August 17, 2016No Comments

Wellness….WHAT?! – #WellbeingWednesdays

Wellness wooden sign on a beautiful day

Many of us work through life trying to achieve 'wellness'. But what is wellness? Is it the juice detox everyone is doing? Is it being able to sit in a cross legged position and 'ohm' at the top of my lungs for hours on end? Is it being outside?

What does Wellness even mean?

Every time you read a piece of media, or a medical study there is more advice of what is good for you, what is bad for you, what you haven't realised you're even consuming or ingesting and we can get so confused with trying to do the best things for our bodies that often we just give up and go right back to what we were doing before.

It's hard working towards 'Wellness'. All you want is for someone to show you a big sign saying 'Wellness this way', but that's not how it works. What is good for me, might be bad for you and may be essential for someone else.

The way I deal with it is to try and work towards feeling better, being healthier but also not taking life too seriously. You can get so caught up with being healthy all the time that you end up resenting the lifestyle, and yourself trying to achieve the unachievable. We live in a world where plastics, pollutants and chemicals are part of every day life. Yes you could try and eradicate them from your life but you'd have to live in isolation to achieve it and where's the fun in that?

Take it one day at a time and one element of your life at a time. For me, my journey started with fitness. I found things that I loved to do and just focused on those. I do them regularly enough that they become a habit. Equally if I skip them for a week, I have a mildly guilty feeling but I know I'll get back to them next week so it's no big deal.

Then I moved onto food and this was my HARDEST part. I LOVE food. I LOVE eating food. I LOVE cooking and exploring food. Most importantly I LOVE big quantities of food. So to find out how to change a lot of that I had to figure out the best way to be healthy, still enjoy the food I eat with it's flavours and the quantity but eat foods that are better for me. Vegetables, fruits, grains, beans.

Next came skincare and home life. I've never really been a big skincare person as having psoriasis has always dictated what I use. But finding Tropic and it's range of natural products has changed all of that. And I'm now experimenting with the cleaning products we use at home and finding ways to change those slowly but surely.

The last thing is my way of life. Spending more time outside, in nature. Potentially trying to grow my own fruit and vegetables, although living in London that's not always possible. I have however started doing exactly that in my office in Central London. We have a small roof terrace where there are all kinds of goodies growing. Cabbage, rocket, lettuce, sunflowers and lots of herbs! All of my own doing which isn't too bad for a first try.

My point is you can work towards being healthier, being happier in small steps. Don't try and leave your life and go off and live on a remote island and you'll live until you're 200. Just do it in small ways, and do things that you enjoy and you'll be sure to get where you want to be.

Ciao for now x

August 3, 20163 Comments

The importance of breathing – #WellbeingWednesdays

Just-Breathe-image download

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breathing. We all do it, we all think we do it well but do we really? The amount of forms of exercise and fitness that focus on your breathing can teach you how badly you are breathing.

One little breath can be manipulated to have such a dramatic difference. Those who practice yoga know what a lion’s breath can do, a huge sigh that releases tension and lets you clear out stale air that’s been stored in your lungs for longer than needed.

Then of course there is the fire breath, shallow, fast paced breaths that build up your body’s temperature and can be a workout in their own right!!

Then for those of you who swim, there’s the very shallow and slow breaths. You literally have a tiny handful of seconds to take a breath but that breath only needs to last the next handful of strokes until you’re back up again. It’s slow to keep your body calm and relaxed and very shallow so you don't keep yourself too buoyant.

So why don’t you take some time right now and focus on your breathing. Try not to change it or influence it. Just close your eyes, try and block out all the sound around you. Just turn your gaze inwards, assess your breathing. Is it shallow? Is it deep? Is it fast? Is it slow? Now start playing with it. Make it deeper, longer and slower. What effect does it have on your body? How about if you speed it up and keep them deep? And make it shallow?

Playing with breath, learning the effect it has on your own body is a huge step towards being more self-aware. Then when you’re mood is needing a bit of a switch up, use your breath.

At work and feeling quite lethargic and sleepy? Speed your breathing up, make it shallower, start heating your body up and you might see a big difference in your energy levels.

Agitated, stressed or just generally fidgety? Slow your breathing down, make them longer, deeper and try and fill every part of your lungs. What difference does it make? Do you feel more relaxed?

Have fun with your breath. Play with it, see what difference it can make!

Have fun, ciao for now x

July 6, 2016No Comments

Candle Meditation – #WellbeingWednesdays

Do you struggle with focusing day to day? Find yourself reaching for your phone to check social media when you’re at the table or having a chat with friends? Find your mind wandering off mid conversation? Do you know how beneficial meditation can be to sorting all of that out?

Meditation is one of the best ways to teach yourself focus and control. Teaching yourself to relax when you need to or motivate yourself when it’s time for you to do something specific.

Even as a regular practitioner of meditation however there can be those days where it’s tougher than others. Tougher to focus on your breathing and where you are right now. That’s when I try my candle meditation. Simple, yet highly effective for me.

Get a candle, preferably one of the bigger, quite fat ones. Light it on a stand and settle in front of it. Preferably with your legs crossed and sitting on a cushion in front of it. Turn off any lights, close any blinds or curtains and just watch the candle.

Then just breathe. Deep breaths in and deep breaths out, through your nose, eyes just slightly open. Whenever you find your mind wandering just focus back on that candle, on how it flickers on how it moves, the colours in it. You will find after a while that even though you are blinking the flame on the candle starts to blur. Let it.

Keep that going for as long as you can. The first time it may only be 5 minutes, the second it may be longer. Don’t time, don’t think about it. Just watch that candle. Breathe with that candle. Focus on that candle. Don’t let anything else distract you from that candle.

Try it out and see how you get on. It’s a great way to stop yourself getting too distracted by anything around you.

Ciao for now x

July 1, 2016No Comments

1st of the Month! – All change

all-change

Hello all my lovelies

Today is the first day of July and it signals big changes around the world, in the yea and most importantly on this blog.

Speaking to some of you, it seems a lot of you really enjoy these blog posts but we need a bit more consistency and a bit more planning so....here it comes.

From today I'm going to try and post once a day, every day. I'll be talking about lots of different things but the majority of them will be about your health, happiness and fitness. Not only that but I'll be categorising my posts and each day will be themed around a certain topic which are listed below.

Feel free to read them all, read only the days that you find relevant and more importantly try them out. I want to help you all think more about being healthier, being more aware and trying to make any changes, small or big to work towards your happiness and health.

Posts will start regularly from tomorrow so keep an eye out. If you want to help me spread the word, likes, follows, shares would all be much appreciated!!

Categories:

#StretchSundays - if you like a good stretch, love yoga, have never done yoga but want to try it out in the comfort of your own home or just learn more, this is the day for you! I'll be talking through some of my personal favourites, explaining them and even filming a few demonstrations for you to give a go

#MoveMondays - all my dance moves will be released on Mondays. I'll talk about the benefits of dancing, post some instructional videos and even talk you through a few of them

#TalkToMeTuesdays - I want you to engage, discuss, debate and yes, even disagree. I'll be putting up my opinions on various topics and asking yours

#WellbeingWednesdays OR #WetWednesdays - mid-week will be split and dedicated to two topics, general well-being and getting fitter and enjoying the water. This will be the day we might talk through meditation one week and the week after talk about how to improve your swim stroke

#ThrowbackThursdays - one of my favourites. I've already introduced this into my classes with a throwback tuned introduced on the first Thursday of the month but these posts could be anything. Music, dance, exercise or even old toys! Tying them back into your health

#FeedMeFridays - obviously no week would be complete without some food. These will be my favourite recipes, easy tips on how to stay healthy when out and about or even how to mix up your food prep in ways you might not expect

#SkinliciousSaturdays - completing our week will be our Saturday where we'll be taking a look at what goes on your body. The main focus of this will be  the amazing Tropic products but also we'll start sharing some extra knowledge and getting you to ask questions about your current regime

I hope you like the topics and like what's to come in the near future, I love writing them and sharing my thoughts with you all. If you want to have something specific shown then just drop me a line and I'll do my best to include it!!

Looking forward to what the future brings and remember, life isn't about getting to a destination it's the journey we take to get there.

Ciao for now x

  
ShakeUp are a group of individuals who want to change lives with smiles.

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