Watch out for increasing stress levels

An old work colleague called the other day. It was a while since we had last spoken. He started a new job about six months ago and then the company got bought out; there were redundancies and he had to re-apply for his own job. All very stressful.

As we chatted he mentioned his problem; on his way into work he realised the side of his face felt funny. His eye lid was drooping and his lips felt loose as if he had been injected with pain killers at the dentist.

Clearly something was wrong...but he still went into work!

His work colleagues were aghast when they saw him, one side of his face had drooped alarmingly and they were afraid that he may have had a stroke. They offered to call an ambulance and he said NO to that. They sent him off to hospital though, after much examination the Doctor said "Bells palsy".

If you have not heard of it before, here is the description from Wikipedia.

Bell's palsy is a paralysis of cranial nerve VII (the facial nerve) resulting in inability to control facial muscles on the affected side. Several conditions can cause a facial paralysis, e.g., brain tumor, stroke, and Lyme disease. However, if no specific cause can be identified, the condition is known as Bell's palsy. Named after Scottish anatomist Charles Bell, who first described it, Bell's palsy is the most common acute mononeuropathy (disease involving only one nerve) and is the most common cause of acute facial nerve paralysis.

Now this man is being forced to take a three week holiday. Thankfully the symptoms are subsiding and he is almost back to normal. In his case the Doctor believed that stress possibly coupled with a viral infection probably caused the problem.

Sometimes we really should pay more attention to our own health and the level of stress we are under. This time it was a warning to take things a little easier, next time? Who knows.

You can help to de-stress yourself with the aid of my free MP3 relaxation recording. Go to www.gift4life.com and put your email and name in the on-screen form. You could be relaxing in just a few minutes time.

Day 7 of the 'no news' experiment

Subversion!

I have recognised that part of me really wants to catch up on the news. So far, I have for the most part been able to resist the siren call of the Today program on Radio 4 or the purchase of a newspaper, but it is suprising just how strong a hold the instant news media has on my thoughts.

It's as if I feel I may be missing out on something. (Missing out on by upset with politics or world events, that does not seem to make much sense.)

Actually I think it may be more to do with our perception that if something is 'on the news' we are somehow involved with it, that we can be part of the grand debate.

But the reality of course is that very few of us are part of that debate. I may write to my MP but does anyone else in Parliament listen? Probably not. I can make a change with a vote every few years but what about the time in between?

So the logical conclusion I am begining to come to is that I (and perhaps many other people) am just a little bit delusional.

What?

Delusional in the sense that in the past I have seen the act of watching and listening to the news as being involved in 'the process'; as being engaged as a citizen. The truth is rather more humdrum, listening to the the news is not being engaged with the process. If this were the case our two cats would be politicians considering the amount of time they spend curled up near the TV.

So new choices become apparent, I could join a political party and get 'engaged in the process' that way. Not bloody likely; too many compromises to accomodate the mass of people in a party.

I could engage in more local politics but I have a feeling that this would rapidly be dragged into party factionalism.

Or (and this feels like the right approach) choose who and what I engage with and limit what I do to the places and things where I can make a measureable change.

If you or I complain about something (Politicians for example) we can only do so because we have a idea of how things could be done better. Complaining without being able to change anything is a recipe for frustration and feelings of impotence.

Since our complaints are for the most part ignored, we are destined to put ourselves continually into that bubbling pot of frustration, impotence and discontent.

It's sounds obvious but if you can't change things you still have choices:

Move away from what you don't like (emigrate, change location or situation)

Put up with what you don't like (shrug your shoulders and carry on)

Change your perception of what you don't like (Yes the situation is rubbish but it's not my rubbish)

Ultimately you can only change what's local to you. If you are a Prime Minister or a President, local may mean a whole nation, or it may just mean what you grow in your back garden. Trying to change anything else puts you back into that bubbling pot and that place does not allow us to grow, get stronger, develop or change.

Day 5 of the 'no news' experiment

I am now starting to feel slightly disconnected from the mainstream news events.

It's a little like when you go on holiday and only see the news through the medium of the occasional three day old newspaper flown into the resort.

Now the positive changes are becoming more apparent; I am getting stuck into some tasks that were continually being pushed to the back of the queue and have reclaimed at least an hour of time each day.

The results are positive enough that I plan to continue the experiment and report on what I find.

Day 3 of the 'no news' experiment

This is getting harder.

Last night I wanted to watch "Have I got news for you?" on the telly.

My wife said "But it's news, you said you wouldn't watch the news".

My response? "It's comedy, I'm watching!".

It is getting difficult to avoid mainstream news though. It just goes to show how pervasive the news media is and just how 'plugged in' I have become.

I have however successfully avoided the main TV news on any channel, the Today program and PM on Radio 4. Web sites are a challenge as there is almost always a news snippet on the from page of Yahoo and iGoogle. It is so easy to get sucked in to the agenda of the day.

Am I feeling any different? Not much change so far but it is still very early days.

Listening to Denis Waitley on CD

Yesterday I listened to a CD of a seminar that included a session by Denis Waitley. It was very inspiring stuff, totally different in style to Jim Rohn.

On this particular CD he talked about the current Global Trends (including the greying of the population) and the impact they have on all business. He bangs out the quotable lines like a machine gun, "I looked in the mirror and saw my problem; me".

Denis said "The mind always towards it dominate thought, if you're not setting a goal MTV will set one for you" he might also have said the news media in place of MTV.

I had not heard of Denis before but I will looking at his published works now.

Day 2 of the 'no news' experiment

I set myself the challenge of releasing my inner News Junkie a couple days back. Yesterday was my first full day of avoiding the negative programming of the global news media.

What can I report?

Well I did get hit by one 90 second news update from the BBC, they sneak it in between programs. I also caught myself checking the headlines on the newspapers in the supermarket. Clearly the News Junkie is looking for a fix.

Apart from that no other changes to report in my outlook but then it is very early days.

Am I (or you) a news junkie?

I have come to realise that listening to the news may well be having a negative impact on my life.

What do I mean by that?

It has become clearer to me that 'the news' media seek to create the maximum amount of drama out of any given situation; a Government minister resigning is not just a man resigning it is a 'crisis for the Government'. Someone dying is not simply sad it is a 'tragedy' (it is for him and his family but is it for me?). News by its current definition is almost universally the imparting of bad rather than good news. My very unscientific view is that 90% of what we hear as news is profoundly negative in content and style of delivery.

So 90% of the time that I spend watching a TV news program I am being subjected to a stream of very negative programming about how awful the world is today. That much programming has to have a negative effect on my own thoughts processes and ability to think rationally about the world around me.

So for the next seven days I am going to try a 'no news experiment'. I will avoid watching all TV news programs (that should claim back a few hours of my time each week) and avoid the current affairs programs on the radio when I travel in the car.

I'm doing this because I feel as if I have become a bit of a news junkie. I routinely get up at 5am, at 5.30 I'll watch the financial news (that is never good), then I 'll catch 15 minutes of breakfast TV (rarely good) and if I'm travelling in the car I'll listen to a current affairs program on the radio (mostly bad but some good spots). If I don't get my 'fix' I think I may have missed something important, so I keep listening or watching; no wonder there are times when it get me down!

All this negative programming can really only raise fear and anxiety and there is already plenty of that to go around; So I'm boycotting bad news.

I'll let you know how I get on but I wonder if you are a bit of a news junkie too?

Listening to Jim Rohn

As I travelled in the car today, I was listening to a CD from a seminar that Jim Rohn gave in 2004. Jim has been on the motivational speaker circuit since the mid 1960s and is still active today even though he is almost 80 years old.

He talks about life and business as being like the seasons of the year and how every season has its time but you can always know what is coming next. I think it's fair to say that in the current times we are going through an economic winter period, a time to hunker down, stay warm and plan what to plant in the spring.

I like this approach to looking at the current economic difficulties because it reminds us that even after the worst of times, there are good things that can and do follow. Life is, as he says, "a drama" and without that drama there would be no striving to make things better.

Winter of course is followed by spring when we plant the seeds that will later blossom into fine sources of harvest in the autumn. The summer is a time to both nurture and protect the crops that will provide that harvest.



If all this sounds a bit 'down home' then remember that not that long ago a Chancellor called Gordon Brown proudly announced "the end of boom and bust". He was wrong and if he had listened to Jim Rohn I don't think he would have said those words that came back to haunt him with such ferocity.

Communication skills

This blog often has entries that centre on the ability to communicate. But it's not just English to English communication that counts.

What happens when you have repair manuals for aircraft written in English and Spanish speaking mechanics doing the work? What happens when they can't even read English? How safe do you think those repairs are going to be?

(How on earth did the management think that this was a good idea?)

This story is quite enough to put me off flying to Texas. Click here for the full thing.

Wilting in the heat

Yesterday I had to travel to South Devon, the weather was glorious, the sun shone and the temperature rose to around 26 degrees C. In the car, behind the glass it was rather warmer than that.

The air conditioning in the car, struggled to control the heat and mostly blew hot air back into the cabin. I have a notion of what it might feel like to be stuck in a fan oven now.

So with windows wound down I continued my journey, the return leg of which was diverted off the main road. Hot, tired and parched I sought out somewhere to stop for a drink, not easy as there were few villages with a shop open on the roads I was travelling down.

Eventually I found an old style garage; only two fuel pumps but they did have a shop with cold drinks. Water appeared to be in short supply, Coke or Red Bull seemed to be the main choices (can of Red Bull £0.99 in this tiny shop, £1.69 in a motorway service area...someone is raking it in.)

Red Bull it was then, as I slaked my thirst I took a moment to read the ingredient list. Caffeine and glucose I know about but what the heck is this Taurine stuff?

Some people had even told me Taurine was dangerous, the devil's own brew.

So I checked it out; Taurine is a natural product that we get from meat or fish. It is a kind of amino acid (but not quite the same as others as it lacks a carboxyl group) and was first isolated from Ox bile hence the Taurine name.

So the big news is....Taurine is mostly harmless, can even be necessary and useful to increase the pumping action of the heart.

When combined with caffeine it can increase alertness and mood, which is pretty close to what Red Bull claim!

Cautions: Don't drink more than two cans in one session, it can lead to heart arrhythmia (palpitations) and in extreme cases the combination of dehydration following vigorous exercise and too much caffeine may trigger a latent heart condition.

Red Bull it seems, is about as safe as strong coffee and much better at cooling you off in a hot car than a cup of java!