Health check….how do you rate?

We just love our yoga!

Do you believe that our state of health affects our happiness?? I do.  If you had a house and it was run down…the foundations were weak, the walls were cracking, the windows were busted, the roof leaked, there was rubbish piled up and the garden was overgrown….do you think it would be a good place to live…a healthy place??? 

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Happiness is like a jigsaw puzzle…..

Im a work in progress….

The road to happiness is not a one size fits all, do one magical thing and you get to live happily ever after.  I like to think of it like a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces required to make your happy picture make sense. Like jigsaw puzzles it will take time, effort and commitment to make it all come together. So where do we start?

Gratitude…………….. one site fits all!

I am grateful to be alive!

Well it has been forever since my last post. Life has been a little busy lately.
Over the years I have come to learn that when life gets hectic that it is really important to have a few key coping mechanisms to help get you through. As we age, most of us get more resilient, we learn better ways to cope, we have learnt what works best for us and more importantly, what to steer clear of. I know for myself I have a couple of key coping mechanisms that always help. One is to talk; sharing the load to a trusted friend, partner or family member always helps. Another is to be grateful. Studies have shown that those people in this crazy world who are the happiest are those who are the most grateful. Why is this so?

Coping skills……..what helps???

OH NO!!! How am I going to cope with this????

How do you cope??  When the nerves are frayed, tension is in the air, conflict is lurking, stresses abound, problems need to be solved, your work place has issues, and/or your relationships are going through problems….what do you do/think/say/feel to help get you through.  How come some seem to cope better than others??  What can we do to help?? Well believe it or not we have been learning how to cope since birth.  As babies we begin our learning by how our needs were met….through to the toddler years and how we coped when we fell, when we were hurt….right up until now?  You may not realise it but you probably have many great coping skills that help you on a daily basis.  I believe that if you are more aware of these skills the better you are prepared for daily battles and situations. 

Do you sometimes get stressed???

I'm not stressed...who said I was stressed...what are you on about??

Are you a worrier?  Do you find yourself getting stressed more often than you would like? Would you say that you suffer from some type of stress on a daily or weekly basis? Do you realise that it can massively affect your health and your ability to cope?  Stress is a bodily reaction to a fear or danger….hormones are released to prepare us to escape danger or to fend off a threat. You may have heard of this being called our “Flight or Fight response.”  There are definitely situations that require these responses….say, you arrive at a car accident and need to get in there and save people…your stress response with put you in “Action mode”…your strength will increase, your senses will sharpen and panic will be taken over by action.  We have all seen or heard of stories of amazing heroic acts when the heroes don’t even know where their strength or ability to cope came from. It comes from Adrenaline and Cortisol, hormones that assist in our “Flight or fight response”. In an emergency these hormones are extremely
helpful in assisting us to cope, but on a daily basis the release of these hormones can be harmful.  We are not built for constant stress or worry.  These hormones stay in our body, they are not taken up to fend off or escape from impending danger. Small amounts of stress are okay but when we stress/worry too much, we actually affect our health.

Resilience…..what do you do when things get tough???

I can get through this....I know I can.

We are told that we should let our children play in the dirt, let them get muddy as it helps them to build up a healthy resistance to bugs……if we wrap
them up in cotton wool their immune systems don’t get a chance to strengthen. What do we call this???? Resilience…….