While it’s lovely to enjoy the longer evenings, many people find that the hour change plays havoc with their and their children’s sleep patterns.  How is it that just one hour of extra daylight can have such a powerful effect? And what can we do to adjust with the minimum disruption?

Firstly, it helps to appreciate what an important part natural light has to play in our lives.  Our bodies operate an internal clock, often referred to as the circadian rhythm. It runs on a 24 hour cycle and is regulated by the natural cycle of day and night. Our internal clock influences the workings of all our body processes. When daylight hits the retina at the back of the eye a message is sent to the part of the brain that controls sleep, appetite, hormone production, sex drive, body temperature, mood, brain activity and cell regeneration.

If there is not enough light these functions slow down which is why it’s easier to sleep when it’s dark.  Some people need a lot more light than others to regulate their body clock and this can lead to Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD.  

Any disruption to the 24 hour cycle such as the hour change, late nights working or partying and jet lag therefore have a profound effect on sleep and other body systems.  Recent research even points to a link between having to get up earlier and a 10% increased risk of heart attacks. The most affected tend to be babies and young children or adults with existing sleep difficulties.

So how can we ensure that our body clock adjusts as smoothly as possible to the hour change?

1. Go to bed at the same time tonight and get up at the same time.
2. Get some daylight today. As light plays such an important role in keeping your body clock regulated, it makes sense to get outside for at least 20 minutes today to help it re-set.  
3. Try not to have an afternoon nap today as that will further confuse your body.                 
4. Make sure you have heavy curtains to block out the lighter nights. Adults can try eye masks.
5. Establish and stick to a relaxing pre-bedtime routine for babies and children.  e.g. bath and story. Following this will help them to recognise it’s bedtime, even if it’s still light outside.
6. Finally, accept it may take a week for everyone, whatever age, to adjust, so be patient with yourself and irritable children.

Be calm, breathe well.

A very effective and simple breathing technique is the 7/11 breath. It’s a good exercise to calm mind and body.

 Step 1.

Gently take your attention to your breathing. You can do this anywhere – in the car, in a meeting, whilst walking to work or as you lie in bed.

Step 2. 

Start to focus on the out-breath, making it a little longer and more powerful than the in-breath. Don’t over-strain, however, and, if at any time you feel uncomfortable, just return to normal breathing.

 Step 3.

Start to silently count the in and out breath making the out-breath longer. So, for example, you may count the in-breath to a count of 7 and the out-breath to a count of 11. The actual numbers don’t matter; just establish a rhythm that is right for you. 

 Step 4.

Continue for a few minutes until you feel a sense of calm.

 Step 5.

Practise regularly. For example, every time you stop at a red traffic light, or put the kettle on, or you walk out of your office. You can even set a reminder in your phone every hour.

To learn more ways to calm busy lives, please join one of my courses.

New Year’s Day, a day for resolutions, often lightly made and soon forgotten. We even build in failure right from the very start. As in:

Have you made a New Year’s Resolution? Well, I’d like to lose weight but I’ve never managed it before.

(No surprises then, when it doesn’t work this time!)

 So why do so many of us make resolutions and then find it impossible to follow through? Why bother making them in the first place?

 Where does the idea of New Year’s resolutions come from? 

New Year’s Resolutions date back to the Babylonians, some 4000 years ago. The New Year was a time to return borrowed farm equipment and pay back debts; a time, therefore, to set things straight and start afresh.

Two thousand years or so later the ancient Romans re-established the tradition, giving gifts and making promises in honour of the deity Janus.  Janus was depicted as double-faced, allowing him to look back into the past and forward into the future. The Romans believed that making promises to Janus would bring good fortune in the year to come.

Why bother making resolutions today?

In my mind, the process of consciously choosing to do something and taking action in support of that puts me in the driving seat of my life.  All too often we drift along, letting others make decisions for us or believing that whatever happens is outside our control. To quote William Irwin Thomson, the poet and cultural historian:

If you do not create your destiny, you will have your fate inflicted upon you.

Being in the driving seat is empowering. It frees us from passivity and brings personal energy and focus.

So if you choose to make a New Year’s Resolution this year, how do you stick to it?

Here are my 7 steps to good resolutions:

1. Take time to make your resolution.

As Nancy Kline says:

The quality of everything human beings do depends on the thinking we do first.

Set some time aside and, like Janus, look back over the past year. What has worked for you? What hasn’t? What would you rather have? Then go forward in time and imagine yourself at the end of a successful 2012. What do you notice as you look back over the year? What changes have you made?

2.      Choose your words well.

Be precise about how you word your resolution. Run it through the following checks:

• is it stated in the positive?

e.g.  I want to drink healthily as opposed to I want to stop drinking so much  or  quit drinking

I want to weigh 10 stone rather than Iwant to lose weight

• avoid putting the problem into your resolution.

e.g. I want to stop eating chocolate. This is the don’t think of a pink elephant rule. If you tell yourself not to eat chocolate, guess what, you’ll spend all your time thinking about it! I want to eat healthily is going to move you towards your goal more effectively.

• is it specific and and measurable? How much will you weigh and by what date? When, how often and for how long will you go to the gym? When will you join that evening class? Will you be down to ten cigarettes a day by the end of January?

• Is this something you really want? Beware of goals that contain shoulds and oughts as these are clues that, on some level, you don’t really want this or you may be doing it to please another. If you are not 100% convinced, explore the reasons why or choose another goal.

3.        Is it realistic?

Do you have the resources needed to carry it out? As well as money, resources include things like time, support, energy. What impact will achieving your goal have on others?

4.        What’s in it for you?

This may seem an obvious question but we often choose a goal without fully exploring why we want it.

When we do, we may find we need to modify it, or it isn’t right for us after all or it’s something that someone else wants for us! For example, why do you want to lose weight? Because you want to run a half-marathon, be able to pay football with the kids, walk uphill without getting out of breath? All these reasons are far more powerful and motivating than because the doctor tells me to.  Find personal reasons that will genuinely motivate you.

5.     How will you know when you have achieved your goal?

What will your evidence be? What will you see/hear/feel? What will others notice?

This process is very important as its giving instructions to your unconscious mind.  Using your imagination to step into the time when you have achieved your goal is a powerful technique to prepare for success. 

6.      Plan for setbacks! 

You will inevitably stumble and fail on some occasions. This is the time when people often give up and say to themselves Well, I knew all along that I wouldn’t be able to do it.

Think through all the times when you know that sticking to your resolution is going to be hard. Plan how to deal with that. Know that you will crave that cigarette, want that biscuit, prefer  to stay warm indoors rather than go for a walk. How will you support yourself then?

7.     Practise personal forgiveness.

If you do “break” your resolution, view it as just a temporary setback and start again. After all, you are learning something new. Just think of the determination a young kid shows when they are first learning to ride a bike. The wobbles and crashes and scraped knees... and still they keep going! And that look of pure joy when they whizz off!

How useful did you find these 7 steps? Do you have any other tips for making and keeping resolutions?

Stress can make you fat?

Maybe this is not the best time to be talking about putting on weight, as Christmas approaches and we traditionally eat far more than usual.  Rather than dampening your festive sprit, my aim is to share insights about stress and how it can lead to weight gain.  Now is also an especially good time to start planning the changes you’d like to see in the New Year.

The stress response and the way in which it impacts on weight gain is complex.  Here are the bottom-line facts for you to digest:

1. When we feel stressed, the body secretes hormones. Some of these (glucocorticoids) increase our appetite.  The stress response makes the body work harder in certain ways.  Increasing appetite is the natural way to re-stock our energy cupboard.

 2. Sugary, starchy and fatty foods provide quick fixes. It’s cakes, biscuits and chocolate that many crave when in the grip of stress.  Even people who normally eat healthily, reach for these comfort foods when stressed.

3. We eat more and also store more. Glucocorticoids cause the body to deposit fat, specifically in the abdominal area, rather than in other places.  Bodies are sometimes described as apple or pear-shaped.  When we are stressed, we tend to become apple-shaped, with fat stored around the middle, rather than pear, where fat is stored on the bottom and hips.

4. This apple-type of weight gain means that you may otherwise be very slim, yet with excess abdominal fat.

5. To confound it all, recent research shows that abdominal fat may actually help to suppress the stress response, making us feel better. Nature’s way of helping us to cope.

So, why do apple-shaped bodies get such a bad press when putting on weight round the middle helps us to feel less stressed? We may not like the spare tyre, but if it’s helping us to cope, then maybe that’s the price we choose to pay?

The answer is that excess abdominal fat is clearly linked to metabolic and cardio-vascular problems. The more we rely on eating sugary and fatty foods as a day-to-day coping strategy, the less likely we are to look for healthy ways to tackle stress. We may, for example, stop exercising which compounds the problem.  Exercise is not only good for burning calories but changes the way the body responds to stress, helping recovery and building resilience.  Exercise also brings huge psychological pay-offs.

So, if you are trying to lose weight, don’t overlook a key factor: tackling your stress. As well as exercise, try yoga, meditation, dancing or gardening...