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When You Aren't At Your Best

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 09:17:46 GMT

Boosting resilience wherever you are right now.

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Nutritional Choices

Mon, 01 May 2023 15:52:55 GMT

What's all the fuss about ultra-processed foods?

A basic of wellbeing is making sure you are nourishing yourself with adequate food. In practice, in today’s world, this can be much harder than you think.

Doctors and scientists are starting to become increasingly aware of just how toxic our current food environment is. It leads to us being overweight and undernourished at the same time. So, how is this happening?

There are many excellent books on this subject so this won’t be a detailed explanation - I particularly recommend Dr Chris van Tullekan’s book Ultra Processed People for an accessible introduction. But the simple fact is that increasingly, we aren’t eating things we make ourselves from ingredients. We are eating foods that are manufactured and are made mostly from substances extracted from foods, such as fats, starches, added sugars, and hydrogenated fats. They may also contain additives like artificial colours and flavours or stabilisers.

They are designed by food manufacturers to appeal to our senses of taste and texture, and as a result we crave them and eat more of them. Good news for profits and bad news for us, because this can make us over eat, interfere with our sense of balance, and encourage us to eat more of the things that contain less useful nutrition to fuel our bodies.

The easiest way to spot ultra processed food is simply to look at the ingredients list. If it contains a substance you can’t buy separately in the supermarket, it’s ultra-processed. For example, in my favourite oat based milk substitute, I find the following: Water, Oats (10%), Sunflower Oil, Chicory Root Fibre, Tricalcium Phosphate, Maltodextrin, Sea Salt, Stabiliser: Gellan Gum. Good luck with finding gellan gum - and what does it do anyway? Well, it contributes to the gloriously creamy texture, and the maltodextrin gives it that sweet flavour. It is absolutely delicious and it’s marketed in packaging that makes it look environmentally friendly and healthy, so what’s not to like?

Recent data suggests that for most of us, 60% of our calories are consumed through ultra processed foods, and for children it is as high as 80%. And the evidence is stacking up that this diet is bad for our health, not just our physical health but also our mental health.

There is lots more research to come on this of course, but part of me feels that this should be obvious to us. If we rush and don’t choose ingredients or take time to assemble our food, we are much less likely to make good choices. If we are forever driven by a quick hit of pleasure, how can we ever appreciate the rhythms of life? If every meal is a delicious explosion of perfect textures and flavours, how will we ever know when we have had enough?

So, if you are feeling overwhelmed generally, it might be a useful project to start by slowing down on that most basic of human survival necessities, and eat some good old fashioned unprocessed food!

Wearable Fitness Devices

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 15:32:51 GMT

What is hear rate variability and what does it tell us?

T he Mustard Seeds approach to wellbeing is primarily based around management of physiology. Our mental and physical health are often closely connected, and lifestyle interventions that boost physiology are often a good starting point as it is relatively easy to track habits and recognise progress.

Wearable fitness devices have come a long way in the past few years and can be very useful to help motivate us and record what we are actually doing. They vary in cost and sophistication, but a basic one that record heart rate and movement can be a useful addition.

I had one of the first Apple Watches eight years ago - at that stage I found it rather intrusive as it seemed quite judgmental and it was a bit like wearing a fitness coach on my arm. Since then, the software on all the wearables has become more inclusive and less judgy - I can now record a quick walk pushing my mum and not feel like it’s a cop out!

One of the biggest changes in the latest generation is their ability to record heart rate variability (HRV) as well and your basic heart rate. HRV refers to the variation in time between the beats of your heart. These are actually signals from your nervous system. Your heart takes direction from your autonomous nervous system, which regulates the bodily functions like breathing, digestion and blood pressure - the things that happen ‘automatically’.

When you are relaxing, your heart rate slows, which shows your parasympathetic nervous system is driving responses. When you are stressed or excited, your beats faster, showing your sympathetic nervous system is in charge. Heart rate variability (HRV) reflects your body’s ability to manage signals from the two competing branches of the autonomous nervous system. You can learn a lot more about that in one of our training sessions. So, a higher HRV means that your body is managing changes in stress levels effectively and is able to make the most of relaxation. In contrast, a low HRV may mean you are not managing stress well and your sympathetic nervous system is driving things a little too hard - in short, you aren’t in balance.

This technology is at the early stages in terms of wrist wearables, and so it isn’t very accurate compared to a reading a proper chest monitor could take in a supervised medical situation. But it can alert us to trends, and it can help us to see whether our the lifestyle changes advocated in the Mustard Seeds approach are having benefits.

A Tribute to Ruth Perry

Sun, 19 Mar 2023 16:56:42 GMT

Sadness and anger from the education community.

A ll of us in the education community have been devastated by the news this week of Ruth Perry’s death. Ruth, a headteacher who had served the profession for thirty two years, took her own life after an Ofsted inspection in which her school was downgraded from Outstanding to Inadequate. Thirty two years of service, reduced to a one word description.

Reflect on that for a moment. Ruth had served in what is widely recognised to be a tough profession for thirty two years. She had been a headteacher of a thriving primary school for thirteen years. This was not somebody who shied away from challenge or who quit easily when the going got tough. Let’s be c lear . There are some situations that are so toxic that they can devastate the most mentally robust among us.

Headteachers work in a climate of chronic stress. The Ofsted framework and processes ha ve designed that into the job. As I wrote in The Guardian in 2021:

‘As a headteacher, my vision must be maintained amid shifting goalposts. Prior to 2019, a school’s raw attainment data was enough to make or break an inspection grade. Since the new framework, it is whether your planned curriculum matches exactly what is in the books that is the deciding factor. And there has been a pandemic in between.’

Meanwhile, a crisis in children’s services adds more responsibilities and we are seeing unprecedented levels of escalated behaviour in children due to a multitude of problems in our wider society. Many Headteachers describe how they have been asked for evidence of how they hold outside agencies to account who are unable to fulfil their own duties due to lack of funding or staffing.

Despite glib comments from Ofsted about there being no need for Headteachers to prepare for inspection, that would be naive in the extreme given that the process begins with a 90-minute phone call like some kafkaesque examination, where the Head will need to set the tone and describe the school’s strengths and weaknesses with excruciating accuracy. We live each week on our nerves, as we don’t know if this will come this week, this month, or even this year. Ofsted do not deign to enlighten us with a window.

On a good day, my school is a calm oasis in a turbulent world - a place of positivity and hope. On a bad day we can lurch from crisis to crisis and it can feel like all the woes of the world are represented in our small community.

Although I work hard to spread the message that we can help our own wellbeing with the small, positive changes I advocate on this site, and I genuinely believe they can make a difference to our quality of life, I also think there are some situations where we need to stand together and say:

“No. This must stop.”

Get to know your nervous system

Sun, 26 Feb 2023 12:24:39 GMT

Five steps to support parasympathetic tone

H uman physiology is optimised when we are in a sta te of balance. A life with no excitement and challenge is not a balanced one. Chasing a lifestyle that involves no stress is not a recipe for well-being.

But the key word here is balance . It is in the balance that the secret to our best state of well - being lies. Understanding th is , and how the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems interact to create optimal functioning, is a key part of the Mustard Seeds strategy.

The first step is awareness. When we become aware our autonomous nervous system is out of balance, we can take steps to give it the best chance to regulate itself. In the modern world, many things conspire to block this awareness with endless distractions and the unrealistic idea that somehow we are tougher and stronger if we can burn the candles at both ends. Think the way we have so willingly surrendered to 24 hour working cultures through our technology, the way coffee machines serving the strongest blends have appeared in workplaces, the way a culture of ‘work hard, play hard’ leaves us feeling like we want more, always, as we look at others and compare ourselves obsessively .

Step one in creating awareness is to be still . You can’t listen to your body without peace and quiet. In the early stages of imbalance the signs are small and require concentration to catch.

Step two is noticing . Key markers might be how fast your breathing is and whether it is hard to slow it down, how hard you find it to be physically still, and how intrusive particular thoughts are.

Step three is visualising and imagining. Tell yourself a story about how you would like it to be. This is a private space so it can be completely unrealistic if you want.

Step four is to come out of the imagery and accept that life contains ups and downs. Slow yourself to dwell on the bad things that have happened recently that might have caused your sympathetic nervous system to be working overtime. Accept them.

Step five is to go back to that noticing stage and commit to one small step that will support your physiology. If you are over breathing, consider two minutes twice a day to practice better breathing. If you have an unsettled stomach, consider planning meals better for the next week and see if you notice an improvement. Think about your sleep routine. Ask yourself questions about caffeine and alcohol. Make sure you choose just one thing to change so that you stand a chance of following it through.

In summary...

Still yourself.

N otice changes.

Visualise positive stories.

Accept what has happened.

Commit to look ing after yourself with the things you can control to support your physiology.

Mindful Moments

Sun, 22 Jan 2023 15:18:11 GMT

The power of noticing.

E arly in 2020, before the pandemic had taken over our lives, I took a short course in iPhone photography.

It was an online course lasting no more than three hours or so, purchased on the Udemy site for less than £20. It wasn’t particularly technical; the stated aim of the course by the facilitator, Dale McManus, was to help learners understand that photography, in his words, is 1% gear and 99% ‘what’s up here’ ie, your thinking.

It was transformative. I found that having taken the course, I started to really pause and look at things in a different way. A short, ten minute walk could quickly become an almost meditative experience as I entered a state of flow, eyes sharpened by looking for things of interest to capture. I noticed beautiful things, noticed the changing light. I noticed the wonderful designs of nature. I saw that they could look very different if I looked up at them or down at them, or if I moved around them so the light shone from a different direction.

As we train ourselves to notice the world around us, we can deepen this awareness to notice our feelings. We can marvel at their complexity and range. We can see that just as the seasons and the light change, so do our feelings. And we can notice that sometimes, how we feel about things can vary if we twe ak our perspective and the lens through which we see events.

So, get your phone out. Look at the world. Capture the insignificant moments as well as the significant ones. Lose yourself, just for a few seconds. Then when you next notice your feelings and emotions, reflect on the fact that they too can change as fast as the scene you have captured.

In Praise of Soup

NM182224 — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 19:46:32 GMT

Good nutrition in a hurry

W e know that eating well is important to our wellbeing. Nutrition is one of the five key interventions of the Mustard Seeds method for stress resilience. If we want to adopt new habits round food, we need to make it easy. But I’m a busy headteacher, and so I need to make it as simple as possible to nourish myself and others on the go.

The first thing is to be realistic. Not every meal is going to be perfect. I have a family and everyone has different things they will or won’t eat, and they come and go at different times. But when I’m hungry or I need to produce a meal quickly, I want a go-to that doesn’t involve reaching for ultra processed food.

Over the years, I have discovered that soup is that go-to. You can make soup from just about anything. I start with a base of vegetables and stock cubes. From there the possibilities are limitless. I boil up vast vats of it, blend it to smooth with a simple stick blender so nobody can complain that there is something in it they don’t like, and then keep some in the fridge and some in the freezer, portioned in old takeaway boxes.

Try the halloween pumpkin boiled up with a whole orange and some sweet potatoes, seasoned with ginger and pepper. Broccoli, stalks and all, can be boiled up with stilton cheese and a dash of red wine. My mother in law makes one called ‘Cream of Sunday veg’ where she even throws in the roast potatoes and blends it all up. Red peppers, tins of tomatoes and sweet potatoes seasoned with paprika and chilli if you like it spicy, makes an excellent crowd pleaser. Add lentils or other pulses for extra protein and to make it even more sustaining. Basically, anything goes.

Sometimes it doesn’t look very promising in the pan when it’s cooking, but once it’s blended it always turns out just fine.

Serve it with your favourite bread if you are in a rush, and as a side with a baked potato if you have more time. Real food, ready to go. I promise it will lift your mood.

I often make soup for others. At work, I make it for a working lunches with colleagues. At home, inviting people over for a quick walk followed by soup is an easy thing to plan. It is always appreciated. People seem to like the simplicity and lack of fuss of a bowl of soup, a fresh bread roll and maybe a bit of cheese. And of course, as social creatures, sharing a simple meal with others is bound to boost stress resilience too, so it's a double win!

Happy New Year!

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 19:20:29 GMT

Best foot forward...

F or me, there is always a sense of optimism in January. This has much to do with the ebb and flow of the seasons. Although the worst of the winter weather is yet to come, the shortest day is now behind us. In a few short weeks, the afternoons will be noticeably lighter. It won’t be long before there are some signs of spring, with all its symbolism.

So regardless of how you feel about New Year’s resolutions, changing some habits in January could mean that by the time spring is here good and proper, you could be feeling the benefits.

Make it as easy as you can. We are aiming to establish a habit and have success with a pattern of behaviour, not completely redesign your life. Choose something that could be achieved in no more than ten minutes a day. For inspiration, think about the five focus areas of the well-being habits.

Move slightly more at a particular time of day or linked to an aspect of your life. Plan for one of your meals or snacks a day. Change something about your bedtime routine. Proactively plan for your habits around your phone. Schedule some short things into your diary that make you smile.

Just choose one of the above to track. You might do more, but tracking one will help you stay curious about your progress. Observe how it goes for January and take it from there.

Happy New Year!

Balancing the autonomous nervous system

NM182224 — Sun, 04 Dec 2022 17:59:58 GMT

Tricks from Early Years teachers

O ver the years, I have had the privilege of working with some hugely talented Early Years teachers. Watching them at work as they create an environment for the youngest children to thrive, I think of what we can learn from them at times when we feel pressured and overwhelmed.

We know that our autonomous nervous system needs to find balance if we are to thrive. Too much pressure and stress for too long causes us to go out of balance. This is just as true for adults as it is for children. But little children are at a very early stage of learning to manage this feeling of balance. We know how easily they become over stimulated, fractious and emotional. So how do Early Years teachers support them to find it?

Watch them and you can see they employ the techniques we all need.

They encourage regular movement, through dancing and playing indoors and outdoors, exercising the whole body.

They plan the routines so children pause at regular times to eat and drink, and serve simple foods with a good mix of proteins, vegetables and complex carbohydrates.

The day in an good Early Years environment can feel quite regimented in between the periods of play - there are built in times for quieter, predictable activities that happen at the same times each day, encouraging a sense of rhythm and safety. This creates space to rest.

They protect children from the worst influences - m ost limit screens, and it is increasingly popular to try to avoid brightly coloured plastic toys that over stimulate and depress creativity.

Finally, they are places where you can be in the moment, shar ing beauty in simple things like pouring water or sifting sand, mixing paint or playing with mud. Places where you can immerse yourself deeply and find a sense of flow.

When we are anxious, finding it hard to switch off, or struggling with moods, it may be a good idea to audit our day as if we were an Early Years teacher. Put in movement breaks, plan some simple foods, keep to a routine for the basics that have to be done. Look at where we can reduce the things we know are toxic for us -and that will vary from person to person. It could be those late coffees or alcohol, or over scrolling on your phone. You know what yours are. Finally, make time and space to lose yourself in the projects that interest you.

The joy of movement

NM182224 — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 16:46:55 GMT

Just being busy is good for you!

W e know that movement is good for us. There are huge physiological benefits to increasing our movement. It raises our heart rate and this in turn increases oxygen to our brains and muscles, resulting in an energising effect. It maintains our strength and flexibility, and our balance. Moving around stimulates our senses and offers new and varied viewpoints. All of this combines to have a positive effect on our wellbeing.

But it’s important to know that you can get the benefits of movement without needing to be particularly into ‘fitness’ or ‘exercise’. You can enjoy movement simply by embracing being busy.

It’s easy when we are tired and feeling sluggish to want to sit down, scroll on screens, and move very little. But even small amounts of movement will energise us. It’s going to sound silly, but putting the vacuum round, running up and down the stairs with the washing, or getting down on your hands and knees to clean the kitchen floor is enough to gently raise your heart rate and give you a wellbeing boost. Knowing you’ve done something useful with those ten minutes will add even more of one.

So put on some loud music while you are in the kitchen and dance. Have some weights in an attractive basket to hand, and add some resistance. Walk to the post box and drop that letter. Dig the garden. Mow the lawn. Scrub the shower. It’s all movement that will raise your heart rate. And when you start to see any activity as an opportunity to energise , things feel less like a chore and more like part of a full, busy and active life.

Notice the good things

Sun, 06 Nov 2022 15:50:33 GMT

Creating a simple positivity tracker

I keep a plate of coffee beans on my desk. They smell great and they look beautiful. The plate was a present from a friend and has significance to me. They work for me as my ‘positivity tracker.’

The human brain is wired to notice negativity. There’s a very good reason for that - its about survival. As we evolved, having a sharp eye out for threats and anticipating when things might go wrong was literally a matter of life or death. So the brain will prioritise negative information and thoughts.

It’s easy to get into a habit of thinking negatively about ourselves, calling into question our every judgement and achievement. We have to learn to live with the inevitability of this to a certain extent as part of being human. To be honest, it’s good to be humble - who wants to be the person who always thinks they are greatest and has all the answers?

But at the same time, we need to find balance, and take the time to notice when we do good things and make the right choices. This is where the beans come in.

Every time I do something that I know is a good thing, either for myself or for someone else, I put a bean in the jar next to the plate. It can be anything at all that I consider makes the world a better place. Get up and do my yoga? Bean in the jar. Write a letter to my mum? Another bean. Send a thank you text or e-mail? That’s worth one. Pick up a colleague’s favourite coffee pods in the supermarket? Yes, that’s one. Make it home on time from work even if it felt a struggle? One bean.

It means when you are having a bad day, you can always look at that jar and think: “Today did not go well, but I am not a bad person. I have done all these good things.”

It also means that you are building another very powerful habit - self praise. And we now that people who are kind to themselves tend to be kind to others too. Noticing the positive is a habit worth practising.

Autumn thoughts

Sun, 30 Oct 2022 14:58:11 GMT

How low mood can trigger positive changes

Like many of us, at this time of the year I tend to experience more low moods - there’s a background hum of anxiety and I tend to over-think things or dwell on the gloomier aspects. Over the years, I have picked up a few strategies that help.

The first is to remember that a lot of this is natural - it is linked to the changes in light and it is a human response to the anticipation of the scarceness in winter. So, accepting it and knowing that there is a high chance it will pass, just as day follows night and spring follows winter, is part of it. But how can we help ourselves to not get too caught up in it and make sure we are still engaging with all that we need to do and enjoying the positives when they come?

We can start by looking at three intervention points for developing resilience: our environment, our thinking, and our physiology. This time of year is a good trigger to look closely at the habits we can control that will impact positively on any of these. For example, we might identify that we feel more tired. Maybe it’s a good idea to look at our habits around bedtime and audit those. I know I need an earlier bedtime during the winter months. Am I getting away from screens at an appropriate time to allow myself to wind down? Am I avoiding high sugar foods late at night? Being aware of our environment can boost our physiological resilience, but it can also make us feel more in control and therefore boost positive thinking.

Changing habits can be tricky, but its a good tip to try to attach a habit you want to something you already do in your life. For example, if I want to avoid sugary snacks in the evening, I can commit to brushing my teeth after dinner, which makes me less likely to eat again. Eating dinner in the evening is a regular thing for me, so I can tag one habit to another. Here’s another example - if I want to read a book rather than my phone in the evening, I can commit to putting my phone on charge by 9pm every night and making sure there is always a book ready next to my bed. Going upstairs to bed is a regular thing, so I can attach other rituals to it.

Movement outdoors in daylight is really powerful for helping mood, but not always easy to achieve at the time of year if you work full time. If you work in an office, can you make it out for a 20 minute walk at lunchtime? As a headteacher, I could offer to cover someone’s break duty whenever I can, and that would impact both of us positively!

As always, no matter how small the change you make, repeated habits over time it will have an impact. One early night will help. But a set of good habits round sleep will help us weather any storm. One walk outdoors may lift a mood. But a habit of choosing a quick walk whenever you can in daylight will help build longer term resilience.

Remember the five stress resilience strategies: movement, nutrition, recovery, protection and thinking. Are there a couple of habits you could change around two of these areas that would be a starting point? That way, a low autumnal mood can become a positive trigger for something better.