‘He’s just SO annoying’

‘I can’t believe she just said that’

‘If I have to look at his stupid face again I’ll punch it’

‘I just can’t be in the same room as her any more’

Sometimes in life you meet a person who just rubs you up the wrong way.  They wind you up, push your buttons, irritate, annoy and sometimes enrage you.  They aren’t so awful that everyone around you shuns them, but they drive you nuts.

Often, we can organize our lives so we don’t have to be around people like that much.

But sometimes, that isn’t possible.  Maybe that annoying person is a new colleague at work or perhaps a friend’s new partner.  You can’t get away or avoid them.  You have to deal with them.

So what can you do?

Here’s a three-step strategy for dealing with difficult people. (more…)

First, catch your elephant.

OK, this isn’t really about eating elephants. Because of all the things elephants need right now, being eaten probably isn’t one of them.

But if you did have to eat an elephant, it would probably feel like a mammoth task. (I know. Listen, I wanted to write ‘mammoth tusk’, so you’ve got off lightly here).

Sometimes life can feel as though we are faced with an avalanche of insurmountable challenges.

When it does, we feel overwhelmed. Overwhelm is horrible. It’s a tightness in the throat, a shallowness of breath, a twitch of anxiety in the stomach. And when we feel overwhelmed, we stop. Either stop being effective, or just stop dong anything at all.

So here are twenty seven things you can do when you feel overwhelmed. Now wouldn’t that be horrible? You’ve got too much on your plate then someone adds twenty seven more things that you have to think about.

Nope, not twenty seven. Just two. Count ‘em. One. Two.

Two simple, effective, manageable ideas that help me, whenever I notice a sense of overwhelm is slowing me down. Try ‘em out for yourself. (more…)

Last week, the Alexander Technique was featured in the UK edition of OK magazine.  It’s a celebrity gossip magazine, and the piece mentioned the benefits of the work for improving posture as well as many of the celebs who have studied the Technique: Hilary Swank, William Hurt, Joanna Lumley, Sir Paul McCartney, Pierce Brosnan, Sting, Julia Sawalha, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jennifer Saunders and Ruby Wax.

In fact, there are tons of famous people who have taken Alexander Technique lessons.  It really is the A-listers secret weapon.

But why?  What makes this work so valuable to this particular group of people?  And just because it works for them, will it work for you? (more…)

We all have difficult days. Days when we need a quick fix to feel better and lift our mood.

Sometimes tasks are challenging and push us out of our comfort zone.

Other times, people push our buttons and we get a big emotional reaction that flares up.

Or we didn’t get enough sleep, or eat properly yesterday, or we’re dehydrated – it doesn’t take much to knock us off course.

There’s one simple fix that will always help you to feel better instantly.  It’s this: (more…)

Your undercarriage, your nether regions, your squidgy bits – the human pelvic floor is a bit of a minefield. Here’s a user’s guide. (more…)

If you’ve bought the Love Your Back programme, you’ll know that one crucial part of building a daily ritual of positive self-care practice is to really focus on the benefits that you get.

Yes it’s inconvenient to have to do your lying down.

Yes you’re too busy / tired / stressed.

Yes it’s noisy and chilly and you’ll have to move the table to find space.

Do it anyway.

Because once you get there, you know how great you feel.

You feel rested.  You’re calmer.  Your back is easier.  Your shoulders have unfolded. You can breathe.

That’s the part to focus on.  Really soak up and luxuriate in the positive benefits.

Why?  Well, we are hard-wired to love pleasure and avoid pain, BUT as neuroscientist Rick Hanson points out, our brains act like teflon with good experiences, and like velcro for bad ones.  Those bad parts are the parts we remember.  The good stuff slips away like fried eggs out of the frying pan. (more…)

There are a lot of things I love about the Alexander Technique, but at the very top of my list is the lying down practice.

It’s simple but profound.

It’s easy but rich.

And it only takes 20 minutes per day. (more…)

Posture.  Sounds terrible doesn’t it?

Shoulders back.  Tummy pulled in.  Walk about with a book on your head.

Stiff, formal, old-fashioned and uncomfortable.

Who wants to be bothered with that?

In fact, there’s a big secret that most people don’t know about posture.  A secret pay-off.  I think you might like to know about it. (more…)

We are all blessed with some very clever bits of design in the spine: the intervertebral discs.  So we’re all disc jockeys, riding the discs in our spine all day as we move about.  Here’s the full scoop on your secret shock absorbers – what and where they are, how they work and how to keep ‘em happy. (more…)