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Visit our website www.in-equilibrium.co.uk for information on the following:
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| You probably know that your body temperature is a key factor in how well you sleep at night. But did you know that once in bed you actually start to lose heat through your face, hands and feet as your body prepares for sleep? If your bedroom is too hot you won't be able to lose heat adequately, which can result in a broken night's sleep. A good reason to adjust your heating thermostat to the right temp for these autumn nights - it's not quite winter yet!!
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Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success. Charles F Kettering (1876-1958, American Engineer, Inventor) |
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Why is it that some people can overcome adversity and others can’t? Why are some people more prone to depression than others? How can some sales people keep going despite getting one ‘no’ after another, while some give up after the first ‘no’? This brilliant and important paperback answers these questions. Martin Seligman is one of the most important psychologists of the last fifty years. His early work on ‘learned helplessness’ proved that in an expectation of failure for example, the thought that ‘nothing I can do will make any difference’, dramatically increases the risk of depression. In his early experiments he found that animals that could not influence the outcome of stressful events (in this case, getting an electric shock) became helpless. This ‘learned helplessness’ is also shown by most humans in exactly the same way. However, a minority of experimental subjects bucked the trend. Some of us he found, even in the face of extreme adversity that we cannot control, don’t give up and don’t become helpless. It’s all down to our ‘explanatory style’, how we think about and rationalise the bad things that happen to us. Seligman discovered that the resilient people were optimists. Optimists tend to think of adversity as temporary, specific, and external, whereas for pessimists adversity is more likely to be thought of in permanent, pervasive and personal ways. For example, sales people have to make cold calls and get a lot of knock-backs. The pessimistic salesman might think: ‘I hate cold calling. I just annoy people and I’m not cut out for selling’. The optimistic salesman might think: ‘I gave it my best shot, but she was obviously in a bad mood’. Maybe she had a bad day at work.’ The pessimist is likely to very quickly give up and feel depressed, whereas the optimist will keep going and not feel depressed because he doesn’t feel responsible for the poor outcome. Using this book, you can find out how optimistic or pessimistic you really are (you might be surprised), and how this affects you in different ways. Seligman clearly demonstrates how you can train yourself to be more optimistic and challenge or ‘dispute’ your pessimistic thoughts and ‘catastrophising’. It’s not a book about positive thinking as such. There are times when it is appropriate to be pessimistic. Rather it is about finding appropriate thinking strategies that maximise your chances of success and happiness, while minimising your risk of illness and depression, especially when confronted by adversity. The advice given in this book is not opinion or hype. Seligman’s work is based upon many years of hard research with control groups. We can say with real conviction that this stuff works! Alan Bradshaw To Buy 'Learned Optimism' click here
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I’ve done a lot of sitting recently, so much so in fact that there now is a permanent indentation the shape of… well I’m sure you can guess… on my settee directly opposite the telly. “Sloth” would be my answer to the question: “Which sin describes you best?” Actually it’s really a habit, a very bad habit that I’ve acquired. As a kid and a teenager, I was never in and was so active that every night before going to bed I ate six pieces of generously buttered toast and was thin as a rake, not the case now alas. I played football, cricket (if you think it is a gentle game you’d be very wrong), basketball, golf, and I ran a lot, and that was just on Monday. I was never driven anywhere as far as I can remember, but the thought never occurred to me I was deprived. So I also walked a lot. The trouble is that sloth is killing us and making us unhappy. Fat kids used to be a rare sight. Now, half the kids in the playground are overweight or obese. These are the sick adults of the future who will develop heart disease, cancer and diabetes as a result of their weight. Unfortunately, passivity also contributes to another modern-day epidemic: depression. Recent research has shown our average mood when watching telly is mildly depressed, and that there is a strong correlation between time spent on the internet and symptoms of depression. There are great ironies here. We live in stressful times yet we have never been more passive. The irony is that high levels of pressure or demands and having a low sense of control is the single worst recipe for our mental health and wellbeing. And of course, internet use and telly watching are often solitary or at the least non-social activities. Another irony then is that the isolation that passivity brings is without doubt a killer, while social support is the greatest buffer against stress. But the greatest irony of all is that we have become, in some ways, a victim of ‘progress’. We have never been better off and had more ‘things’. Unfortunately the ‘things’ make life ‘easier’. The best example I can think of is the remote control. Now we don’t even have to get up to change channels! Hence the bum-shaped indentation on my settee after 48 hours of the Open golf. But what can we do? What can I do? Personally, I’m going to go to the pub more. Sorry to disappoint you all! You didn’t think I was going to give up all my bad habits did you? If I really need a beer, at least I’ll have to walk a mile to get one. Normally I only have to walk to the fridge. Also the beer will cost more so I’ll drink less. And going to the pub is more likely to be social. I will talk more and vegetate less. And I’ll go up Cemetery Brae (brae is Scots for hill) on the way to the pub. Actually ‘cemetery’ is highly appropriate as you feel like death at the top. Now it’s your turn, so don’t just sit there…. Alan Bradshaw |
5. The DMB nightingale conant article: The Ultimate Goals Program by Brian Tracy |
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Over
the last fifteen years I have used various audiocassette programmes by
Brian Tracy with my one-to-one patients. This is Brian Tracy's latest
programme on goal-setting and goal-achieving based on his vast experience
over thirty years.
As
you listen to this programme and implement it's tools, you will learn
the keys to unlimited personal and professional achievement in all areas
of your life. Dr. David Mason Brown. P.S. Please remember that this programme can, like all Nightingale-Conant programmes, be requested on a thirty-day trial basis |
An affirmation is a positive thought that you repeat to yourself on a regular basis. Using affirmations allows you to select quality messages that you can send to your unconscious that have a positive effect on your health, wellbeing and performance. The next time you are driving a reasonable distance with a headache use this as an opportunity to combine the power of words with the power of thought. Start to repeat to yourself over and over “ My head feels fine” or “My head feels relaxed and at ease”. Nearly everyone (including me) who tries this for the first time can hear their critical self in the background saying “What a load of baloney, this will never work!” However as with most things in life perseverance is crucial and believe it or not most people find that as the thought takes root the headache symptoms start to lessen and after half an hour or so you will suddenly remember that you did have a headache, but it has now gone. Never, ever, underestimate the power of your mind. The most common successful uses of affirmations are in the areas of health and performance. There have been thousands of studies that have proved beyond doubt that positive affirmations improve people’s health. Also the world of professional sport discovered long ago that performance improves after an individual starts to regularly use affirmations. Probably the biggest threat to the adoption of affirmations is also their greatest strength, that is, their simplicity. Because the concept is so simple many of us just don’t believe they can work so well, we are programmed to expect “nothing for nothing” or “no pain, no gain”. Maybe you regard yourself as being too sensible and too sophisticated to be taken in by such a childish schoolboy type trick. Well if that’s the way you feel then so be it, hold onto your sophistication if it makes you feel good. Who knows it may be worth the pain and discomfort of a headache! The fact is that it is the simple things in life that do work best, however if you are going to give affirmations a try there are some simple rules you must observe. Firstly, they must be positive because your mind doesn’t recognise negatives and will always move towards what you think about. So affirmations like “I will not screw up my presentation today ” and “I won’t feel sick today ” will not work, in fact they are likely to have the opposite effect to what you planned. Secondly, the affirmation must be in the first person, the affirmation must be about you, statements about people in general will not work e.g. "I feel good today". Thirdly, the affirmation must state what you want to be or feel like now. Once again it is important to remember that your unconscious is itself very simple and must receive clear instructions it can understand, telling it that you want something sometime in the future will not work. Even although you know it is not factually true you must tell yourself how you want to feel now e.g. “I am an optimist” is a good affirmation for anyone who knows that they habitually pessimistic. Fourthly, affirmations always work better if they are said out loud or they are written down. We are programmed to give more respect to something we hear or see written down. If we only think about our affirmations they will get lost in the 50,000 other random thoughts we have every day. Saying or writing your affirmations also involves the use of other senses which helps to grab the attention of your unconscious. Finally, affirmations work best through repetition and perseverance. It really would be ‘pie in the sky’ stuff if you only had to tell yourself something once for it to have a significant effect. Be realistic, if you are changing a limiting belief you have had about yourself for 20 years it takes more that a few “I will be positive today’s!” to make a difference. Alastair Taylor |
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