Living life! It's become a cliche. But that's for a reason. It's true. Today my nephew and my older sister share a birthday. These occasions are such a delight to celebrate with family and friends and I thought I would do a post about actively putting happy moments into our busy diaries. They serve as a fantastic tool to reduce or stabilise stress chemicals, enable recharging for the next challenge and they are not hard work. Triple benefit!So here's my top 3 tip list of addi

Between my husband and I, we lost several immediate family members as well as friends and more distant family members within a few short years. The grief I experienced after the death of loved ones was varied in intensity and longevity. The worst was after my Mother passed away. I have shared with close friends that it felt like my heart had been physically torn out of my body and ripped into pieces. It was a dark period with the sense of no actual future that I could visuali

An everyday event, encounter or thought can be perceived as a threat by you, psychological or otherwise, and this can trigger fear, which in turn can set off the stress response. As you know, this is the body's chemical reaction to fear, to enable a fast physical response to increase survival chances. Although the situation may not require a physical reaction, our bodies, when we are feeling threatened, are still governed by the automatic evolutionary stress response designe

The wider society we live in is made up of individuals, like each of us. The Bhopal gas disaster is marking the 30th anniversary this year. It is hard to believe the survivors are still waiting for justice, dignity, and some form of resolution. Many people who have suffered man-made or natural disasters are psychologically traumatised, unable to escape from the haunting memories and aftermath. It is impossible to change the past. So perhaps we may ask what is possible about

I have been having a lot of conversations about meditation recently and that made me share this video. It perhaps gives an insight to the possibilities. There is another one too, Dhamma brothers, of the same meditation practice, in an American prison. For anyone who has yet to do meditation, and especially vipassana, this may be a curiosity, an alien practice, a new age fad, maybe even a scam. The catch is vipassana meditation retreats are donation-based. It's the original p

A bit condescending but interesting nonetheless #Peace

#Peace

We evolved to be social creatures to give us the greatest chances of survival. Urban-living can challenge that, yet deep satisfaction possible comes from the most fulfilling relationships. We may be extremely stressed and alone, and a gathering of friends who truly have our backs, can relax us like nothing else. I embrace the cliche about the deathbed being the place where the importance of relationships is finally experienced. The grades or cash or gains over Jones next doo

#Peace

We all know laughter is a stress-buster. Chemically, stress flight-or-fight response literally cannot co-exist with laughter chemicals. There are many other experiences that are incompatible with the stress response. So if you find yourself snapping, feeling overwhelmed, out of control, it's time to stop for ten minutes, and do something that tells your chemicals your life is not under threat. This month, it's laughter yoga I am sharing. Next month, it's the incredibly power