Over at my anabaptist spirituality blog, Leaving Münster, I wrote a birthday reflection on what lessons I encountered last year. It was an act of self-discipline, as much as anything, because I tend to get fairly melancholy around my birthday. So, I thought it would do me be good to intentionally – and publicly – well, think happy!

Anyway, I wanted to repeat a popular quote of Abraham Lincoln’s that I used in that post:

“When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.”

Preach it, Abe!

I no longer think of myself as a religious person. (I’ll blog one day about how I realised I’d finally lost my faith whilst I was in the middle of preaching a sermon!) However, if I had to be, I’d sign-up to this do-gooding, feel-gooding spirituality.

What about you?

Smoking cessation is the big topic right now and seems like it has been for an incredibly long time. I’m guessing that by reading this you have an interest in giving up, wanting to help someone give up, or have already given up. Whatever one it may be, I can’t promise instant 100% success; I’m not a professional and I don’t have an ounce of cessation training in me – but I recently managed to quit smoking, so I’m going to put together a small series on ‘how I gave up smoking’, in the hopes that it might help someone else.

This first of three posts will look at preparation, why I think it’s important and how it helped me.

Preparation

All the big things in life will require some sort of preparation – and in most cases even the small things in life – so why would we presume that giving up cigarettes deserves less consideration? There are a variety of areas that would benefit from some preparation, but personally most of my preparation was carried out just by thinking. You may have already given up something addictive and will therefore understand the process you have to go through, mentally and physically, in order to come out the other side in one piece. But for most of us its our first addiction and – fingers crossed – soon to be our last.

The first area I believe you should consider is the motivation for giving up.

Read the rest of this entry »

Our latest author, Claire, is going to begin publishing a series of posts on giving up smoking.

This will be a three-part series, consisting of:

1 – preparation
2 – the actual quitting
3 – the aftermath

I’ve had a sneak peek and it’s good stuff. More importantly, it works!

I’m not sure I’ve ever met a shy monkey! Nevertheless, research recently carried out on young rhesus monkeys may hold the clue to a deeper understanding of anxiety, stress and shyness is human children.

The research, carried out by the HealthEmotions Research Institute and Department of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, showed that those with the most anxious temperaments showed higher activity in the part of the brain that regulates emotion and triggers reactions to anxiety, e.g. the fight or flight response.

The brains of people suffering from anxiety and severe shyness in social situations consistently respond more strongly to stress, and show signs of being anxious even in situations that others find safe. In other words,

“The brain machinery underlying the stress response seems to be always on in these individuals, even in situations that others perceive as safe and secure.” (Dr. Ned Kalin, chairman of the SMPH Research Institute)

The current research suggests that the reason is it is hard for some one with an anxious temperament to “calm down” is because they are wired in a way that tends to keep them tense and anxious. Their ‘calm’ is already more wound-up that most people’s stress!

But does it have to be that way? Read the rest of this entry »

Well, after a fairly prolonged absence – for which my wife should be held responsible due to the birth of our third child! – we’re now officially back.

In the coming days you can expect further posts on quitting Cola and reducing tooth grinding. However, our newest author, Claire, will also be starting a new series on giving up smoking and I’ll be adding some practical memory tips.

So, stay tuned!

I’ve been meaning to post more on how to stop grinding your teeth, along with pointers to tactics that I’ve found helpful. However, the truth is that not much has worked so far! Hence, not much posting!

So, in the spirit of full disclosure, over the next few of posts I will discuss ‘how not to stop grinding your teeth’. First failed attempt: alcohol.

I’ve got a couple of posts in the pipe-line on teeth-grinding (or “bruxism”, to use the medical term), but in the meantime…

Who couldn’t use a little bit more good luck?

Richard Wiseman, professor at University of Hertfordshire has made a study of lucky people. Why are some people lucky and others not? Can you learn to be lucky? These are questions that drive his research and they are the focus of his first book The Luck Factor.

In his research, Wiseman interviewed thousands of people and even ran a project called Luck School, where students could learn to be luckier. The results of this work reveal that people are not born lucky. Instead, lucky people use basic principles to create good fortune.

Mary Jaksch goes on to discuss 7 Strategies for Good Luck, taking five from Wiseman’s research and adding two of her own: Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t like Dentists!

Due to the excess of Cola that I used to drink, I’ve made more than my fair share of visits to the Dentist’s surgery. My experiences haven’t always been great, so it’s not an experience that I exactly look forward to.

There was a time a couple of years ago when I was so anxious about the state of my teeth – and the dental work required – that I would lose sleep worrying about it, or spend the night grinding my teeth in trepidation. The irony wasn’t lost on me!

I was out with the children today and I noticed a couple of people that seemed to be grinding their teeth whilst in an apparently relaxed state. I’m told that an estimated one in 20 adults and three in 20 children unconsciously grind their teeth at night. Is this something that you’ve found yourself doing? Read the rest of this entry »

There’s an excellent post over at the Urban Monk that gets straight to the point of what I’ve been waffling around for ages: Change your thoughts and change your life – The Art of Cognitive Reframing.

We never, ever, see the world as it is. Our awareness – our beliefs, past conditionings, upbringing, the list goes on – these distort everything we see. They creep into every interpretation and misinterpretation…

Read the rest for yourselves. You won’t regret it.

Try it for yourself, and see if it doesn’t make a change in your life.

I recently came across an interesting guest post over at Zen Habits.

Murder! Ringing phones, broken equipment, lost data, rude customers, unreasonable deadlines, demanding bosses. A sure-fire recipe for a 187.

The author, Albert Foong, goes on to note that the days we are living in require emotional intelligence and psychologically tested methods ‘to handle anything that happens in a mature and powerful manner.’ The vital first step, predictably – but helpful nonetheless, is taking radical responsibility for our own behaviour. He then goes on to describe the ABC Model:

Albert Ellis, one of the pioneers of Cognitive Psychology, came up with a simple system to describe how we really operate. He called it the ABC model: Antecedent, Belief, and Consequence.

We believe that A leads directly to C. In the example above, Madison antagonised me, leading to my Anger. But that was not true – there was some reaction in between, my beliefs had filtered the experience and therefore created the anger.

The thoughts I had, revealed the beliefs that lay underneath them: We shouldn’t be shouted at; everyone should be polite; she should respect my skills.

Read the rest of this entry »