Word of the Year: Purity

I feel that the purer the thought, the purer the life.

This may sound boring, but once someone lives through plenty of drama, heartache, and destruction, one may consider purity desirable.

I get that all ups and downs are a “part of life” but I feel that to what level… is largely up to us. And I feel that what we participate in, naturally affects our thoughts, and ultimately affects what goes on around us.

This isn’t a: violent video games creates a violent child speech

But, I am abfirm believer that the seemingly “normal” things that happen during the course of a day, like: sudden illness, outbursts of anger, poor reactions to situations, and so on, may be a direct result of thought. At least to some level.

And no, I haven’t been watching Drew Barrymore’s Firestarter on repeat, but I have been practicing this myself at some level over the years, and have seen positive results. Perhaps it is as some may say, coincidence, but I feel happier and healthier when I am conscious of more pure thoughts.

How About a Challenge?

I am big on 30-day, or 1-week, or whatever length… challenges. This helps people realize how ingrained a behaviour is, helps them pay closer attention to the activity and the results, and ultimately can encourage positive changes.

Consider the following challenges for yourself for this year:

Stop watching TV I think overall, TV-watching is an extremely unhealthy habit, and not watching for a month feels like an easy task to me. However, I get that TV watching is a big deal for many people. So, perhaps consider a deviation of this challenge if it seems too drastic for you. Maybe drop the late night news for a month. Maybe stop late night trash TV. How about just being conscious of how much TV you *actually* watch, and drop it to 1, 2, or 3 hours per day. Or better, what about replacing all programs with more wholesome TV. Programs like: The Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, and Anne of Green Gables feel like appropriate choices for the whole family. They can give everyone an entirely different way of thinking. Little House is on every weekday at 4:00 Eastern in Canada on Cogeco 19, with The Waltons right after for those interested.

Spend more time doing nothing A lot of people avoid this I think because idle time means lots of undesirable thoughts. But, just pausing life, even for 10 minutes, feels very valuable for a plethora of reasons. And I feel that overall, we control our own thinking. If thought goes in a direction that doesn’t feel “pure”, or at least desirable, then push that thought a way. Visualize the removal of that thought, and deliberately choose a better feeling thought. Be careful with this practice though. Sometimes, “better feeling” means indulging in destructive fantasy. Well, I’m not the first to say this, and it’s what I have been suggesting all along… your thoughts affect your reality in one way or another. Focus on thoughts that you would like to exist in *real life* and see how your life transforms. It’s worth a shot no?

Read more What about picking up the habit of reading something for an hour a day? It doesn’t have to be something that helps you perfect your craft, although it can be. Choose wisely though. Just like TV, and even the people that you surround yourself with, what you choose to read has a direct affect on your thoughts. Which… as many believe… has a direct affect on your reality.

Think more purely!

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Naturally, these are just my opinions, and what I feel has been beneficial in my life. I am no “expert” on the topic. I just enjoy the benefits of this in my own life, and it has been adopted as the path I chose to take, to put some of the major challenges that I am facing today, in my past.

If you aren’t much of a believer on the topic of thought patterns being important to everyday life, and having the potential to affect your relationships with others and yourself, consider listening to any of these audio books on the topic. Some of what is said may change your thinking, or reinforce your belief.

You can get an audio book free from Amazon’s Audible if you are a new member. You do need to provide your CC details, but you can cancel by next month if you don’t want to participate in the monthly audio book subscription. I do get a bounty from Amazon, if you use the link above, for introducing a new customer to them. But I wholeheartedly believe in the subject, it’s not just a referral in order to receive a commission.

Word of the Year: Purity

Jeremy Hunt can’t fix the NHS. No one now believes a word he says | Polly Toynbee

Expect trouble. On Tuesday, health secretary Jeremy Hunt and NHS England head Simon Stevens appear before the Commons health committee. Sarah Wollaston, GP and chair, has already said she wants no one quoting the mythical “£10bn extra” the government pretends the NHS has received, yet Hunt brazenly used it again on the Today programme.

Thankfully, Stevens is unlikely to indulge in the same delusional fantasies about the state of his service. He already warned the public accounts committee in September of this “incredibly financially challenging period”, and “incredible” is the word he should cleave to. As every trust is forced to produce a financial plan that balances on paper, most – in private – admit these are fairy-tales; Chris Hopson of NHS Providers makes plain these pigs won’t fly. Hunt relies on threats and micro-managing. Just yesterday he put another three debt-ridden trusts into “special measures” to warn others their heads will be on Whitehall spikes. But there’s safety in numbers: he can’t sack them all.

Theresa May has said there is no more money: the NHS must save £22bn by 2020, despite three quarters of trusts being up to their ears in debt and missing waiting targets by miles. If she could cut police costs by 20%, why can’t the NHS, she asks. Because crime has dropped like a stone over recent decades while NHS need heads skywards, with growing numbers of the old, and collapsing social care. She risks a brutal brush with NHS reality before long.

But that’s not all. By Friday all 44 areas have to produce a sustainability and transformation plan (STP), unleashing vehement local protest against any mergers or closures.

After Lansley’s catastrophic 2012 act blew the NHS into myriad competing fragments, this re-reorganisation was meant to repair the damage and glue the fractured parts together again – a good idea. Stevens devised STPs to bind each area into a single unit, combining GPs, mental health and hospital services in one budget as a coherent whole. That might mean amalgamating maternity or A&E departments, rationalising stroke or cardiac care. Good idea, in theory.

Junior doctors protest in London during April. Photograph: Joe Pepler/Rex/Shutterstock

But these plans collide with the £22bn “savings”, so how will local people trust the good intentions of these plans? NHS England has rightly taken fright: the Health Service Journal reveals there have been orders requiring each area to send every STP announcement to the headquarters communications team to make sure they “articulate tangible benefits for patients” in language that is “clear and compelling”. But it may take more than “compelling” language to assuage local fears.

Few of these plans have yet been agreed, allowing rumours and fears to fester – and when they do emerge, the government can expect no backing, not even from their own MPs and councillors. Expect every politician, irrespective of party, to dash to join the local “Save Our Hospital” demo. Any who pause to suggest some plans might be good for patients will be mown down in the stampede. Bandwagon campaigners will join every protest, regardless.

A cluster of hospital protesters went to Downing Street and the Commons last week, with petitions about closures from Barnstaple, Dewsbury, Chorley, Huddersfield, Grantham and St Helier. Each has their own circumstance, so it’s well-nigh impossible for local people to know which units should be “saved” and which rightly closed.

Among them were protesters about the Horton hospital in Banbury. At last week’s prime minister’s questions, the Tory MP for North Oxfordshire, Victoria Prentis, asked an impassioned question: “Does the prime minister share my sadness that the majority of Banbury’s babies cannot be delivered, as I was, at the Horton general hospital? Will she join with me to put pressure on the trust to reopen the unit?” The PM replied: “Every effort is being made …”

Horton swears they’ve moved heaven and earth to hire doctors but none would come: there’s a 24% vacancy rate

The Horton maternity unit closed abruptly this month after failing to hire middle-grade doctors, leaving a midwife-led unit. Part of the Oxford University Hospitals, its HR director swears they have moved heaven and earth to hire doctors but none would come: there’s a 24% vacancy rate in the district. The Horton obstetric unit lost its validation for training doctors as too few babies were being born there to qualify, so junior doctors won’t apply. They are still advertising, promising to reopen if they can recruit. Managers spell out the situation in painstaking detail, answering every possible query. But all this is to no avail.

A vociferous local Keep the Horton General campaign gathered 5,000 people to hold hands round the hospital, amid longstanding suspicions that it might be axed despite a plan to rebuild it. Every party supports the protest, with their Tory MP as militant as the rest. She says she doesn’t trust the management: “They make decisions about us without us.” She and the campaigners mistrust whatever they are told.

The Banbury Guardian relishes the story, as the local press always does. “It’s lovely how the community has come together,” Prentis says. Banbury businesses are offering any obstetric doctor recruited free shirts, free beer, cheap accommodation and discounted fees at a local private school. A packed meeting roasted NHS managers about the journey time for mothers in labour to travel to the John Radcliffe in Oxford. Nothing creates such feelgood community cohesion as a local NHS threat.

Talking to both sides, I am inclined to believe the managers’ good faith. But with deeper cuts scheduled for the years to 2020, can anyone know for certain where they might fall? At the Witney byelection, the Horton and other Oxfordshire NHS closures feature prominently. How Tory MPs get away with it beats me: they voted for these NHS cuts.

Watch this pattern repeated around the country as STP plans unfold. “Clear and compelling” language may not be enough when the NHS professionals, even the doctors, struggle to be believed. In the fog of war, with suspicions rife, local people have no way of detecting the good plans from dangerous cuts. As Stevens warned MPs: “Let’s be clear, there are going to be significant challenges, there will be choices, there will be controversies.”

The tragedy is that STPs were a progressive way to reunite NHS community, hospital, GP and social care services. But with no capital for rebuilding and even less for day-to-day spending, they risk wreckage. The cuts dig deep. How long before Simon Stevens decides to walk away?

Jeremy Hunt can’t fix the NHS. No one now believes a word he says | Polly Toynbee

The Two Letter Word That Can Ward Off Stress -- And How To Use It

As an entrepreneur, wife, mom of two, and a human who wants foods and rest, I know the difficulties of an endlessly occupied life. When you’re driven by massive goals and massive ideas, that busyness would seem downright all-natural. If I want so considerably, the considered goes, then I’m going to be operating all the time.

Even though I do have considerable ambitions, I also have a basic disagreement with the thought of 24/seven busyness. As I shared just lately on Fox Business’s The Willis Report, you, as a human being in a human physique, just can not sustain continual action. Eventually you will be slamming on the fuel pedal with the emergency brake on. Your tires may well spin, but your engine will break.

The crucial to staying sane, healthful, and productive under continual pressure is understanding how to prioritize your numerous responsibilities and say “no” when needed.

Here are three causes to draw the line.

one. Your overall health is at stake

Your body is your very best guidebook when it comes to owning up to your limits. It can not lie. When you have gone with just a number of hours of sleep for weeks on finish, one thing in your physique will hurt or break. If you neglect to drink adequate water in a day, you’ll get a headache. Believe of your emotions as an additional variety of physique, too. When you’re irritable, unmotivated, and dragging yourself by means of each day, that’s a red flag that you are near to burning out. (A lot more indicators you’re on the brink of burnout).

By the way, the identical thought holds when you want to understand your employees’ limits. Rather of a bodily entire body, you’re hunting at productivity, overall performance, absenteeism, and other benchmarks of continual busyness and anxiety to see exactly where things are breaking down.

Regardless of whether you are focused on your self or your enterprise, you need to recognize the existing, genuine capability of the physique in play. Once you know the limits, you can consider the methods to push them appropriately, such as blocking downtime into your calendar so you are charged up for a lot more action, or teaching resiliency skills to a workforce.

Say no when: Saying yes would compromise your wellness, your sleep, or your ability to cope with the stressors that abound every day. It does not imply you can’t take other stuff on, but you have to apply the 1 in, one particular out program: For every one issue you consider on, you should hand off, delegate, or drop something else.

2. You commence to play the “who’s busier” game

The cultural stress to equate busyness with success is immense. It’s trendy to be busy it is a tangible way for you to prove to colleagues, family, and by yourself that you are producing it.

But busyness is just a shadow of success. Its only value comes from comparison: becoming busier than a competitor in your field, a colleague, a neighbor, a fellow PTA member.  So you win at currently being occupied. Who truly cares? What’s far more worthwhile (and extraordinary) is choosing for oneself what it means to be a wonderful leader or a great mom and then reaching that objective, however numerous hrs it requires. That is success you can construct on.

Say no when: Saying yes wouldn’t add value to your existence in a meaningful way or assist you progress personally or professionally.  What do you wish for your self to attain and to expertise? This may consist of tackling a massive, time-consuming project, as long as its serves more than an itch to maintain up with the Joneses.

 3. You say “yes” out of guilt

When you are clear on your limits and on your objectives, then you can request two concerns of every new chance for busyness: Can you do this? And if you do, will it serve your objectives?

When you begin to draw boundaries close to your time, guilt typically comes up. Negative reactions like this deserve cautious consideration, since possibilities are great that a set of thoughts and beliefs is driving them, not the fact of saying “no.” If you really do not investigate the deeper causes for the guilt, the emotion will run you ragged.

Say no when: Guilt is the sole explanation for complying. This is when you need to have to stage back, observe your thoughts and question them. Are you genuinely letting a person down? Or is it all in your head? What’s truly pushing you to take on more and much more? Clarity right here will support you respect your personal limits and ambitions. (Read through far more on handling adverse feelings and ideas.)

As a leader at perform and a role model at residence, it’s your occupation to demonstrate how ambition and health can co-exist. Maintaining occupied is not the point for your business, loved ones, or self. Present them how to keep going although maintaining nicely.

The Two Letter Word That Can Ward Off Stress -- And How To Use It

Word Cup health warning: Alan Hansen urges England supporters to get vaccinations

Alan Hansen urges England followers travelling to Brazil to get vaccinations, such as yellow fever

He could have built his job as a cultured centre-back for the duration of his enjoying job with Liverpool, but Alan Hansen has taken on a new position helping defend England supporters towards tropical conditions, calling on people travelling to Brazil for the Globe Cup to make sure they get the appropriate vaccinations.

In a video launched today by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Hansen, who will be travelling to Brazil as a pundit for the BBC, warns supporters: “It really is not just the players who need to be ready. Supporters travelling from any element of the United Kingdom require to be so as properly.”

Thousands of England supporters are expected to travel to Brazil for the World Cup following month. Though vaccination requirements fluctuate across the country, a yellow fever vaccination (and certificate) is essential for travellers to Manaus, exactly where England will play their first game against Italy on June 14. Ideally, this should be administered 10 days just before travelling to danger places.

Other regions which have a chance of yellow fever incorporate the cities, and surrounding locations, of Belo Horizonte (the place England play Costa Rica on 24 June), Brasília and Cuiabá, even though Cuiabá and Manaus are each large-threat for malaria.

Vacationers in some places of Brazil, notably people to the far south of the nation and the cities of Rio and São Paulo, could not need any vaccinations or medication, even so followers are suggested to examine with their medical doctor or at a travel clinic prior to travel.

Word Cup health warning: Alan Hansen urges England supporters to get vaccinations