Category Archives: Education, Health And Welfare
‘How Do They Do It?’ – A Way To Broaden Horizons?
Liverpool’s physical location and economic situation make it difficult for some local people to know much about what’s happening elsewhere. This is turn results in difficulties in determining locally which new ideas for the city are good, and which less so. The proposed ‘How Do They Do It?’ programme could help here… but only if those who are able to do so actively support the idea.
There was a letter in the Liverpool Daily Post of 10 February, in which local commentator John Elcock writes of his concern that we in Liverpool should not reject everything that’s new in the city. He refers to his sadness about the ‘growing culture of parochialism in a city that used to trade ideas with the world.’
John’s letter is specifically about proposed new architectural designs in Liverpool; but I fear his remarks might also apply to other parts of our cultural and civic life.
Liverpool pride
I came to live in Liverpool 35 years ago this week, having never before had the opportunity to visit this city. There was plenty to be proud of for Liverpool’s citizens – its University, its Royal Orchestra, its fine Cathedrals, Theatres and Museums, its wonderful architecture; and of course the conviction of those who lived here that there could never be a better place to be.
Pride in one’s city is a fine thing, and fundamentally necessary for well-being and future success. But, unexamined, it can also be an obstacle to progress. Despite the ravages of the 1980s, we still have our flagship centres of learning and culture and our wonderful buildings; but somehow their backdrop is now more self-defensive, more openly unaccommodating of new ideas and of the give-and-take of modern life.
And Liverpool parochialism?
Many people in Liverpool do not even know about the lives of their neighbours at the other end of their own city, let alone those down the road in Manchester, Birmingham, London or perhaps further afield. Perhaps in previous times this knowledge was less essential; but now, when our young people do know about the opportunities elsewhere, many decide to leave Liverpool for pastures new.
This is a serious issue of opportunity and of cost. It is a legacy of comfort zone living, being unable to move beyond one’s own boundaries because of lack of money, lack of knowledge of what to do or where to go to find out new things, small opportunity to see why comparing our own and others’ experience might be useful. The cost of such tight horizons is sometimes difficulty, as John Elcock suggests, in being able to judge which new ideas for Liverpool are ‘right’, and which ‘wrong’.
Opportunities to compare and learn
I don’t write these observations to criticise, but rather to suggest a new opportunity and a way forward. For several years there have been proposals for a civic and educational programme based in Liverpool and called ‘How Do They Do It?’.
The idea would be to support small groups of young and older people together, as they visit other places, as guests of that town or city, to see what has been achieved (public service, enterprise, architecture and culture, whatever…) and how it was done. This would then be reported back in whatever way to our own people in Liverpool. Likewise, citizens of other places could – and indeed through the European Capital of Culture programme will – come as our guests to see what we in Liverpool do exceptionally well, and to report it back to their own neighbours and fellow townspeople.
Travel these days is easy, few towns and cities, whether in Britain or in continental Europe, cannot find a way to welcome guests who come in goodwill to learn together. Which businesses, schools and colleges, residents associations, religious organisations, individuals or whoever, can join us in making this ambition to share experience, with all the benefits it would bring to ourselves and others, a reality?
Human Geographers Take The Lead In Social Policy
Human geographers have offered many insights into equality and the effects of socio-economic policy in recent years, but social processes require a different research perspective to understand fully what is happening. In the 1950s and 60s sociologists such as Willmott and Young told us about the dynamics of communities, for instance, in the East End of London; and this perspective is now beginning once more to illuminate these changes and their challenges. There is nonetheless still little general understanding of how difficult it is to ‘get things right’ in such complex settings.
Professor Danny Dorling is, in the words of Mary O’Hara (The Guardian, 8 February 2006), ‘the man who maps the social reality behind raw data’. His work has, we are told, demonstrated that where a person is born remains the primary determinant of their status, health and wealth in later life.
This is important work, though hardly a new finding. What marks it out is the directness of the communication of these critical facts of life, of, again in Mary O’Hara’s words, ‘publicising important findings beyond the pages of academic journals…. of humanising abstract facts’.
Processing data, explaining process
For Danny Dorling, the ‘key thing’ if we want to make the world a better place is that we ‘recognise what’s happening’. He’s been very effective in helping policy makers and politicians to do this, one way or another. And his latest project is an even bigger picture: www.worldmapper.org seeks to show what’s up across the whole of the world.
This is excellent stuff. Nobody could deny that the facts and figures are critical … and here, along with some other geographers such as those at the Local Futures Group, Professor Dorling serves us well. The relentless pursuit of empirical data by which to examine the outcomes of political and other developments is essential to learning how to do it better.
But there is another aspect to all this. We have considered before in this weblog the work of Willmott and Young, begun almost a half-century ago in the East End of London.
During the Thatcher years of the Conservative Government (1980s especially) there was little appetite for studying social process. Margaret Thatcher may or may not have actually pronounced that ‘There is no such thing as society’, but few failed to grasp the idea that looking at social issues like equality was not the thing to do. This had severe effects on social science in the UK, – one result of which, it could be argued, is that geography had to step in where sociologists then feared to tread.
The ‘facts’ can take us to the actions
There has been for some while a shortage of social statisticians in the UK, and this is recognised to be a continuing problem. Nonetheless, the analysis of social trends is, as specialists in all disciplines would readily acknowledge, an issue to be addressed from many different persepctives.
In this sense, it is especially interesting that the very same edition of The Guardian which carries the article about Professor Dorling also carries one about a current follow-up to the original Willmott and Young studies in the East End of London. Professor Geoff Dench and Kate Gavron, both Fellows of the Young Foundation, have produced a book co-authored by the late (Lord) Michael Young entitled The New East End – Kinship, Race and Conflict.
Geoff Dench and Kate Gavron discuss in their Guardian article the unanticipated consequences of ‘well intentioned welfare policy’. They suggest, for instance, that supporting newcomers (in this case, from the Bangladeshi community) who experience racial discrimination must go hand in hand with addressing the exclusion and hostility faced by poor white communities. If we do not examine how well-intentioned policies apply across the board we will, they argue with some reason, find that things don’t work out as we’d all like.
Multi-disciplinary is best
At some level it feels as though the wheel has now turned full circle. There are many social and policy researchers who strive to examine and support the extension of ‘what works’ (see e.g. the ODPM and Civil Service positions on diversity and disadvantage). The more that human geographers, social scientists, economists and others can collaborate on all this, the more hope there is that we can get it right.
But in the meantime it might be helpful just occasionally if certain parts of our society – for such it is – recognised that the aims of social cohesion, sustainability and the rest are at best challeging and at worst almost unachievable in our imperfect world.
Why can’t we think of the journey as one where inevitably mistakes will be made, and where it’s OK for policy makers and politicians to change tack when the evidence that we need to do so is compelling? Change is fundamental to progress, as much in social policy as anywhere else.
‘Permission’ for decision-makers to listen, learn and act
Giving politicians ‘permission’ to listen and learn is essential in the drive to change the circumstances of people who really need support, encouragement and new opportunities. This is positive social engineering with the very best of intentions. It must succeed, in the interests of us all – disadvantaged or not.
Flexible but determined policy making is not easily achieved when the evidence for policy change becomes instead, in the hands of the media, ‘evidence’ that politicians always get it wrong, and maybe nothing should be done at all.
Read more articles on Social Science
Look Back With…. Relief
There is a nostalgia in the cultural calendar at present. Memories of the 50s and 60s are to be found in both drama (The Liverpool Playhouse) and museums (the national Theatre Museum). Interesting to look at, without doubt. But perhaps much less fun to have had to live in.
We’ve been to two very striking performing arts events in the past week or so. The first was the national Theatre Museum’s Unleashing Britain: 10 Years that Shaped the Nation 1955-1964 and the other one was the Liverpool Playhouse’s Billy Liar.
Both these cultural offerings remind us of how very much things have changed over the past fifty years.
Cultural change as well as economic
The period which followed World War II (and yes, my recollections before the swinging sixties are hazy) was stultifying for most people. There were many painful adaptations to be made in peacetime, alongside the relief that it was all over. Most people were simply intent on establishing a ‘proper’ homelife and on getting a civilian job. There was little scope for imagination and flair in the daily struggle to earn a crust and keep a roof over one’s head.
And of course there were all those children – the ‘bulge’ – who arrived as the soldiers came back home. The Welfare State could not have been more timely, but it was also pretty thinly spread.
So how did the shift to the so-called Swinging Sixties happen? Whilst for most of us this era was nowhere near as exciting as it’s now made out to be (living in Birmingham probably didn’t help…) it was certainly a time when great cultural shifts occurred.
More money, more young people, more education
By the mid-fifties rationing had finished, and schools and health systems were fully in place, as the peace-time economy settled down; and this meant that a decade later, by the mid-sixties, there were quite significant numbers of young people (though only a few percent of them all – maybe 5% maximum) who were relishing the freedom of student life.
For first generation grammar school children going to university was a huge breakthrough (just as, we must always remember, not going to grammar school and univesity was for some of their siblings and friends a huge heartbreak). I doubt many young people now could understand how important it was to save up for the big striped university scarf which denoted you a Proper Student.
Along with this came a new freedom – to do one’s own thing, to find new ways to be artistic, literary, creative. It isn’t surprising therefore that the ‘new reality’, the kitchen sink drama, came into being. For the first time there were significant numbers of young people with higher education who knew for themselves what working class life was like… and who produced, through theatre and writing and film, a record of realities which is now a legacy for us all.
A legacy we remember but didn’t enjoy
It’s salutory to look back, through the cultural events on offer now, and remember just how constraining and difficult those years were. Given the freedoms of today, or the restrictions of then, I don’t think many would turn the clock back.
Life isn’t easy for everyone even now, but the numbers of families where the frost has to be scraped off the inside of the bedroom window every chilly Winter morning is without doubt lower – and could indeed with proper organisation of support be reduced to none.
There’s not much nostalgia in my mind for the good old days… they are a fascinating time to examine and learn about, but they weren’t I suspect that much fun for most folk to live in.
Read more articles on the National Theatre Museum.
‘School Trips Change Lives’ Says The National Trust
School trips to look at local ecology seem to be very successful in encouraging children to appreciate their environment. If this works for local eco-issues, surely it can work also for wider social ones? The ‘How Do They Do It?’ scheme has been very slow to get off the ground, but perhaps its time has some. Who will help to make it happen?
Tha National Trust has been running a Guardianship Scheme for some fifteen years, with almost one hundred schools in its programme. The idea, now evaluated by Dr Alan Peacock of Exeter University, is that ‘trips’ out of school make a difference to the way children understand their world… and the evidence, reported in Dr Peacock’s evaluation (Changing Minds: The Lasting Impact of School Trips), is that such trips do exactly that.
Environments are social as well as ecological
The benefits of ‘nature walks’ and the rest, confirmed by Dr Peacock and his colleagues, will come as no surprise to those of us who have been lucky enough to experience these as part of growing up. Nature walks amount almost to an entitlement for all chidlren, wherever they live – the city has an environment and ecology just as much as did the village of my early years.
If even a passing aquaintance with the world immediately around us is of long term benefit, how much more can it benefit us to know something of our neightbours – the other side of our town, the other end of our country, or indeed the other side of Europe and beyond?
Preparation and support are the keys
But it’s not enough simply to ‘do a school trip’ – where teachers are still brave enough to undertake this daunting exercise. To maximise the positive impact chidlren must firstly have a real idea before they depart of what they are likely to encounter; and they must have opportunities to meet and get to know local people when they get there.
Such demands are a tall order. They require a genuinely integrated approach to the curriculum, and a degree of planning which goes well beyond that of the time table.
So why not start more simply? By all means carry on with the ‘holiday’ style visits which some schools try hard to provide for their students. But what about also looking at ways of integrating the ‘widening horizons’ agenda for both children and adults?
It’s part of the regeneration and renewal agenda, too
Provision of opportunities for learning about how other people do things is a recurrent theme on this website.
Those who would perhaps find the sharing of experience most useful are often those who can least afford and / or organise it. There’s a real need to do this… and if it starts by simply going to the other side of one’s own city with the intention of meeting new people and seeing new things, that’s great.
The professional challenge
This is a challenge for teachers, regeneration specialists, community development workers and many others. Can people be encouraged to move beyond their own experience in ways which are comfortable and positive, so that they are better equipped to make genuine choices for their own communities?
And, critically, are we as practitioners up to this ‘challenge’ ourselves? Do we agree, as the Peacock evaluation indicates, that direct experience is good, provided it is properly structured and supported?
How do they do it?
Are we ready to give time to a programme such as How Do They Do It? where, as I have suggested on many occasions, small groups of young and older people together go to new places and ask just that of something which seems to be working well? How can this idea be improved? Who will join forces to help it along?
Liverpool’s Princes Park Has Friends
The Friends of Princes Park is amongst an encouraging number of similar groups who are demanding that our green space be nurtured. Liverpool has a historical legacy of wonderful parks; and now its citizens are insisting more voluably that these are fit for the twenty first century city.
Today’s Liverpool Daily Post supplement has a long article by Peter Elson on the work of the Friends of Princes Park. The Friends have resurrected themselves after a fallow decade or three, and are making the same case for attention to their treasured space as are other groups in and around Liverpool. All power to Jean Grant, the Chair and leader of the developments! This is a park in Liverpol 8, adjacent to some of the least advantaged communities in the city. It needs nurturing.
Promising developments
There’s talk of involving local schools and of linking Hope Street to Sefton Park… a long discussed but so far not actioned development (but a route some of us take by way of a constitutional when time permits). There is an encouraging acknowledgement of the part the Park can play in sustaining social inclusion, health and an understanding of the history of our city.
Where’s the support?
One possible snag in all this however seems to be the continuing reluctance by the City Council to support, quietly and constructively, the citizens who care about this fabulous amenity. There are encouraging noises from that direction now – but the track record often isn’t good. Here’s an opportunity for the Council to play what (in my view) is its proper role…
Councils clearly have a formal duty to balance competing demands for support by citizens around the city; but they could also become facilitators, socially, financially and strategically of the people who want to see things improve. Now, that would be a new way to do things.
The Healthy Orchestra Challenge – At Last
The Association of British Orchestras today overtly acknowledged the health risks of orchestra playing. But for many orchestral musicians the reality of every day life is sparse professional support, low esteem, low pay and no say – exactly the conditions in which ill-health, stress and worry thrive.
It’s a puzzle that so many orchestral musicians have health-related problems, when there’s evidence that music, and perhaps especially classical music of some sorts, is ‘good’ for those who listen to it. A clue to this conundrum can be found in the conditions under which many players work.
The Association of British Orchestras, at their Annual Meeting in Newcastle, have today launched their Healthy Orchestra Charter. Now at last we see a formal acknowledgement by the organisations which employ them, that orchestral musicians experience significant health risks in the course of their professional work.
The list of risks is long – physical problems such as deafness and repetitive strain injury, bullying, burn-out and stage fright amongst them. Is it any wonder, with this level of risk, that so few players who enter orchestras – some of the best classical musicians we have – actually stay in that employment for the entirety of their professional lives?
Well-established research findings
Of course, it isn’t news that these significant risks occur. I attended the International Conference on Health and the Musician at York University in 1997, and even then the research literature was compelling. But it is encouraging that now the focus has moved from others pressing the point ‘in defence’ of the players, to the current position where, perhaps belatedly, employers themselves are addressing the problem directly.
From a formal health and safety perspective there’s no way round this in a modern employment situation, except to face the issues squarely; and the additional impetus of formal acknowledgement may also help the individuals at risk to feel more comfortable about coping. The problems have now been articulated where they need to be; which means those who experience them are more likely to get the proper support they require in the context of their employment instead of, as previously, only through informal arrangements such as the BAPAM scheme – life-saver though this can be, and hopefully will remain, for players with particular personal problems which they may not wish to share with their employers.
BAPAM is an excellent resource for musicians in genres across the board, but it can only address some of the issues for professional orchestral musicians. Orchestra players need (but usually don’t get) continuing professional development (CPD), at least outside ‘community education’ programmes. Occasional employer-sponsored consultation in instrumental technique from a really top-flight teacher would come in handy over the decades – as younger players slowly and often sadly discover. But this is rarely on offer. CPD of musician employees is a responsibility of orchestra managements, not of BAPAM doctors.
Isn’t it obvious that properly embedded individual instrumental technique support for orchestral musicians reduces the inevitable risk of small ‘bad habits’? And that in turn individual performance support increases personal confidence, and reduces the need for absence and / or medical intervention – thereby also reducing the overall costs, short and long term, both to the employer and to the individual? A virtuous circle indeed.
Continuing individual professional development for performers, supported by a serious orchestral management cheque book, is well overdue. ‘Our people,’ as every management everywhere insists, ‘are our prime resource…’
Other stress factors
Excellent though the Healthy Orchestras initiative is, it does then seem on first reading that not all the issues identified formally and informally at the 1997 York conference are being equally acknowledged. Stress factors which many musicians themselves identified included not only the obvious physical and psychological strains of the job, but also extraordinarily low pay and a sense in which they felt as though they were still ‘at school’ – you can be in an orchestra for many years and still have no acknowledgement of seniority of any kind, invisible in the scheme of things with not even your own place in the actual seating arrangements.
And that’s before we get to the issues (above) around keeping up personal performance skills – probably the most anxiety-making part of any professional musician’s day-to-day existence.
Plus, in some orchestras the managerial urge to present a youthful image has overtaken any respect for experience and what that brings to the particular ‘sound’ for which a given ensemble is known. Not only could this be a threat to the individuality of the great orchestras, but it’s personally distressing for those have who carried the tradition of their orchestra over the years.
Add to this the ingrained belief of many players that ‘you’re only as good as your last performance’ (no latitude for being human there), and the conviction that it’s possible for any player to be destroyed by constant criticism (Will I be the next to be bullied?) and the situation becomes a personal time bomb, buried deep in the collective psyche of the musicians on stage.
Music is good for you – mostly
So perhaps here’s the rub. Classical music offers those who listen to it enjoyment, solace and stimulation. And so in comfortable circumstances it does to those who perform it. I doubt any orchestral player enters a major symphony orchestra expecting less. This is a vocation which demands and promises much of and for those who aspire to it.
But, at least for all except the most highly ranked members (and perhaps for them too?), there’s something quite disturbing in more than one sense about the contexts of orchestral life.
Maybe it’s this:
You sit on whatever platform you’ve been dispatched to, a performer at the top of your profession under the relentless public scrutiny of the punters, your employers and (hardest of all) your equally stressed peers, without any discernible artistic or personal say in what happens – and dressed in a ‘uniform’ which your (often socially well-advantaged) audience understands to represent wealth and authority…. but you know differently. A silent cognitive dissonance abounds.
And you worry – about your playing, about your pay, about how you will fit your family and other external commitments into your irregular and unsocial performance schedule, about what could happen next.
No-one now disputes that stress affects most severely those who have least power and influence. Here’s a textbook ‘classical’ case of that happening.
See also: Orchestral Salaries In The U.K.
Life In A Professional Orchestra: A Sustainable Career?
Musicians in Many Guises
British Orchestras On The Brink
Where’s The Classical Music In The Summer? An Idea…
The Worst Day Of The Year? Not For Me!
Monday January 23rd has been declared the Worst Day of this Year; last year Miserable Monday was on the 24th January. But that’s a date I always look forward to. It’s the annual event in my personal calendar when convention decrees I get to choose a treat with family and friends. In other words, my birthday. (Let’s forget the age aspect here, surely it’s the company which counts?!) Which all goes to show that there’s only a Worst Day of the Year if we elect to see it that way. Or, as the gurus and psychologists all tell us, most of us most of the time can choose if we wish to be happy….
Apparently Monday 23rd January this year is the ‘worst’ day of the year.
Well, last year Miserable Monday was the 24th, so for me it certainly wasn’t the Worst Day; and nor, she assures me, was it some while ago for my mum and dad…. that date is my birthday, and I was their no. 1 arrival. Which goes to prove that what’s best, or indeed worst, is in the eye of the beholder. We might all be getting longer in the tooth, but my guess is few of us lose that little tingle of anticipation when it comes to the one day in the year when convention proclaims we’re Special.
So my year sometimes has no Worst Day. For lucky me 24 January is always a day for indulgence (if I can get away with it) and definitely for fun with family and friends.
Happiness is where you find it
I can be as sad or stressed as the next person – believe me – but my odd personal coincidence of dates has set me thinking. The declaration about Miserable Monday only reached me recently. For many years I’ve innocently looked forward to that date, for the opportunities / excuse it brought to meet up with people I really want to see, and, where posible, to escape the humdrum. And now here we are being told it’s the ultimate in dark and dismal days.
So there you go, or rather perhaps there I go in this case…. another year older but still hoping for a pleasant celebratory diversion, keeping my fingers crossed it’ll be OK even if it’s on the newly-proclaimed Worst Day of the Year.
How to be happy
Of course there are folk whose situations mean that, or any other day, can only be no fun at all. But most of us, fortunately, are less burdened. There are lots of findings and hints on how to be happy. There’s really not much excuse for not trying, at least if we’re moderately blessed in what life offers.
The good news appears to be that we can actually decide for ourselves to look on the bright side. There’s even a website called Authentic Happiness which says it aims to help you stay positive!
But if you’d rather stick with a few general hints than use interactive IT to take you to contentment, here are some of the ideas I’ve gleaned which seem to shine through:
** Forget about money; it only matters if you truly don’t have enough.
** Look after yourself physically and emotionally; you have value. (If you have a health or other problem, or are concerned you may have, get it sorted. Real problems require real resolutions, sometimes with the help of others. That’s part of looking after yourself.)
** You already know what not to do if you want to stay well. Now add the positives – take exercise, eat a ‘rainbow’ (lots of different fruit and veg., plus any supplements such as omega 3 which you need) and – hypocrite though I am – get enough sleep.
** Don’t dwell on what went ‘wrong’, instead concentrate fully on the good things, even the very small good things…. in the words of one commentator, ‘Thank your lucky stars about what goes right on a daily basis.’ (They mean it: every single day, not just when the whim takes you.)
** Immerse yourself in the moment, working, at leisure or however else. Don’t be distracted from the activity, enjoy or appreciate it fully.
** Seek out and share experiences with other positive people. (Could this be a special challenge for those of us born on Miserable Monday? I’m up for it, it’s not hard… everyone I know enjoys our excuse for a Bit Of A Do on that particular date!)
** Smile.
And finally, as a very wise person (I don’t know who, do you?) said, ‘If you can’t be happy, be useful.’ Which will probably have the same effect in many ways as all the other advice we’ve seen above.
So who cares what the date is? …. Worst Day or not, have a very good day!
New Year Resolutions For You And Your Lifestyle
Everyone takes time as the New Year arrives to do some mental spring cleaning. This list offers ideas for reflection and perhaps as New Year Resolutions. It’s about how individuals approach their lives and leisure time. I hope it’s useful.
Here’s an alphabet of resolutions and reflections for the New Year. It’s a mix, match or amend menu, so take it where you will. Good Luck!
A Join an Athletics Club, learn Archery, visit an Art Gallery – Anything new. You choose; but just see if you can get a different Angle on life.
B Look on the Bright side wherever you can; remember to make time to Bond with family, friends, neighbours, colleagues…
C Concentrate your mind on something different. Find a Community Choir, go to a ‘proper, sit and listen’ Concert, be a member of a Chess Club (on-line if you like), play Croquet, whatever.
D Is there enough Drama in your life? Find ways to chill if there’s too much. Develop a tast for exciting sports events, politics or live theatre / opera if there’s not enough.
E Increase your Energy: Exercise! Every day.
F Grow your own Food and Flowers sometimes, even if only in window boxes – ‘green’ is good for you in many ways.
G How’s your Girth? If you’re not pleased with your measurements, Get it sorted. Gently.
H Try to stay Happy; think back, every evening, to what’s gone right that day.
I Take In a panto / ballet and let your Imagination run wild; or learn to play a musical Instrument – In a group or with the kids…
J Do a personal Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of your Job or other main activity. What does it tell you?
K Perform a random act of Kindness, every day; something you really didn’t have to do, but which makes someone else smile (you’ll smile too).
L Learn about your carbon footprint. And Learn to Listen.
M Make a wish, a promise to yourself which Means something to you as a person. How will you Manage to achieve it?
N Avoid Negatives; don’t be cynical. Life’s too short.
O Organise a visit to somewhere you’ve always dreamed of going; just do it.
P Buy a Pedometer and wear it. When last did you Pound the Pavements or simply stroll in your local Park?
Q We all need Quality time.
R Find time too for Reflection. Life is not a Rehearsal.
S Sort a Same Sex night out – Somewhere you can hear each other Speak.
T Have a TV-free day every week. Go on, give it a Try!
U Understand other people’s perspectives where you can.
V Could you go Vegetarian? It’s eco-friendly and it costs less.
W Sustain and enjoy Wildlife – even if it’s only the ‘diners’ fluttering around your Window Bird Feeder
X EXplore somewhere new, however locally or far-flung. Search and marvel on the internet if you can’t physically get there.
Y Stay Young at heart ( but appreciate the advantages of experience). So….
Z Take the kids (yours / some hard-pressed mum’s..) to, say, the Zoo; join in gladly as they have fun!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Stay (Get?) Slim, Sleep More – The Ideal New Year Resolution
Perhaps I’m being hopelessly optimistic in my reading of the scientific facts, but here’s a New Year Resolution I’m sure we’d all actually enjoy sticking to.. …if only we had the time…
I’ve been saving this one up, as the ultimate bit of cheer for everyone who maybe forgot the diet over Christmas… I read in a Guardian article by Joanna Hall last month that, I quote,
“Lack of sleep reduces the amount of human growth hormone responsible for the body’s fat-to-muscle ratio.”
And she adds that lack of sleep can therefore in part explain older people’s weight gain. Well, here’s the news we’ve all be waiting for.
Of course, Joanna also says that sensible eating and adequate exercise are essential for weight maintenance (you have been taking your brisk-ish turns round the park during the holiday, haven’t you?), but the good news could seem to be, ‘Sleep more, weigh less’…. and lest we forget, isn’t it true that our mums used to tell us we had to have a decent bedtime if we wanted to grow big and strong? (More muscle, less fat?)
So there we go. The must-have New Year Resolution: I really will try to get more sleep.
Wonderful in theory; and maybe just as hard as dieting and keeping the accounts straight in practise? But, unlike diets and accounts, at least it has a feel-good about it.
And a Very Happy New Year to you alll!
Dreaming Realist 