The simplest and quickest way I know to get a bit of relief from stress goes like this: Take 3 deep breaths. Each time, breathe in deeply (without forcing it), then breathe out slowly and smoothly. How can this be so effective? Well, it’s having a direct effect on two parts of the brain Share […]
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Stewart had been pushing himself for years – achieving great results, but at a price. He’d got used to being stressed, but now something very strange was happening. He felt like he’d gone into a vague cloudy world in which nothing really mattered. He’d completely lost his edge. Then he came for coaching – just […]
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As CEO of an IT consultancy, Niklas knows how crucial security is to his customers. Yet there was one potential issue he and his team had been grappling with for over 2 years. Despite 20 or 30 attempts, they hadn’t even been able to define the problem. Then he changed tack, and within 5 minutes […]
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When you’re leading, the way you communicate can make a huge difference to people’s creativity. In one mode, they can be twice as creative as the other. How so? Fleeing an Owl or Seeking out Cheese? In an experiment at the University of Maryland (Friedman & Forster 2001), students were asked to solve a simple puzzle. […]
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The human brain evolved in stressful conditions – avoiding Sabre-Tooth Tigers, hunting just to eat, and lots of hard physical graft. And yet it’s now, in times of great luxury and abundance, that we need mindfulness. What’s going on? Well, our brains evolved some fantastic mechanisms to handle those tough conditions: A fight/flight system to […]
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I was just out for a walk on the common. I’ve been working hard all week on a big project, and I’ve still got lots more to do. I was rather hoping to enjoy the sunset. But my mind had other ideas – it kept on thinking about the project. I kept saying “no” to those […]
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Human brains have a built in “negativity bias” – the brain pays more attention to bad news than good news. How come? Well, it’s a brilliant mechanism for survival situations. Think of it like this – if the good news is a particularly delicious pineapple, and the bad news is an approaching tiger, you really […]
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Last week I suggested that de-cluttering might be the best way to reduce stress and make best use of your time. I gave you three tips: Pick a focus. If you try and tidy everything, you’ll fail. But if you pick a small area and stay focused, you’ll stand a much better chance of getting […]
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What’s the best way to reduce stress and make best use of time? Judging by the feedback I get from course participants, it could well be a spot of decluttering. After tidying up their workspace, their filing system or even a whole room, they tell me how much easier it is to get things done, and […]
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Say you’re meditating on your breath. Then you realise that your mind is on something else. How do you respond? Almost everyone thinks they’ve failed, many people think they’re bad at mediation, some people even think there’s something wrong with them as a human being. None of this is true! To understand this, let’s take a […]
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