One of my favourite quotes comes from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”. “If you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs, maybe you don’t really understand what’s going on”. Okay, not exactly Mr Kipling’s words but my variation and sometimes it’s good not to understand what’s going on especially if people are getting stressed about it. Emotional stress is a natural occurrence for the average human being (or domesticated primate) an evolutionary response to a real

A definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. It’s time for a new perception about work related stress, a new approach to dealing with it and a little sanity check is long over due. In the UK we have a wealth of research, advice sites and online stress buster tips anyone can turn to if they are experiencing stress and yet stress is still a massive problem and financial burden to business. Stress amounts to a large hole i

Workplace stress in education is well documented and researched; there is a sound business case for addressing it. Sound not just in terms of how stress impairs performance (of both teachers and pupils), sound in terms of the negative impact stress has on the health and welfare of teachers and sound in terms of the cost of paying sick leave and employing supply teachers to cover. The real cost of stress can be measured by looking at legacy records such as absenteeism and sick

In the 1980’s the study of mind-body medicine became a legitimate discipline following the release of Candace Perts book “Molecules of Emotion” where she released her findings on how neuropeptides and immune system cytokines act as the agents that integrated communication between the brain and the body. “What we think we become” is now widely accepted by the medical community as being true and not just a catchy saying. Despite medical and scientific study now clearly showing

In Triathlon sports there is an “in joke” which goes – “Triathlon is 80% mentality and 20% mental” I guess you have to be hitting the wall to really appreciate the humor. Life and business are all affected by your mentality or mindset. How you think has a profund influence on what you do and how you do it whether that’s in your personal life and related to health, relationships or career, or in your business life related to planning, marketing and operations. When it comes t

Have you ever woken up to a sunny day and thought to yourself "ahhh life is good" and a few days later nothing much has changed apart from the weather and you feel like all you want to do is roll back under the duvet and hide from the day. Welcome to the world of the average domesticated primate, even those who are coaches have their ups and their downs. Heaven protect us from those who are "sorted" and never have a bad thought or an off day. I'm sure even Mother Teresa had h