Think again. Brett Blumenthal suggests we all breathe in a very shallow way essentially from our chests and not our tummies. No argument from me the anxious bunny on that one…..

Shallow breathing makes us feel more anxious while deep breathing increases the oxygen to our brains and our brain sends the message to our bodies to relax, which decreases our heart rate and reduces blood pressure. So deep breathing can help relieve stress, lower blood pressure and aid digestion which are all things I struggle with every day……. (I’m having an honest moment here).

My coach Jenny Mc Nulty taught me many years ago to breathe deeply for 2 – 5 minutes before big, complex, difficult meeting or presentation or event. This exercise from my experience actually does all Mr Blumenthal suggests and more. With the increased flow of oxygen to our brains we actually think more clearly which helps with problem solving and decision-making and one could claim – being more effective.  There are lots of breathing exercises I am sure you all know but here is one for you to try…..

Jenny McNulty taught me a great breathing exercise which can be done anywhere. You can do it in the car on the way home when you are stuck in traffic – just don’t close your eyes! Or in a meeting while you are tense. Or before a meeting in a quiet office or space.  Or in your garden if you are blessed enough to work from home.

Sit squarely in a chair with your feet on the floor. Your arms should be relaxed at your sides. Close your eyes; but obviously only if appropriate; and imagine your stress levels on a thermometer. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. The out breath should be to the count of 20. Repeat 20 times. You can place your hand on your tummy and should feel those muscles contracting and relaxing. Imagine the red line on the thermometer decreasing. Become aware of your own sense of stress, heart rate and shallowness of breathing. Measure if you feel calmer and more alert and more centred and in control. 

Please beware the 2 minutes this takes to do will feel like about 10 minutes so please time yourself and persevere. If you are an action bunny this will take some discipline but I challenge you to give it a go!

You will get the same effect from singing because when we sing we breathe in through our noses and out slowly through our mouths while we are singing so if the sitting still doesn’t work for you have a good singing session in the shower or your car while driving…. This is obviously not an option for the Boardroom!

Try it and let me know your experience…..

Take care

Once again from Brett Blumenthal’s book 52 Small Changes: One Year to a Happier Healthier You I loved the quotation at the start of the chapter “Don’t eat anything your Grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food” attributed to Michael Pollan

This is indeed a tough one with so many options for fast, easy, quick food. The chapter though gives invaluable advice about how to read the packaging to determine how healthy the contents of the packet or tin really are.

You need to start with the ingredients list which includes foods, spices and chemicals included in the product. (The chemical bit is scary – and my grandmother wouldn’t have recognised these as food….) anyway I digress. The ingredients are listed by weight so the ingredients which make up most of the product are at the top of the list moving down to the least in weight. Some advice that makes sense:

1. Avoid refined, bleached or unbleached flour
2. Processed ingredients not found in nature and also no longer whole. More about this later
3. Ingredients you can’t pronounce or that start with artificial
4. Added fats, oils or sugars
5. Avoid products  with more than 5 ingredients

Just from this list I could significantly reduce the food in my current grocery cupboards……. Food for thought if you will forgive the pun!

Then read the nutritional panel which:

1. Delineates the serving size
2. The calories from 1 serving which tells you the energy you will receive
3. Calories from fat. Interesting to note 1 fat calorie = 9 food calories so fat content should be about 20% of you food eat
4. Total fat breakdown into healthy and unhealthy fats. Saturated fats – unhealthy, trans fat very unhealthy and should be eliminated, polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats – these are the good uns.
5. Opt for low cholesterol low sodium options
6. Opt for high fibre carbohydrates
7. Whole grain food is most beneficial
8. Lowest sugar option
9. You need to balance protein with carbohydrate and fat intake

These are highly summarised tips so please read the book if you want to understand this more.

It was great fun to take two different cereals from my cupboard and compare them one to the other. The one involved rice as a base and the other corn. Based on the advice from Mr Blumenthal the corn-based cereal was much healthier on every measure….. Would never have guessed……

Finally because I am gluten intolerant so I bought both these cereals because rice and corn have no gluten in them….. BUT both the cereals DO! That was the real revelation from this exercise….. NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING! ……. and always read the packet is my take away from this one…..

Take care

In my journey as a student in the University of Life I completed a degree in socio-cultural anthropology. I absolutely loved learning about culture and how culture impacts our worldview.

The most exciting part of the journey for me was the degree of diversity in our world. Previously I had appreciated the major differences between “East” and “West” or Asia, Europe, Africa and North and South America but at such a macro level I am sure we all do. In studying anthropology for 3 years it was the studying of a few cultures in great detail that stretched my mind. The Yanamamo  people from South America, the Inuit and the San. For me the world went from one way of living to many, like moving from a “black” and “white” world to one of a multitude colours far more than any rainbow.

And so began my personal love affair with crossing cultures….. exploring and revelling in diversity of ideas, beliefs, language, food, art, music, that remains fascinating, intriguing and challenging 20 years later.

From this experience I have learnt that when in a cross cultural setting I focus on being aware of difference and my own response to the differences around me. If I feel any discomfort or unease I try to take myself to a place of curiosity rather than evaluation and judgement…… so the first step to cross cultures is to develop personal awareness.

Awareness is important because often my reaction is a gut feel one below my level of awareness. All too quickly I retreat to my comfort zone and dismiss a possible learning opportunity. Recently my husband and I entertained a young woman from Uganda. We got to talking about different food and how to cook and eat them. Ugandans eat green bananas which South Africans never do and I have green bananas growing in my garden. As it’s winter in the southern hemisphere they aren’t going to ripen and in the past the green winter bananas have gone to waste. My new friend cooked us a green banana and it was delicious! Tasted a lot like potato….. It was my husband’s curiousity and willingness to experiment and my friends open sharing that led us on this small adventure.

I simply missed all the cues due to low awareness of opportunity and low curiosity required for this opportunity to become a real experience. I was blessed to have been with others who were more open or this learning and sharing opportunity would have passed me by……

So step one: Become more aware………

Step two – get curious………..

I’m working on my awareness, curiosity and the openness to explore thereby increasing the possibility to learn from everyone I meet something new, something different, something enriching.

Have a “learningful” week.