The sounds of the sea shore to relax to.

I love being by the sea and I'm lucky that I can travel to my nearest beach in only half an hour. Being there helps to keep me calm and relaxed.

It's a shingle beach and so the sounds you hear are those of the waves crashing over the pebbles. Today I took some time out to record that sound. Here are 10 minutes to imagine yourself sitting by the sea shore.


It was recorded at West Bay in Dorset on 24th February 2014.

Hot weather = grumpiness outbreak?

In the UK we seem to spend most of the year yearning for the warm weather; when it arrives all we do is moan!

Too hot, too sticky, too humid were all phrases I heard yesterday and the fact is that particularly in hot humid conditions tempers do seem to get frayed more easily.

This doesn't just apply to adults, children can get the grumps too, as my almost two year daughter demonstrated last night.

Cold drinks and a fan will help, but just as we get used to the idea of high temperatures, the weather forecasters tell us that it is about to end. Light showers are expected and we'll probably moan about that whilst being just slightly pleased by the return of cooler temperatures.

If you are feeling very frazzled you could always try my Ultimate Relaxation download here.

This really shouldn't be a surprise

The recession is causing anxiety and stress.
The ongoing recession is causing a rise in the number of people going to their family doctor to deal with stress and anxiety.

Reports from many different parts of the media essentially all confirm the same story, that a recession is bad for our mental well being. The worry about whether we will be the next victim of redundancy and the concern about how one might pay the bills lead to a feeling of being permanently stressed. All this on top of actually trying to perform a job in the worst market conditions for many for decades.
A medical response?
For many people this will prompt a visit to the family doctor to help deal with the issue. Those visits to the GP (family doctor) are likely to lead to a chemical approach to deal with the symptoms of the problem. Beta Blockers and anti-depressants are often the first response to this stress and yet this will not solve the underlying problem, to a greater or lessor degree it will only relieve the symptoms.

Is there an alternative?
When faced with overwhelming pressure or anxiety there a few ways to deal with it effectively:
Ask yourself
1) Can you change the situation?
if not, can you...
2) Move away from the problem?
if not can you...
3) Change the way you think about the situation?

In the current financial climate it is often only option 3 that is open to us but without some tools to help, this approach can feel daunting.

A useful start can be made by learning a useful way to relax in spite of the difficulties. A self hypnosis recording is one way to achieve this and I have put one of my recordings online for you to download. Visit my www.gift4life.com website and enter your email address to get the MP3 relaxation download.

A useful start
Listening to the recording once or even twice a day can allow you to find a more resourceful state to begin the next phase of dealing with pressure . More on this approach tomorrow when I'll talk about a practical approach to the use of affirmations.

No doom and gloom here!

There has been so much doom and gloom in the news recently that I thought I would do one small thing to turn back the tide.

Even though many people have only been back at work for a few days, news reports are saying that we feel as stressed out now as we did before Christmas.

Ok, let's change that. Watch the video below for 8 minutes of de-stress relaxation and let me know how you enjoyed it. Let's call this a credit crunch busting relaxation video. By the way, the pictures are from Yosemite in the USA.