Drink up!

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Why drinking 3l of water a day is a good idea

How many times have you heard that you should be drinking more water?
I know I don’t tend to drink enough water, so this year as part of my Year of Self Care I’m going to be making much more of an effort to get this right.

Why?

It’s good for me and as such I should be trying, right?

Right!

I’ve been told all my life that drinking enough water is important, and I’ve always accepted this, but what difference will it make and how much is enough?

The amount recommended varies a bit, but from what I’ve read 3 litres or a little over 5 pints seems about right for me. So, why is it important? Obviously drinking water is super important to keep us alive – we can only go a few days without drinking before we die, but we don’t NEED 3 litres. However, by keeping ourselves properly hydrated (not just hydrated enough to function) we support our bodies in lots of different ways.

Skin is the largest organ in the human body and is also the part of ourselves that we show to the world. Properly hydrated skin looks (and is) healthier. It looks brighter and clearer because it’s more likely to be able to fight of the bacteria that cause infection and spots. It also looks plumper meaning that those fine lines and wrinkles are much less visible.

Digestion is improved. This has a number of benefits including helping our gut bacteria thrive and keeping our stools soft, stopping uncomfortable constipation. Flushing our bodies with plenty of clean water helps our kidneys and liver by moving toxins through and keeping things diluted so issues like kidney stones are less likely.

Immune systems work better when the body is balanced. Particularly at the moment, we are all thinking about how we can boost our immune systems to work as efficiently as possible. Keeping your body topped up with water means that it has the best chance to fight infections.

Pain reduction is supported by drinking enough. As well as relieving headaches and clearing cramps your body is sensitive to imbalances and the way it talks to you is often through pain and discomfort. Keep it happy by keeping your fluids up.

Drinking enough water makes you look better, be healthier and feel better – it’s a no brainer! So what’s stopping me from drinking enough?

Partly it’s drinking the wrong things. Caffeine and alcohol are dehydrating. I’m not saying that if all you drank was booze and coffee that you would turn into a desiccated husk, but they are not giving you the best levels of hydration. You know that awful headache that you get after a less than sober night – dehydration!

Partly it’s that water can be a bit boring. I’m always more tempted by a fizzy pop or a cup of coffee, but they often contain that pesky caffeine as well a containing sugars which also lead to messing up your body chemistry. Try swapping out these types of drinks with no added sugar squashes or herbal teas.

Partly it’s about being organised. If you struggle to drink enough, try setting an alarm for every hour to remind you to have a drink. It’s much better for you to keep regularly hydrated throughout the day than to neck several pints in one go. Make sure that whatever you are doing you have access to healthy fluids and drink them regularly.

This is literally one of the most basic elements of Self Care, and yet so many people are getting it wrong. I’m going to make much more of an effort to turn this into an every day habit to take care of my body and would love to know what you drink, how you keep yourself motivated to maintain your hydration and any tricks or tips you have….let raise a glass and help one another….Cheers!

Self Care Advent Calendar Day 9

Welcome my lovely troupe. We are currently ho ho ho ing our way through December and spending each day making sure we survive (and maybe even thrive) during the festive season.

A few of the previous posts have focused on creativity. Making things, making habits, making plans etc. So today, I want to flip that on it’s head and think about destroying something.

How can destroying something be a an act of self care? By destroying something that is negative.

We all have bad habits. Go on, admit it – you do too.

They might be habits that have a bad effect on our health, like smoking, drinking or eating junk food.

They might be habits that have a bad effect on our mental health, like worrying, putting ourselves down or listening to that negative voice.

They might be habits that have a bad effect on our relationships, like gossiping, ignoring phone calls or taking people for granted.

You get the idea.

Generally I prefer to work on creating positive habits, but breaking negative ones can be just as important. It’s difficult to lift yourself up if you are constantly being dragged back down by your behaviour.

You may think that it’s too difficult to change your bad habits – particularly if that habit is addictive – but it is possible to do it.

One of the ways I help people to change negative habits is to help them frame it positively in their mind. Let’s take smoking for example. It is more difficult to quit smoking than it is to be smoke free. Quitting has lots of negative connotations. Losers quit. I’m no quitter. What will I be missing out on? Freedom has lots of positive connotations. Free, costs nothing, escaping, choices. Just a simple word change can make the whole process so much easier.

Another way to make things easier is to think about what you will gain rather than what you will lose. Taking smoking as an example again. What will you gain by being smoke free? Peace of mind that you’re not actively causing health problems? A load of money? Fresher breath? Not having to worry about where you will be able to smoke? Not needing to think if you have enough cigarettes to see you through. What will you lose? Nothing? An addiction? Cravings (non smokers never crave a cigarette)?

As you may be able to tell from the fact that I’ve used smoking as the example, I think this is the number one habit people should be working on being free from, but you should work on what is important to you.

Make the changes you want to in your life – Imagine how fantastic you will feel a year from now when you look back at today – the day you made your life better.

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Many people struggle with breaking habits on their own. If you’ve tried and failed, don’t worry. It doesn’t mean you can’t do it, it just means that you could do with a little help. The good news is Hypnotherapy is a great tool to help you to be free from those unwanted behaviours. If you want to ‘quit smoking‘ but struggle on your own, get the help you need.

Self Care Advent Calendar Day 8

How quickly did that first week go? Welcome to week 2 of our Self Care Advent Calendar.

Where shall we begin?

How about building on that creativity that we started yesterday? This week, let’s try to create something less physical – let’s create a new habit.

Did you know that it is generally accepted that if you do something every day for 21 days you will create a new habit. That means there is just enough time for you to create a new habit before the end of the year.

I want you to think back to January. Did you make any new years resolutions that you haven’t quite got around to yet? It’s not too late – you can still make it happen.

So what sort of habits should we be making?

Well you could do worse than reflecting on the things we covered in Days one, two, three, four, five, six and seven of the advent calendar. Was there anything in there that you would like to establish as a daily habit?

Maybe it’s something else that you want to do. It doesn’t matter what it is, just make sure it’s something useful to you that makes you and your life better.

This month I am focussing on Self Care, so what habits could you create that would most benefit you? Here are my top 5 suggestions

1. Meditation

I know this takes practise before you start to see positive results from it, but it’s worth the effort. Creating mental space in your life will help you to be more resilient and better able to cope with whatever life throws at you.

2. Yoga

Depending on the type of Yoga you choose this can involve meditation, but also helps you to be physically strong and flexible which again supports your resilience.

3. Mindfulness

This has similar benefits to Meditation but is easier to practice in day to day life. When we really focus on being in the moment we can alleviate a lot of stress and anxiety from our lives which has amazing physical and mental benefits.

4. Self Hypnosis

What a fantastic way to achieve the things you want to in life. Take control of your subconscious and make things happen the way you want them to.

5. Organization.

Ok so, this is a bit of an odd one. When you get into the habit of being organized – planning and prepping your life – you might be surprised at the difference it makes. It’s effects can be many and varied. One impact tends to be that you will feel less stress. Knowing what is happening and knowing you are prepared for it can get rid of a lot of worry. Another impact can be an improvement in your diet and exercise. By planning your food and knowing what you are going to eat you tend to make better choices than you would if you decided what to eat when you are already hungry. By planning in your exercise (and maybe organising other people to be involved) you are more likely to complete it. It can also have a financial impact. Less impulse buys + more planned budgeting = more money in your pocket!

One final note on this one – don’t be too ambitious. Create one achievable habit and build on it. Make a commitment to yourself to create one new habit and stick to it for at least 21 days before you even think about trying another one. Slow and steady wins the race!

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Some of the most beneficial habits can take a little bit of help to get started with. If you are struggling to change there people out there who can help. There are lots of therapists available with lots of different techniques and tricks to get you where you want to be.

 

90 day challenge

91 Days ago I set myself a little challenge.

I had started my blog almost a year before and had had posted once or twice a month. I had a few followers – Thank You – but to be honest it was going nowhere fast.

Part of the reason I started the blog was to increase the presence of my Website on the net (it was appearing at about page 9 on Google, or in other words, it was invisible), but the main reason was to share thought and ideas that came up through my Hypnotherapy Practice in Coventry, UK.

When I first started I found it easy to think of things to write about, but after a few weeks I started to struggle with subjects. I created a little plan of posts that I would write and when I sat down to make it I quickly realised that picking topics that I could write about for a week, or every Monday, made it much easier to do. I also found that I would think of things to write about, but when I sat down to blog, I forgot all of the plans I had made and would sit there scratching my head, so I started jotting the ideas down as I had them. Some of these turned out to be my favourite posts.

A lot of inspiration came from other bloggers. Following other people with similar feelings and thoughts gave me a great jump off point for my posts, and by linking to them I found a few new followers and occasionally got a reblog from them which gave me a much bigger audience.

Part of the fun is getting likes, comments, reblogs and followers. It’s great. I really enjoy getting that sort of feedback. It’s like getting a gold star from teacher every day – what’s not to love?

Most of the fun is sharing. I love knowing that I have made someone smile, or given them a bit of help that can make a difference to them. With sharing, with helping, comes personal gains. One of my original goals was to increase the profile of my website – it’s now on page 2 of Google – there’s still work to do, but it’s doing a lot better than it was, but more importantly than that, I feel that what I write is valued and that’s awesome.

When I was struggling to think of things to write, when I was feeling like it was hard work to post and on days when I didn’t really feel like sitting down and writing anything, I thought that the day my 90 days was up I would have a break. Well, as I said at the start, this is day 91, and here I am, writing away.

I have created a habit which I now really enjoy.

So I just wanted to take this opportunity to say Thank You to the 500+ people who have decided to follow this little blog in the last 90 days and to let you know how much I value your likes, blogs, follows and comments.

It’s not deliberate

Not you – obviously You’re not annoying – it’s everybody else – right?

Do things bug you? Do those who you love most in the world sometimes drive you insane?

The problem is we can take every irritant personally. We treat every action, deliberate or accidental, conscious or subconscious, as a personal slight—a sign the other doesn’t care about us or isn’t prioritizing us the way they should. When we don’t get what we want, we can interpret it as, “You don’t love me enough.” We think, “If you really cared about me, you’d stop driving me crazy with all your irritating habits.”

Unfortunately, much behaviour is mindless; we do many things without thinking. The simple fact is that people engage in automatic behaviours that are habitual or self-focused without taking the other person into account. Yes, it’s a little self centred, but not deliberately so.

If your partner has a habit that he or she is not aware of but that drives you up a wall, like leaving the bathroom door open, leaving bread crumbs in the butter dish, walking around in underwear or cracking their knuckles it is worth bringing it up in a loving way. Maybe it simply never occurred to them that it bothers you.

If you’ve spoken to them about their habit and they continue to do it it could be that your partner just can’t change this aspect of them self and it’s time to take stock. Try reminding yourself what you have—and what you stand to lose. Yes their habit might annoy you, but is it worth losing them over. If the other aspects in the relationship are going well, maybe it’s just about doing some re framing on how you feel about the habit. Take for example the habit of leaving the bathroom door open. Is there any way that you could see this as a positive? I mean, how great is it that they trust you so much that they can be completely open and vulnerable around you?

Sometimes the thing that drives you crazy is totally out of their control. Snoring is a classic example of this.

Yes, it’s annoying.

Yes, it’s disruptive.

No, it cannot be controlled by the snorer.

So what to do?

Well, if you can’t re frame it by saying to yourself that at least you know that they’re breathing and safe in bed next to you, then you could try hypnosis. Hypnosis can be used for all sorts of things including changing how we feel about things. I have hypnotised people to feel more confident, more assertive and less irritated by trivialities. In the case of a wife who was driven to desperation by her husbands snoring I just helped her to feel more and more relaxed with each snore that she heard, so that instead of disturbing her, the snoring sent her into a deep peaceful sleep.

If you don’t fancy Hypnotherapy then maybe it’s time to buy some earplugs or move to a different room 🙂

Have a great weekend with those you love.

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