happiness tips

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Optimum Health Rest

Pillar 4 for Optimum Health: Rest Up (from The Guidebook to Optimum Health)

restRest up of fall downThis was actually the name of a chapter I included in The Guidebook to Happiness.The basics are this, when it comes to ‘SLEEP’:
  • The majority of the population need 7.5 – 9 hrs sleep (which means a big % of the population are sleep deprived).
  • Deep sleep, as opposed to interrupted or restless sleep, is essential for the mind to process short term to long term information (miss this and your brain will feel full, muddled and be less effective).
  • The body needs deep sleep to carry out the billions of repair and rejuvenation functions for optimum health.
  • Your body LOVES to rise with the sun and wind down when it gets dark. Go to bed earlier, so you can rise earlier. I recently interviewed Octavio Salvado (a yogi with a good Aussie name) who said rising with the sun is one of his Top 3 Happiness Tips and was a key teaching in yoga for 1000’s of years.
  • Stimulants like caffeine obviously affect most peoples depth and quality of sleep. Ease up on the caffeine later in the day.
  • To sleep better, keep to a regular routine, so the body gets used to the cycle.
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Book Optimum Health Physical Activity

Pillar 1 for Optimum Health: Physical Activity (from The Guidebook to Optimum Health)

activityNo surprises

The first Pillar (or key) to Optimum Health is – no surprises – physical activity. I can just imagine you reading this thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me something I don’t know. Did you know that physical activity actually helps with your memory, your cognitive functioning and neurogenesis (development of new neurons)? Physical activity is just as important for the brain as it for the body and internal systems. Sometimes we forget that. You are also likely to score better on tests or be more creative after you exercise. Now have I got your attention? 😉   Tal Ben-Sharar, a leader in the positive psychology field, said ‘Not exercising is like taking a depressant’. Oops. It turns out that exercise is one of the best stress management and stress resilience strategies we have. In many research situations exercise performs just as well as anti-depressants (without the side-effects).     

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Relationship

One of the Best Relationship Tips for 2014

relationshipAre you being realistic?

Picture this. Two people born in two different cities. Two different parents. Two different sets of beliefs installed. Two very different behaviours at play in the family environment. Two different schools. Two different groups of friends and influences. Two very different life experiences. Two different physical appearances. Two different interests, talents, and hobbies. I could go on, but I am sure you get the picture.

Now here is the big question: What are the chances that when these two people connect they will think, feel and behave in exactly the same way?

If your answer was anything other than NONE or VERY UNLIKELY then you definitely need to give me a call and we definitely need to chat. So we agree (apart from the people calling me shortly) that the chances of two people from two different places, families and life experiences having exactly the same values, beliefs, skills, mindsets, perspectives, outlooks, etc. is very very low.

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Categories
Choice Emotional Feeling Happiness Tips

The Greatest Thing Being Sick Teaches Us

sickThere is no such thing as failure (or being ill), only FEEDBACK.

What is the feedback telling you?

The biggest opportunity we are given when we are sick is pretty clear communication from our body. And since our brain is hard-wired into the body, you can assume when the body speaks, it is our subconscious mind communicating with us. Dr Darren Weissman – one of the leaders in mind-body field – tells us, if we did not consciously choose something, then it is coming compliments of the subconscious mind. What might your subconscious mind be telling us when we get sick?

Could it be saying to slow down? Or ease up on the Oreo’s. Or get more sleep? Or let go of the worrying about things you don’t control? Or accept that change is inevitable. It is time to sit up and pay close attention especially before the symptoms get really serious. This is the greatest opportunity we have whenever we are sick. The best thing we can do is to listen to it when it is just a tap on our shoulder, rather than ignoring the tap, and setting ourselves up for something a whole lot worse.

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Categories
Happiness Tips Life Coaching

Discover 5 Ways to Tap into More of Your Potential (If You Are Not Using 100% Already)

potential2So you are like the rest of us and know at some level there is more of you to come? Sometimes realising we are holding back, or playing too safe a hand, or letting fear stop us, is an incredible opportunity for growth. So let’s look at 5 ways to tap into even more of your potential. 

Tip 1: Look in the mirror

This is about accountability. Not beating yourself up. It is having an honest look at yourself and asking if there is more in you. We have already realised there is. When we look at ourselves and acknowledge that we might actually be holding ourselves back (as opposed to something or someone outside of ourselves), it also makes it very clear we have the power to change the situation. This is you seeing what physics calls ‘potential energy’. Know it in every fibre of your being (as scary as it is to acknowledge) you have a LOT more in you, waiting to be liberated and utilised to create an even better life.

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Categories
Choice Doubt Happiness Tips

5 Tips to Creating Powerful Momentum (when you are feeling stuck)

momentumTo keep the momentum going I am going to just jump straight in. How is that for momentum!!

Momentum Tip 1: Don’t make it about yourself

This is first and I think most important. It is what got me moving to write this newsletter when the other option was to kick back and read a book on this wet Bali morning (which for the record was VERY appealing). When I stop thinking about myself and start thinking about how I can help others, or serve others, or support others, it makes me dip into a source of creative energy much bigger than me. Quite often we will do more because of another person or for another person than we will do for ourselves. So focus on how you can help others. When you focus on serving others, you are also likely to be liberating some healthy brain chemicals to turn up your emotional energy.

Momentum Tip 2: Connect to the bigger picture

This is for two reasons really:

1. When you put things into perspective and given you are going to live for about another 50 years or so, is the two weeks where you worked at 40% productivity instead of 80% really going to matter? As much as I would like to think I make that much difference, the reality is my 2 weeks at half pace will mean nothing to me in 6-months time. So stop beating yourself up and just consider how you can change things from today forward. Which takes me to the next point.

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Categories
Goal Setting Tips Happiness Tips

3 Essential Goal Setting Tips to Tapping Into Your Full Potential in 2014

Blog-8Let us start with a question. Put your hand up in the air if you are using 100% of your potential? For all of those who have not still got their hand in the air then I encourage you to read on. For the record, my hand is down too. Firstly, it really is in our best interests to take the time out at the start of the year (or month / week / day) to get clear about where we want to go. If you took an entire day or even an entire week at the start of the year to get clear about what you want, it would be a very intelligent investment. You ROI would likely be huge. Your results would be worth the time you committed at the start of the project called ‘Your Incredible Life’. So know that old saying (which was drummed into us in the military) ‘time spent in planning is rarely wasted’ actually makes a wee bit of sense.

Categories
Gratitude Money

How to Reset Your Money Mindset

moneyWe all have them at times. Them being ‘money issues’.

Whether it is a homeless person or a billionaire. We have all experienced stress when it comes to money and the thinking that does with it. So I am just going to give you a list of some of the most effective Tips I know and have used (sometimes more diligently than others) when it comes to MONEY$$$$$$.

 

1. What are you telling yourself?

What are your beliefs on money? What is the loop recording you play in your mind when it comes to money? Below are a few of my favourites from clients I have coached over the years:

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Categories
Rest Stress

How to Reduce Your Stress by Over 30%

RESTJust last night I was coaching a client who experiences pretty high levels of stress, some pretty severe back pain and with a bunch of anxiety thrown in every now and again. Have you ever been down this road yourself? I know I have. And I still do occasionally, until I remind myself of what I am about to share with you now.

It’s OK

In fact, as I recently posted on Facebook, it is ok to be ok with ok. And once again… It is ok to be ok with ok.

I just wanted to leave that sit with you awhile. In the crazy world we live in, there are sometimes some really unrealistic expectations that we perform at 110% every minute of the day. We see that motivational expert or highly successful person who is on stage or on TV and ramping things up to 120% and we think, ‘If only I could be like that’. What they don’t show you is the down time that these people need either side of the ‘big performance’ so they can actually sustain the 120% when the ‘show’ is on. Or the bit where they collapse in a heap because they have not allowed their body to rest.

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Categories
Happiness Tips

Are You ‘Shoulding’ Your Way to Discontentment?

shouldThis Happiness Tip is simple, but HUGE!!

The scientific reason why

Psychologist don’t tend to agree on much, since they are coming from different angles; but one thing they do agree on is that one of our basic human needs is to feel a sense of autonomy. We are more happy when we have a sense of autonomy. That is; we feel that we are in control, or have a significant degree of control in our lives. Whether it is at work, in our relationships, or with our health. If we feel no autonomy, chances are that we will be feeling pretty crap on a consistent basis (aka: ‘out of control’).

The Happiness Tip

Be very conscious of your use of the word SHOULD. In fact I have worked on removing it from my vocabulary all together. Whether it is saying it to myself or to others.

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