Featured posts

Smile

/0 Comments/in , /by

It’s Valentine’s Day, named after St Valentine of Rome, who died on 14th Feb 269 AD.  In today’s culture, it’s a day to celebrate all the warm and loving emotions between people.  Not to mention the pressure to buy chocolates, cards and flowers!   My husband and I laughed a lot together as we each tried to smuggle our red-enveloped cards out from their secret locations as we got up and into our morning routine.  We laughed and we smiled.  Those big genuine smiles that spread all the way over your face and up and out through your eyes. 

 

A smile is a wonderful thing.  Did you know that we have 42 muscles that we can use to express ourselves through our face?  And did you know that there are 19 different types of smile?  And that the big genuine warm and full-hearted smiles have a name?  They are called ‘Duchenne Smiles’, named after the French anatomist, Duchenne de Bologne in 1862.  All smiles require the big muscles of the face to lift the corners of the mouth.  But the genuinely happy ‘Duchenne smile’ also has the eyes involved, as the orbicularis oculi muscles around the eyes contract too.  So those lovely wrinkles around the corners of your eye are a good sign that you are often happy, feeling the enjoyment of life.    

 

 So no matter what your relationship status is today, you can choose your own experiment in the use of the many types of smiles and choose to give someone a big full hearted and full face ‘Duchenne smile’.   And I would bet that it will create a big full face ‘Duchenne smile’ in reply.   I am going to be a bit more intentional letting out some more ‘Duchenne smiles’ as I go about my day.  Let me know in the comments below, how you get on, if you decide to give it a try.  Happy Valentines!

When I need to stroke a horse to raise my productivity

/0 Comments/in /by

By Thursday this week my productivity and clarity – those beautiful and powerful executive brain functions – were dwindling.  I was set on the goal of launching this website by Friday 7th March and that was tomorrow.  I had been working non-stop and with focus at my work station for 10 days.  I was thoroughly enjoying myself but I could feel a “brain drain” beginning.  I could have pushed on through or did I need to do what I knew I needed to do?   Yes – I tore myself away from my laptop.  It was time to sing, go and ride my horse and dance with careless abandon and the curtains closed!

What can you do when you feel your brain grinding to a productivity standstill?

What are your signs that your brain is shutting down?

Mine feels heavy about an inch inside my head beneath my hairline.  I also find myself staring at the screen or looking around my laptop wondering what to do next. I find it hard to priorotise what to do next and I feel stuck.  How about you?

What are your signs?  What can you do to move about and get your brain back into gear?

I remember several years ago when I was crunching data for a research project.  On mornings when I ran (Yes I am one of those people who loves running!) for a few miles before starting my day my ability to memorise strings of more than 6 numbers between my note pad and my keyboard and database was noticably different.  It was easy after a run to memorise the string of numbers then turn to my screen (I can’t touch type) and easily input the entire string.  However on mornings when I’d not been for a run beforehand I’d have to look back at my notepad twice or three times to refresh my memory to get the full string of numbers input correctly.  It amazed me then how much of a difference I had in my mental clarity just by having exercised before my day began.

This is one of the John Medina’s Brain Rule’s.  Your brain works best with exercise, be it walking, moving, bouncing, dancing, playing.

How can you walk, move, bounce, dance and play more in your work place today?

In conclusion;  yesterday I spent the afternoon and into the evening riding my horse, enjoying my horse friends and helping my joiner/carpenter fix some new partitions in the barn.  And guess what, I had a great nights sleep, I woke up full of energy and I’ve been super productive all morning.  Editing the copy for this website has been fluid and fun and I’m on target to launch this website later today.

I know it might feel counter intuitive in the moment but give yourself what you need to reach your highest performance.

How can you find a way to add movement and exercise into your working day?