Knitting and Pain Relief

I was on a radio show a while ago and  found myself intrigued by the work of one of the other guests. She was a therapist working in a large hospital with their pain relief clinic. I used to work at the same hospital so my ears pricked up when I heard her say she was running a knitting group in a local pub for patients! Things have changed..

I love knitting myself so I was really pleased to read some of the latest research on its benefits:

Research done by Professor Richard Davidson of Wisconsin University has shown that practising just eight weeks of daily Mindfulness can have a positive effect on brain function and even strengthen the immune system. Dr Herbert Benson, Director of the Institute for Mind, Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School has carried out many clinical trials involving Mindfulness and has found that it can evoke the relaxation response to bring down blood pressure, heart rate and help to prevent stress related illnesses. He’s even found that it can improve fertility and mentions knitting as one of the activities capable of evoking the relaxation response.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is something that is quite hard to achieve and teach but it seems the repetitive nature of knitting can induce similar feelings. I have long maintained that knitting is like meditating so have no trouble believing this. I always have a piece of knitting on the go (sometimes three of four things) and occasionally use it when running seminars. No, I don’t mean I sit and knit in the corner while the group are busy doing important stuff; I teach people to knit as a group exercise in co-operation and team building – it doesn’t have to be all macho wall building and white water rafting stuff!

Get your needles out of the cupboard and become mindful! And do share, what sort of things help you feel calm and relaxed?

You can read more here.

Photo Credit: Julia Freeman-Woolpert

Is Presenteeism Hindering Women’s Success?

When I left the corporate world over 9 years ago no one actually used the word ‘presenteeism‘. We  talked lots about absenteeism but over working? It didn’t feature in discussions yet it was there.

Apparently, the term “presenteeism” was coined by Professor Cary Cooper, a psychologist specializing in organisational management at Manchester University in the UK. It generally means people turning up for work when sick and is especially prevalent now as more people are fearful of losing their jobs in the current poor economic climate.

The Midnight Mail (Male?)

There have always been incidents of being present at work (and not necessarily working), and we all know the folk who send out work emails out at 2am to illustrate how dedicated they are to the cause. I even know of someone who set them on auto to go out then so it looked as if he was madly working away all the hours available!

The trouble is it becomes the corporate norm and suddenly people, men or women, who are not doing it are viewed as lacking in commitment, even when the organisation officially disowns the practice. I don’t have a gender breakdown, but generally speaking this is not a game women can play, as they are usually the ones with caring responsibilities; neither is it a game that women want to play.

Part Time Gain

What I do know is, that when I recruited part time staff (always women as it happens) they worked as hard and as productively as my full time staff and actually achieved more, hour by hour than their whole time equivalents. I have also watched members of staff who didn’t have to rush home at close of play, dawdle through parts of their day, secure in the knowledge that they could stay after normal hours and gain kudos for being ‘committed players’.

No Winners

The sad fact is no one really wins when this culture is prevalent. Sick people do not work well and get sicker; people feel compelled to stay late and work too long and get stressed as their life gets out of kilter; and women are at a disadvantage because even if it were desirable, they tend not to be part of the late clique and get labelled as not committed. And what we should be doing is questioning the whole idea of presenteeism and its role in corporate life

A very senior female executive confided in me recently:

“I have given up the idea of trying to get a balance in my life. So many of the meetings don’t even begin until after 5pm. I’m paid a lot to do this job and I m now resigned to never getting home before 8pm most week day evenings unless I plan it in advance“.

The role models need to be at the top, modelling a good work and home balance. And if the ‘top’ were more gender balanced, we might just see some more sensible hours. No one can give of their best 12 hours a day on a regular basis; eventually folk will burn out and women (and so e men) who want to have a life outside of work, or who have to be home, will be disadvantaged and companies will lose excellent staff.

Photo Credit: Chris Johnson

How To Improve your Working Life with 3 Simple Ideas!

It’s hard enough at the best of times if you don’t like your job but when there’s an economic downturn it can feel like a prison sentence. Good jobs are thin on the ground, and let’s face it, we’ve all got to eat and pay the bills. And so you stay put and try not to rock the boat too much but it’s eating away at you. Your enthusiasm starts to wane, you lose motivation,your joie de vivre for other parts of your life is affected and before you know it you’re well and truly fed up!

How to Improve Your Working Life

Here’s three tips to help you cope with the bad times and get ready for the upturn (trust me, this will pass).

1Don’t Take it Personally, Think Global

We women have an uncanny ability to personalise things. Thoughts like ‘Why me?‘, ‘I’m no good’, ‘I’m so unlucky’ start to morph into ‘I’ll never get a good job again‘, ‘no one will employ me’. It’s a downward spiral and doing you no good at all. I’m all for being realistic about situations and the reality of this situation is that there is a global economic downturn and ‘times is ‘ard’ for almost everyone. It is not personal.

2 Upgrade Your Spam Filter

Now about those little messages dropping unwanted into your brain as you sigh over yet another unrewarding piece of work you have to do. Believe me, they are making you feel worse. So if we want to feel better we need to deal with them. If you’re a regular reader you’ll know I’m very into evidence based research and using techniques that work. Well, positive thinking is not something off the wall; it’s a technique that works and is used in treatment models for all kinds of conditions.

First you have to identify your negative messages to self (write them down as the thoughts go in; I bet you’re really unkind to yourself sometimes). Then you have to harness that negative impact for a good and positive one. So turn your spam into something helpful, like ‘ I am good at what I do’, ‘this will pass’, and so on. I can’t write them for you as they have to be something that sounds like you talking and doesn’t make you squirm with embarrassment!

3 Find Something Fulfilling Outside of Work

When you’re not getting what you want from work try and get it from somewhere else! Work out what you’re missing: challenge, stimulation, new learning, team work, responsibility, money maybe, and see if there is a way of finding that outside your current role. You could offer yourself and your skills to a charity, maybe do an additional part time job (that’s harder but not impossible), start an online course, read a self help book and try out what it advises, sign up for an evening class…. Give yourself ten minutes to jot down all the possibilities, don’t censor anything. Or better still do it with a friend and make it fun.

I’d love to hear how you cope or have coped if you’ve ever been stuck in a job rut. And don’t forget my book ‘When Work Isn’t Working’ covers all of this and more.

Photo Credit: Kostas Kitsos

Women Together – A Class Act

I have just finished one of my Renewyou courses at a great hotel in Bristol. I am very tired but very happy and energised at one and the same time. What a wonderful collection of women I have just had the privilege of spending a day with.

There really is something magical about a group of women all working together to support and help each other. It truly plays to our strengths; the feeling of trust, caring and respect that was engendered was almost palpable.

I wish some of those people who tell me women are ‘bitchy’ and ‘uncooperative’ together could have seen the magic that happened yesterday. Of course, everyone had a common purpose, to make a positive change in their lives, but already I’ve had enough comments from them to know that something else happened. There was a generosity of spirit that will reward both the givers and receivers. These are not women who will be pulling up the ladder behind them but reaching out to help other women.

So to all you women who were with me yesterday in Bristol, I sincerely thank you. It was a very special day for me too. I wish you success in all your endeavours. I know you will be fabulous!

“One’s prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur.” Murial Spark in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

RenewYou Women, you are most definitely in your prime now! Grab it with both hands!

Women’s friendships are important.

Photo Credit: West Suburban -Women’s friendship group

Take a Fresh Look

I have just been away for ten days or so on a writing break (look out for my new ebook soon!). We arrived home last last night with the energy to do nothing but fall into bed. This morning, however, I had a glorious surprise.

During my few days absence my garden has burst into bloom. Everything looks totally different and utterly gorgeous and I am relishing it to the full. The small tight buds which were modestly clinging to the branches when I left have now burst out into glorious, trollopy, rapturous colour and scent. It was literally breathtaking.

Yet, if I had been here as the buds began to unfurl I probably wouldn’t have noticed such a transformation. I would have appreciated it, most definitely, but I doubt I would have seen the full effect as I am now, or that it would have had such an impact, because I would have been living with it on a daily basis. We just don’t fully appreciate the incremental changes.

Your Life

And life is a bit like that, isn’t it? We don’t always notice out achievements and acknowledge our successes because we’ve been so busy pursuing them. We’ve been so busy living our lives that sometimes we forget to take a few moments to stand and stare, and acknowldege just how far we have come.

Try it now; close your eyes and imagine you are describing your life for someone else. You’re only going to highlight achievements and successes because we spend enough time doing the other thing. Just think how far you have progressed and travelled and the skills and experiences you have acquired; bask in those thoughts for a moment before plunging right back in there!

Photo Credit: Neil Witty

Take a Break and Get Creative

I’ve been nurturing the idea for an ebook for a while – I’ve even roughed out the chapters. But somehow I’ve just never got round to it actually putting it together in a coherent form. It began to feel like a chore I had to do, rather than the pleasure it started out as.

So, following in the footsteps of the great and the good and on advice from my accountant (I have a wonderful accountant), I decided to take a break somewhere and do nothing but write!

Which is why I have ended up on the beautiful Isle of Arran. The picture opposite is a near as I can find to the view I have from my window now as I write this. It is glorious and it is working its magic. I am two chapters into the book (once we’d sorted out a few technical issues), and woke this morning raring to get on with it.

I know it’s not always possible for all sorts of reasons to get away, or to get a proper break from day to day living, but a change really can be as good as a rest. As the long holiday week end approaches I urge you to do something different if you can. Maybe change routines, visit a local beauty spot, nourish your inner soul. Walk an alternative route to buy your paper, visit a museum, get some fresh air. Anything that will hopefully put something back into your personal bank and see you through the months ahead.

Have a great Spring Break!

Photo credit: Ancestry.com