About Building Immunity & My Personal Thoughts on ‘Sleep is Number One’

March 20, 2020 Leave a comment

I work for a charitythat shares information about being healthier.

Below is a link to an article from one of our ambassadors. It is about building immunity to be more resistant to diseases, including viruses.

At this time, we are all challenged to look after our own immune system, so as not to allow any specific virus to thrive within us… for the sake of others.

=== Our charities key message continues to be: EAT REAL FOOD ===

I used to facilitate 3-day self-management courses for groups of people with bipolar diagnosis. An important part of that course was, how mood troubles and sleep troubles are always related (maybe 99% of the time). We all found that when we slept well life was so much better.

I gradually came to realize is that focusing on sleep only helped a little. My belief now (for me and perhaps for you too) is that when you start to get most other things right then sleep comes so much more naturally. So, the only thing I would change in Lou Walker’s article is that I would move ‘Sleep’ from number 1 to number 10.

Sleep is essential. It may be the most important thing for good health and healthy moods, yet I find ‘not focusing on it more helpful these days’. I am not expecting many people to agree with that – I am just sharing my thoughts.

A good read: https://louwalker.com/ten-ways-to-support-your-immune-syst…/

Best wishes

Roger

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The Assertive Bully (Part 3 of 4 on bullying)

November 20, 2011 1 Comment

Prior to setting up my business I worked for a large multi-national for 17 years. The business encouraged employees to attend assertive communication training to more easily recognize passive, assertive and aggressive communication.

The message was clear that being passive or aggressive in a situation where assertiveness is needed would lead to poor communication and that would be bad for business. It made sense to improve communication skills through training.

I went on to study assertiveness as part of my stress advisor training and found that communication styles are more dependent on mood than many people appreciate. It is well documented that in depression people tend to be passive. When anxious or over-active more aggression is likely to be seen. The thinking at the time was that assertive behaviour was always best and steadier moods would allow assertive communication.

When employed in bipolar recovery training our package included help with developing assertive communication. The general message given was:

assertive is good

It is good to be assertive

As a general message this is okay. It is simple and memorable.

There are dangers in this simple message.

1) Passive is not always bad. Humans use passive communication in a similar way to many other animals. When we are threatened or do not have the energy to argue a passive response will often get us through a difficult situation.

2) Aggressive communication is rarely good but sometimes a short sharp response to inappropriate behaviour can be very effective. I found from an early age that when done in the right way bullies always avoided the kids they knew could deliver a short sharp aggressive response. Bullies go for easy targets.

3) A small number of people interpret ‘assertive = good’ as ‘the more assertive the better’. The danger here is that there is a thin line between extremely assertive and powerfully aggressive. When people who strongly believe in and practice assertiveness skills cross this line bullying is probably inevitable.

It is this third point I explain/discuss here: Less Assertive Can Work

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