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Modern versions of a sabre-toothed tiger
Modern versions of a sabre-toothed tiger In the last blog: Our old-fashioned stress response, we discussed how our stress alerts can keep us in constant state of alert disproportionate to the situations we find ourselves in. This can lead to problems with our health and well-being. This time we are sharing a story taken from Anger Kills by Redford and Virginia Williams page 25. This is a very useful book on hostility—one of Redford Williams main subjects of research. The story charts what happens in a person’s body when they suffer irritation...
read moreOur old-fashioned stress response
Fight or flight When we lived as hunter-gatherers in small tribes life was hard and much shorter than the average time we can hope to live for now. Tribes worked together to collect food, protect their young and defend their territory. From time to time a member of the tribe might face a life-threatening situation—like being chased by a sabre-toothed tiger. In order to meet the challenges of such an event their fight-or-flight mechanism would kick in preparing their body to stand and fight, or to run for their lives. We have just the same...
read moreHard Wired to Connect
One of the aims of this blog is to share different voices and their experience of applying mindfulness, meditation and compassion in the workplace. This week I am very happy to introduce a blog from my friend and colleague Darran Trute. I hope you enjoy reading! The training offered by Awareness in Action, provides the vision and ability to apply the techniques of mindfulness, meditation and compassion into our working life. As well as feeling the immediate helpful benefits of such techniques myself, which is my own direct measure, I also...
read moreFour ways to stop work getting on top of you
Well-being for people at work is an important element of any Awareness in Action workshop. We go into the whole issue pretty thoroughly but to get people started we introduce these four simple ways of taking better care of themselves. 1.Changing your routine Routines can help us accomplish tasks quickly and efficiently but if we hang on to them too tightly they can also be a way of getting ourselves into a rut and closing down possibilities. Neuroscience is helping us understand a great deal about our brains—particularly the discovery of...
read moreBeing able to imagine yourself in the other person’s wheelchair
In the last couple of months, trouble with first one knee and then the other necessitated a period of needing airport assistance when I fly. It’s a delicate situation where it is possible to feel quite vulnerable, even exposed and it has been a real discovery to meet the people whose job it is to deliver this kind of support. Basically, you get put into a wheelchair, or on to a buggy and are zipped through passport control and security at top speed with minimum inconvenience—unless you feel being delivered like a package to your plane count...
read moreMerry Christmas and an auspicious New Year!
Thank for supporting the launch and early weeks of the Awareness in Action BLOG. It has been great to receive so many comments and so much support. In the new year we’ll be absorbing some of the feedback you’ve shared and making some changes to the presentation of the BLOG. Have a wonderful holiday period and look forward to blogging with you in...
read moreMeeting Madness
We all know that meetings can be a challenge in so many different ways from trying to get a project idea approved, to simply surviving the boredom but they can also be an opportunity to apply some techniques of mindfulness, empathy and kindness. Getting started Some of the groups we work with in Awareness in Action have made it a habit to begin a meeting with a few moments of silence to help people arrive and settle but this is not always something you can make happen. However, you can take a moment yourself while other people are settling...
read moreFinding someone difficult at work? Try smiling at them!
[tube]P-cJdQ6swWo[/tube] There are friends of mine who would make a big deal out of saying how yucky the idea is of walking around with a big photo of your smile and showing it to people but I would challenge them to watch this video and not feel moved by the responses that the artist Claire Lemmel inspires with her photo. It brought home to me how easy it is to forget to smile when we get absorbed at work. There’s always so much to do in such short amount of time, as well as worrying about all the things to be done once we get out of work...
read moreMy mood can become your problem
Recently I was doing a piece of work in a rural area of the south of France—very pleasant in some ways but in terms of communication and internet, frequently frustrating. After two interminable days of not even being able to use a dial-up system to retrieve email I turned, in some desperation, to an acquaintance who runs a small IT unit in the area, and who had helped me out before. Over the phone, as I explained my situation and asked for advice on how to get on even a slow-line, I could sense his reluctance and eventually impatience with my...
read moreIs gritting your teeth really good for you?
On a recent return flight to Amsterdam from the UK I overheard a fellow-passenger giving a flight attendant a really bad time. It was hard to catch the full story from where I was sitting but it involved the passenger asking for hot water in a plastic, see-through cup. Apparently cups of this sort are not safe to hold hot water and the only alternative was the purchase—for three euros—of a polystyrene cup. Not surprisingly the passenger found this rather excessive. What was more surprising was his response—he proceeded to cross-examine the...
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