All posts filed under: Health & Fitness

Mindset Matters

Published by Becca Teers

With all the uncertainty at the moment it’s important that we have ways to keep us positive. Self-care is something that we can all do for ourselves to take care of our mental health & keep us as calm & happy as possible. Here are two of my favourite effective, yet simple self-care tools to use daily to keep positive. Gratitude Practicing feeling grateful for what you have puts the focus on the positive things in your life, rather than what you don’t have or are lacking. We know that what we focus on we get more of as like attracts like. So, to get more of what you want in your life, you have to focus on the good things you already have and be thankful for them. This will attract more similar good things to you by training your mind to notice the good stuff around you. Each day think of between 5 and 10 things that you are grateful for and record them in a notebook, which you can label your Gratitude …

The Aggregation of Marginal Gains

Published by Leanne Spencer

Being physically and mentally fitter and healthier have never been more important. We all know though that lifestyle changes can be daunting, hard to incorporate and hard to stick to too. So, what can we do to make our lives healthier without feeling that we are about to climb Mount Everest? So, this month I would like to talk about a concept that might be familiar to some of you who have trained or performed on a more competitive and professional sporting level. It is the concept of marginal gains. I’ve borrowed this from, Sir Dave Brailsford, you may have heard of him in conjunction with team Sky. He did a lot of work with a lot of sports teams and it was around this principle of the aggregation of marginal gains. What Is Aggregation of Marginal Gains? What he means by that is if he could get a 1% improvement in an athlete’s sleep, a 1% improvement in their mental wellbeing, 1% improvement in their energy levels that all snowballs and actually the cumulative …

Our September mags are out!

Published by Angela Burgess

Our September magazines are being distributed today.  Each magazine (SE21, SE22 & SE23) is available to read as a flipzine on the right of this page.  Please do feel free to share them with your friends and family. All our regular columnist have contributed to our September issues including Suzanne James with a lovely autumnal recipe Crunchy Fruit & Oat Crumble.  Garden Talk with Janine Winlaw discusses the joys of ornamental grasses.  Becca Teers talks about gratitude amongst other things.  Pets Corner with Leonie St Clair discusses escaped birds. We have an update from Dulwich Hamlet Football Club as well as community news from local charity Link Age Southwark.  There is even an online Pet Contest to read about! This is just a selection of what is in store for you in our community magazines.  Please do take time to look at our advertisers.  They rely on local custom and need it now, more than ever.  If you do phone or e-mail someone after seeing their ad in any of the magazines, please do tell …

Cure Procrastination! A Great Technique Using Swiss Cheese!

Published by Becca Teers

Procrastination is the habit of putting off what should be done today until tomorrow, or the next day, or week, or month… and so on. This affects us all from time to time. There are a few reasons why we procrastinate but the main one is fear: Fear of rejection, fear of change, fear of failure, and also perfectionism can cause procrastination. These are natural fears but the idea is to acknowledge them, but act in spite of them! Sometimes procrastination is the result of feeling that something is just too big and scary to even begin! The thing is that once you have begun, the task is probably a lot more enjoyable & doable than you thought. Here is a great technique that you can use to overcome procrastination & get into action! The Swiss Cheese Method Alan Lakein, author of an amazing little book: “How to Get Control of Your Time & Your Life” advises that if a task is overwhelming you, poke holes in it like Swiss cheese. The holes represent small …

Exercise Snacking

Published by Leanne Spencer

Recently, I have been talking to lots and lots of different people at an organisation where I am the head of wellbeing. And almost every single one of them have reported this mid-afternoon slump in energy. Does this sound familiar to you? And if so, have you ever wondered how to stay energised after lunch? The main thing I am discovering is that people just are not physically moving enough. Given the current circumstances I know that is a bit obvious. We are working from home in the main, people are not necessarily going out and about. You may even skip or have skipped exercise all together. And there is, of course, a lot of staring at screens. But there are ways that you can move within the confines of a building if you really cannot get out for a five- or ten-minute walk or a quick jog. Movement Snacking This is where the concept of movement snacking comes is. Think of exercise as movement snacking. In the same way that you might go over …