ll know that feeling of discomfort in the first few sessions, then after a while you don’t find it so hard. You have stressed your body enough that it’s decided to change, primarily because it’s quite lazy and doesn’t want to have to work hard. Suddenly you find the same exercise session pretty easy, and the only way to get more changes from your body is, you guessed it, to work harder still. Of course, you need to do this sensibly and gradually or you place your body under too much stress and increase the likelihood of overtraining and injury.

Challenge - ever had a job that was just too easy and you were bored? Many of you will have experienced this and will have spent time trying to get promoted or looking for a career change. You’re basically trying deliberately to add more stress to yourself, but that’s because you need it and want it. Imagine if there was no challenge to life, what would be the motivation to continue? It could easily be argued that stress is actually what keeps you alive.

However, as with all things in life, it’s all about balance. Too much stress, or unwanted stresses can have a negative impact.

Distress

This is the term for bad stress, any stressor that puts your body under too much strain or has a negative effect. This is what most people think of when they use the term stress.

What causes distress?

• Work - being overworked, not enjoying your job, demanding deadlines, pressure passed on by your boss or by targets set for your team, bonus schemes, long hours, there’s a whole host of reasons why work can stress people both mentally and physically.

• Money - life these days can be expensive and throws up unexpected costs when the car breaks down or a utility bill is bigger than you thought.

• Family life - it’s hard to get on with the people you love all the time. Even when you do, you want to look after them and time apart, exam pressure for children, job interviews, university placements, holidays, illness and a million other things can make life feel complicated and stressful.

• Lack of sleep, too much exercise, exposure to electrical and chemical radiation, taking exams, and even sitting down place stresses on your body, the latter putting your knee joint under strain by tightening the muscles that attach around it.

Whether you are affected by stress (I mean distress) depends on a number of things:

1) Your balance of eustress and distress.

2) The coping mechanisms you have in place.

Let’s have a look at these and see what can be done. Firstly, it can be useful for you to identify all of the things that create good stress and bad stress in your life.

Make a list like the one below.

Eustress

• My gym visits

• Taking exams for my courses

• Rehearsing for a play that you’re going to be appearing in

• Preparing to go self-employed

Distress

• Lack of sleep

• Work pressures

• Getting the kids to school on time in the morning

• Flying on holiday next week and hate flying

• Fitting in visits to the family around after-school clubs, visits to the doctors, going shopping, picking up a prescription, posting your tax return on time and a million other things you struggle to make time for

• Spending 10 hours a day sat in front of a computer

Now you’ve got your list, don’t get stressed if you think you’ve missed something, you can add it at another time, it’s worth looking at the balance of good and bad and asking yourself two questions:

1) Can I add more things that will give me eustress to my life?

• Take up yoga or meditate

• Go for a walk outside at lunchtimes or at least get away from my desk more often

• Book a race to raise money for charity

• Spend time playing sports with my children

• Go to sleep half an hour earlier

These are just a few examples, you’ll have plenty of your own.

2) How can I manage or remove the things that cause me distress?

Some would call this stress management or stress reduction, you can call it distress disposal, Fred or whatever you like that makes most sense to you. Let’s choose one possible cause of distress and look at ways to reduce it; in this case the fear or hatred of flying. Hate is a strong word so it must be pretty stressful. What can you do to manage this stress?

1) Avoidance - in this case don’t fly. Go on holiday in the UK? Nah, no sunshine! Drive and take the ferry? Too far and would take up half the holiday.

2) Drink - many choose this as a way to remove stress as it makes them feel relaxed. You need to ask yourself though, is it a good method? One or two drinks may supply an instant feeling of relaxation as the alcohol acts on the nervous system, any more though and guess what, you’re actually placing your body under distress as it then has to cope with the increased level of toxins in the body and the dehydration. Your liver and other organs end up stressed and long-term this won’t be a good solution for removal of stress, you simply replace one stress with another. Some go even further in times of stress and take drugs, the consequences of which are much the same if not even more severe. Getting out of it is not a great way to get over it.

3) Distraction - I know, I’ll read a book, listen to music, do a puzzle, plan a presentation, schedule my exercise for the next 12 weeks before my race. This is a great option if it works, as it uses eustress methods to overcome distress.

4) Rationalise - I could read up about the statistical likelihood of being involved in a plane crash, and reassure myself that I’m far more at risk statistically when going for a walk than I am when flying.

5) Mind tricks - I could use hypnosis, have counselling, practice meditation or anything else that I thought may help me to overcome or allay my fears.

As you can see, I have options open to me and this is a good thing, as it means I can take action and do something. Try it for yourself, pick one of the things that cause you distress and make  list of methods you could use to remove or manage this. You can try them all or even use just one of them, it really is up to you. The key thing you need to ask yourself though is, will the things I have written down have a positive impact on the health of my mind and body, or will they cause me further distress? Opt for the ones that have a positive impact. Smoking, alcohol and junk foods are common ‘stress relief’ methods employed by millions of people across the world, but they’re not effective because they end up loading different and equally harmful stresses onto the body.

The advice above serves only to help you manage stresses you feel you are able to control without seeking further help. What you may have discovered by doing this task is that there are some stresses in your life that you feel are deep-seated, that you can’t think of a way to remove or that you feel are causing you real harm. If this is the case, you should seek medical advice in the first instance and then work with your GP to find suitable solutions to balance your stresses and improve your health. 

Let’s have a quick re-cap:

• Stress can be both good and bad for you. You need good stresses in your life to motivate you, but too much stress or negative stresses can affect you both physically and mentally.

• Spend time considering the balance of your good stress (eustress) and bad stress (distress). Do you need to take action to redress this?

• Add as many things to your life as you can that cause eustress - exercise, get outside, listen to music, dance, paint, read, have a bath, spend time with friends, go for promotion, set yourself a challenge, whatever it is that you personally find challenging but enjoyable.

• Identify ways in which you can manage or overcome things causing you distress. Sense check these to ensure that they themselves will not cause you further physical or mental distress. Choose realistic changes that will help bring you back into balance.

• Accept that 'stress’ is a part of your life, now and forever but recognise it is essential to your life. It will come and go, rise and fall, but you need to find the stress management techniques that work best for you.

• Always seek medical advice if you feel a stress is having a negative consequence on your mental or physical wellbeing. Your GP can discuss a range of options available to you that best suit your needs and circumstances.

balancing light and dark

That time of year has come. Your alarm goes off, your eyelids peel open slowly, feeling heavier than a truck full of elephants. You press snooze, they close, your alarm sounds again. Surely that wasn’t five minutes? You fight back, hitting snooze for a second time, managing a rather smug grin for cleverly setting your alarm ten minutes before you actually needed to get up. But there it goes again! Have you entered some sort of time warp??? 

This time, there’s no back-up plan, and no wry smile. Instead a reluctant hand creeps from beneath the nice warm duvet and pulls slowly at the curtain, looking to let in a bit of light and stir your brain into action ready for the day ahead. But to your disappointment all you are greeted by is yet more darkness, somebody has stolen the sun. And the warmth you’ve become accustomed to in summer, especially this year for a nice change.

Zombie-like you rise, arms hanging loosely by your side as you shuffle to the bathroom in your fluffy animal slippers. You know you’re still half asleep as after getting out of the shower you find yourself trying to comb your hair with your toothbrush. Time for a coffee.

If you recognise the scenario above you’re not alone. This scene, and many like it are repeated at least five times a week across Britain between the months of September and March. And that’s over half the year!

So what’s going on? Well it’s all to do with your big warm friend in the sky, the sun. As well as offering warmth in the summer months, he also gives you something essential for life, light. Sunlight is a rich source of vitamin D which helps build healthy teeth and bones. It also helps your food to grow and gives it the nutrition you need to perform at your very best. And very crucially, it helps to regulate levels of hormones like cortisol, melatonin and others that play such a big part in regulating your mood and energy levels.

A lack of sunlight can leave you feeling down, as in Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD, lethargic and demotivated. Obviously too much can be bad for you too with sunburn and the associated risks, but in British winter you’re far likely to get too little.

So what can you do about it?

Well, quite a lot actually. To start with, you can realise that your body clock, or circadian rhythm changes with the seasons. In the shorter days of the year you’ll probably need more sleep and be more tired. Up until Thomas Edyson interfered with nature with the invention of his now fairly widely used lightbulb (you may have seen them in the shops), people generally went to bed much earlier in the winter months. In fact, research shows that before TV’s, the internet, 4G phones and electric lighting, people slept for many more hours than they do these days, averaging over 9 hours a night if not more.

OK, so you may not be able to hibernate for winter (some remote villages in France and other parts of the world still effectively do this) but you can get yourself to bed at a reasonable time and prepare your sleeping environment as best you can to wake feeling refreshed in the morning.

Try these tips to help manage your way through the darker months:

• Get to bed before 11pm. In fact get to bed and switch off by 10:43 pm as on average it takes just over 15 minutes to fall asleep.

• Sleep in complete darkness. Get good curtains and switch off standby lights on electrical goods, or remove them altogether. Charge phones elsewhere or away somewhere if possible. Even the tiniest amount of light on any part of the skin can interfere with sleep quality.

• Don’t have it too hot. Sleeping in a cooler environment can help improve sleep quality.

• Light up your mornings. Try a Lumi clock, it wakes you up with a gradually increasing light instead of the stress of a noisy alarm clock. Not convinced it will work? Try it on a weekend morning when you don’t have to get up, you’ll be surprised.

• Get outside - make the most of breaks at work and in life to get some light in the day. Wrap up warm and get out for a walk, a run or just a trip to the park with Autumn in full splendour.

• Get away - plan a winter sun holiday, it’s amazing what an energy boost it can supply.

• Try a classical wake up - ditch the aggressive alarm for a calmer start to the day. Annoying alarms can be stressful causing big surges in adrenaline levels, which may be followed by a subsequent slump and not particularly good for you.

• Synchronise - if you can rise with the sun. This isn’t possible for everyone, but if you can, try it and watch your mood rise like the warm orange ball over that hill you can see out of your window.

Sleep well, wake better.

balance your light and dark, balance your life, balance your scales :-)

balance on.......booze

It’s the weekend again and no doubt alcohol consumption may increase for some of you, so here’s a few pieces of information on how alcohol affects your body short-term and long-term:

Beer bellies - alcohol consumption is strongly linked to the size of your waist. This is because it’s high in calories, packed full of sugar and enters your blood stream very quickly. Research in men shows that increased alcohol intake equals increased trouser size. In women, one study did show that moderate drinking (one to two small glasses of wine) did not affect the size of your outfit, but anything above that did.

Beer goggles - a study recently scooped an award for showing that alcohol consumption makes people see themselves as more attractive, but at the same time had no effect on how attractive they appeared to others. If this is the case, it means we should be chatting ourselves up on a night out!

Image courtesy of cbenjasuwan at 

FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Wine head - it’s not just your belly and your eyes that alcohol has a bad relationship with. Alcohol decreases the quality of sleep, decreasing the amount of REM sleep, making you wake up more often and making you sleepier and low in energy during the day.

Wine head doesn’t just affect your sleep, as you’ll know it carries on the next day. Your hangover may lead to stomach problems, headaches, low energy levels and blood sugar imbalances. These imbalances may cause you to crave sugar foods and undo all of the great work you’ve put in to get yourself healthy.

Just the one? One to two small glasses of wine or a half/pint per day may offer some protection against type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It is likely that women should drink less than men, probably one drink compared to two for the guys. Small amounts of alcohol appear to increase HDL cholesterol and also to decrease the likelihood of clotting.

Ask yourself when you go out if you drink lots because you enjoy it and you crave that Sunday morning wine head, or do you think that it’s the done thing? Are you easily led or do you just have a few and lose track? If any of these apply to you, have a plan for a more balanced evening:

• Drink water in between alcoholic drinks

• Take a set amount of cash and no card

• Team up - there’s power in numbers and if a few of you are keen to decrease your alcohol intake, decrease your weight and increase your health, then your gang will become the social norm and others will follow you.

• Move abroad - ok so this is a bit extreme, but many cultures see drinking as a sociable event without having to consume copious amounts. We could learn a thing or two from our worldly-wise neighbours.

These are just a glassful of ideas, you can plan your own that works best for you.

balance your beer, balance your scales :-)