Are you always in a hurry? 🏃 ♂️ Do you constantly live life by the clock?⌚️ 

Maybe it’s time to slow down? ⛔️

How would you describe the year so far? Would “stressful” be up there with words you’d select? Life is moving very fast and pressures can come at us from all angles (e.g. work, home, family, community, social responsibilities) so it always feels like there’s never enough time in the day… right?

Do you stop to give thanks? I’m sure you do, but do you make it a daily ritual? Do you dedicate time towards intentionally giving thanks for all that is good in your life?

Do you ever get that sense in your stomach that something bad is about to happen? Or maybe you had butterflies before a job interview or hot date? Well these are just examples of your microbiome-gut-brain (MGB) axis having a good chinwag amongst each other - and it’s quite a conversation as the human body contains more than 40 Trillion Microorganisms, outnumbering our human cells by 10 to 1 and making up to 3% of our body weight!

How good are your listening skills? We’re pretty good at picking up what others have to say, but are you paying enough attention to some of the most important signals about yourself?

When someone asks you “How’s everything going?” is your default instinctive answer “Yeah… busy!” but then you might quickly realise that’s not the perfect answer so you qualify it better by saying “Oh but it’s good busy!”. Is this you?

It’s true we’re busy these days as we have an infinite amount of choices to help us occupy our time. There’s no shortage of things to do, people to see or work to be done. But is there a cost to constantly having all our time filled up, even if it is “good busy”?

How do you like to relax in the evening? Chances are you’re like most people and enjoy watching TV before you go to bed to gain a bit of escapism…but is it healthy for your sleep?

By now, many of us should have heard about the consequences of consuming too much artificial light and screen time, especially in the evenings, as it disrupts our circadian rhythms and melatonin levels. But do we also consider the added stimulation from the content which we choose to watch which also keeps our brains more alert and activated?

Who do you think knows you best? Your partner? Your parents? Your pals? Or in this world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), could it actually be your smartphone?!

In terms of possessions, my wedding ring comes in contact with me (i.e. my person) the most at 24hrs per day, but after that it’s my smartphone that comes into contact with me the next most often, ahead of clothes, bed, sofa, headphones & computer keyboards. Maybe if I played a musical instrument, it’d be high up there too.

Oh so sweet and found in treats,tasting very nice to eat,but the truth is they’re full of deceitbecause now they’re even being found in meat!

Sorry if you don’t like rhymes, but the reality behind the silliness is that sugar is now being added to so many foods (known as free sugars)! Even if you don’t think that you eat that much sugar, you may be surprised to find it hiding in lots of different products such as convenience foods, low fat products like yoghurts, cereal bars, breads, sauces, dressings and cooked chicken! We also need to be careful about the natural sugars that occur in honey, syrups (such as maple, agave and golden), nectars (such as blossom), and unsweetened fruit juices, vegetable juices and smoothies. These also count as free sugars.

As we enter October and see the piles of leaves all off the trees and feel the air temperature start to drop a bit, you’ve maybe started to pull out the Winter Wardrobe essentials and prepare yourself for the cold season ahead.

The Winter season is also the most stressful season we experience - much due to the reduction in sunlight & increase in darkness which brings about the Winter Blues (SAD) - but it’s also always a busy period in the workplace, with a sprint from here through to Christmas and then there’s the added extra pressures from numerous different angles from family and community too. With elevated stress levels, more time indoors and closer contact with more people, it’s no surprise that winter season is also flu season, so what should we be doing to protect ourselves from going under this winter?