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Mindful Chef and One Feeds Two Project

Mindful Chef and One Feeds Two Project

This article has been adapted from Mindful Chef 

Mindful Chef and One Feeds Two Project

6,000,000 meals donated and counting

Since its launch, Mindful Chef has been on a mission to make healthy eating easy, whilst also having a positive social impact. 

In 2017 they joined forces with the groundbreaking charity One Feeds Two, so that for every Mindful Chef meal you enjoy, a school meal is donated to a child living in poverty. 

Mindful Chef is proud to be the first recipe box in the UK pioneering this 'one for one' model and together with their supportive community of customers, they've donated over 6 million meals to children in Malawi so far! That's the equivalent of feeding more than 15,000 children for an entire academic year. Their ambition is to reach 10 million by the end of 2021. 

Mindful Chef can't thank One Feeds Two enough for making this possible and their customers for supporting them. Together they're using hunger to end hunger. 

How do my meal donations make a difference? 

It's not just about the food. The impact of a school meal for a child living in poverty is life-changing.

  1. Improves school attendance 
  2. Improves concentration and health
  3. Raises communities out of poverty 

Just imagine the impact if more businesses joined the movement, and we all chose to eat this way. Thank you for making this possible.  

Learn more about One Feeds Two here.  

 

How Do I Get My Recipe Box?

Get 25% off your first two boxes using the code BM25
https://www.mindfulchef.com/
 

Massage at Work

This article first appeared in Holistic Therapist Magazine in 2017

Before I retrained as a Massage Therapist, I worked in sales and sales management for 12 years. I was used to managing sickness absence and return to work programmes, but I experienced the frustration and pressure to get back to work as soon as possible, after I developed a work-related back injury and going on long term sick. Massage formed part of my rehab and that’s when I decided to leave sales, re-train and start Body Mechanics Remedial, specifically to work in the corporate sector.

My clients are businesses where people have demanding jobs and personal commitments – they’re time poor and they crave convenience. Body Mechanics Remedial treats people with stress and muscular aches and pains in their workplace to eliminate these problems.

Each business is reliant on its employees. If you keep people healthy, feeling appreciated and engaged, they’ll be more productive. At the end of the day, businesses want productive employees who help make them profit. When you look at it like this, corporate health and wellbeing is paramount.

According to a report for the Health Work Wellbeing Executive, for every £1 invested in an employee health and wellbeing programme, at least £4.17 can be expected as a benefit to cost ratio (BCR). The BCR return on the specific treatment of MSDs are significantly greater when treated at the outset. Other benefits include increasing employee engagement and productivity, reducing sickness absence, boosting morale and positioning the business as desirable to work for. The Health and Safety Executive has stated that more than three quarters of MSDs and stress is workplace related, so it makes sense to reduce problems and improve well-being in a workplace setting.

Our clients range from global media companies and Pan-European e-marketing businesses, to UK based sports teams and charities. They all show a commendable duty of care towards their employees and players. Our treatments last 20-30 mins and can be seated (clothed) or couch (oil) massages. We bring all the necessary equipment, clients just need to provide the space. A consultation form is completed in advance and discussed at the start of the treatment. The client’s modesty and comfort are respected at all times and client information is strictly confidential.

The biggest challenge has been educating businesses that private healthcare isn’t enough. Maintaining employee health and wellbeing on-site keeps the individuals and the business focused on their business goals with minimal disruption. We aim to provide a seamless service where each session is all about the client and the massage, so appointments and treatment scheduling are managed internally by the client.

Our client feedback is hugely positive. 100% of customers say it helps maintain their general health and well-being. 93% of staff attend regularly, with 50% using the service to help manage stress and 22% use it for treatment of specific injury. 87% say it helps their working performance and the only complaint we seem to get is that the treatments aren’t long enough!

I’d love Body Mechanics Remedial to become the global go-to organisation for corporate health and wellbeing, starting in Australia and Canada. Taking on quality therapists will be at the heart of this.

Nikki Roy founded Body Mechanics Remedial to help people lead pain free lives. She is ITEC qualified and a member of the CThA.

Better Body, Better Business

This article first appeared as an interview in Issue 131 of Business Info in June 2017

Business Info talks to Nikki Roy, Director of Body Mechanics Remedial, about whether employers should be doing more to look after employees’ wellbeing. 

Employers have a duty of care towards their employees, but with 78% of injuries and illnesses linked directly to the workplace, according to the HSE, are they doing enough?

Nikki Roy, Director of Body Mechanics Remedial, believes not. She argues that were businesses to pay more attention to the health and happiness of workers, they would not only see big benefits to their bottom line, but also help relieve the current crisis in the NHS by reducing musculo-skeletal and stress-related illness.

Feedback from clients of Body Mechanics Remedial Ltd, the company Nikki set up in 2012 after a work-related back injury meant she was unable to continue with her 12-year career in sales and sales management, shows that positive impact that on-site health and wellbeing programmes can have on the health and performance of employees:

  • 100% of clients say their programme helps maintain employees’ general health and wellbeing;
  • 93% of staff attend regularly;
  • 50% use the service to manage stress;
  • 22% use it for treatment of a specific injury;
  • 87% say it helps their working performance.

Before setting up Body Mechanics, Nikki retrained at St Mary’s University College in Twickenham and became a Massage Therapist, specialising in the treatment of back pain, deep tissue and sports massage. She started out providing massage on company premises, but since then has become more and more involved in developing strategic wellbeing programmes tailored for each client.

Business Info spoke to her about the importance of such programmes and why businesses should take wellbeing seriously.

Business Info: Can you tell me a bit about what you do? 
Nikki Roy: We help people lead pain-free lives, but we also help organisations increase their profits by keeping their employees healthy. We go on-site into offices and provide various health and wellbeing programmes depending on clients’ requirements – these could be around physical health, mental health, the work environment itself. We then put together a bespoke programme to help them fulfil their obligations of duty of care to their employees, but also to help them achieve their business goals.

We go on-site into offices and provide various health and wellbeing programmes depending on  clients’ requirements

BI: Why do businesses come to you initially?
NR:  A high level of sickness absence is a popular reason. They want to reduce absence levels and they want to prevent people getting back into that situation. We take a look at what’s happening in the working environment and what they can do to help people stay healthy in the office.

The other reason is retention – making the company more attractive to the people who work there now, improving their working day by giving them something to look forward to, like nipping out for a massage or going to a yoga or meditation session. It can help them de-stress and then find focus on the job at hand, and it’s nice to be part of an organisation that values you in that way.

BI: How often does a business utilise services such as massage? 
NR: It depends entirely on each individual organisation. Some people have us come twice a week to do full days; others only want us in once a month. The most popular option is every two or four weeks, usually around lunchtime or towards the end of the day. We don’t have to be there for a full day.

BI: Who are some of your clients? 
NR: We deal with a global e-marketing company; we’ve worked with a couple of charities; we’ve got a big media company; we’ve got a brewery; and we’ve also got a couple of schools.

BI: You’ve mentioned massage and yoga, what other treatments do you offer? 
NR: We have Nutritionists, Personal Trainers, Massage Therapists, Psychologists, Pilates Instructors. Body Mechanics has a network of Associate Practitioners and that gives us the option to pick and choose the best people out there and put together a programme that organisations want. It’s not a one-size-fits-all; they get to say who they think would be the best fit for their business culture.

BI: Do you help employers create an all-round strategy for wellbeing? 
NR: We’re going that way. When I first set this up that wasn’t necessarily my intention; the main aim was service delivery, but we’re getting more involved with the strategy side of things. Clients want our input into how this works.

BI: What are the benefits of massage?
NR: For workers, it tends to be around alleviating stress, whether emotional, physical or financial – the mind-body connect presents itself in a number of ways; staying healthy; making sure that you’re able to work and feel mentally present.

For employers, it can improve productivity and overall employee engagement. Productivity and quality of engagement tends to go up if people are happier – you know the old adage ‘a happy, workforce is a productive workforce.’ You see people working better as a team, they become more innovative, more creative, and then customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction increase. When that all comes together your bottom line as a business will go up because everybody is working together as a team.

It’s not just about receiving a particular treatment; it’s about having that time out, having a company that cares. I think people then go ‘Well okay. I’m willing to give something back”.

BI: Do you think businesses could be doing more to address the wellbeing of their employees?
NR: Definitely. I think they’re doing the bare minimum. People will do things like ergonomic assessments, they’ll offer private healthcare, subsidised gym membership. But, really, those things are optional or reactive, so there tends to be an issue there already if people are using them. And with the gym, we’ve all been there, you don’t always go as often as you should! But now people are understanding that if they invest in people and if they do it on-site, it keeps them in the workplace, they’re not having to take time off to make doctor appointments, phone calls, childcare etc…

BI: Are health and wellbeing programmes an affordable option for small businesses? 
NR: Although this is an investment, a lot of businesses see it as a financial outlay. Research flagged up by the Health Work Wellbeing Executive in a report by PwC shows that for every £1 spent on an employee health and wellbeing programme, £4.17 can be expected back as a benefit. Business is all about the bottom line; senior management want to know figures, and I think that’s a really powerful statistic. If they can make a return on investment that high, and that’s a conservative estimate, then it starts to make business sense.

People tell me they hold their smartphone wedged between their ear and their shoulder, and they’re getting neck problems as a result

BI: People talk about RSI much less than they used to – is it still a problem? 
NR: I think it has gone down. In a lot of cases, RSI came down to the use of the mouse and the way the workspace was set up; ergonomic assessments tend to cover that now. I think health and safety are on the ball on that one.

But the thing that comes up time and time again is back pain, rather than RSI – lower back problems if you’re sitting too long or lifting and upper back and neck complaints if you’re at your desk a lot or driving a lot.

BI: How would you treat someone with back problems?
NR: It would depend on what the organisation and individual are open to. When you come in for a massage there’s an assessment and then the best way to move forward with treatment is agreed and carried out. We also offer after-care advice – stretches or movements to help with mobility of the spine or to ease discomfort and pain. We then feed that into the workstation assessment. A lot of people have to carry laptop bags or use laptop trolleys. If you’re doing that a lot, it puts strain on the back, so we’d also look at whether there are other, more body-friendly ways of carrying out your day-to-day activities.

BI: Is the use of smartphones and tablets producing different types of problem? 
NR: Yes definitely. And a lot of the time, problems occur out of work. I always hear people say ‘my thumbs really hurt’, which is from texting so much! People also tell me they hold their smartphone wedged between their ear and their shoulder, and they’re getting neck problems as a result. So yes, smartphones and tablets are an issue.

BI: If a business could change one thing today to help their employees’ health, what do you think that should be?
NR: To listen to your employees and ask them the problems they’re facing, because I think a lot of businesses make assumptions and don’t always get it right. It tends to be from senior management; they’re not doing the groundwork so they don’t necessarily understand what those issues are. Have a consultative meeting with your employees and listen to what the issues are.

You can read this article in Business Info Issue 31 here.

4 Reasons Employer Brands Smash Consumer Brands, Hands Down

Who comes first, the customer or your team?

“Clients do not come first.”  On the surface, this statement seems irrational. But it comes from Sir Richard  Branson, owner of Virgin Group, which controls more than 400 companies. And when you hear what he followed up with, it’s perfectly logical. 

“Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” 

Your employees are your first response, they’re on the front line, talking to your customers day in, day out: they’re the backbone of your business. If they’re unhappy, that can easily send negative ripples throughout your business, damaging productivity and ultimately, sales. That’s the first reason why putting your consumer first, at the expense of your employees, just isn’t sound business practice.  

Successful employer brands are a natural magnet for top candidates

Secondly, successful employer brands are a natural magnet for top candidates. This is an absolute dream for businesses in the current job market, where candidate skill set requirements are evolving rapidly to keep pace with the changing shape of business, and millennials are increasingly choosy about where they want to invest their time. Attracting great talent is an expensive process – not just in terms of paying out to recruiters or spending money advertising your posts. The most expensive indirect cost of recruitment is time. Time spent looking through CVs, time spent interviewing candidates, time squandered as roles sit open indefinitely and your team isn’t working at full capacity. For strong employer brands, existing team members act like walking, talking job advertisements, and may even refer suitable candidates from their own network to your HR department.  

Failing to retain good talent is a gross waste of your resources

Reason number three: failing to retain good talent is a gross waste of your resources. Besides the direct and indirect costs of recruitment covered in reason number two, think of all the effort that goes into training candidates so that they’re able to perform properly; the time it takes for them to build strong working relationships and start performing optimally. Skills need nurturing for people to meet their potential, but even when they’re fully trained, unhappy people are more likely to underperform. Employer brands intrinsically get this. They also understand that for many people, professional lives are a reflection on their sense of self. They use this insight and invest in creating a culture so great that their employees internalise the brand, genuinely love their job and constantly strive to overperform. This is because, psychologically for the employee, their company performing reflects well on them personally. 

Unhappy employees are bad for your brand

Four: unhappy employees are bad for your brand. Employer review websites like Glassdoor create a space for customers and potential candidates to see your brand at its absolute worst: through the eyes of an anonymous disgruntled ex-employee. That’s not to mention the negative press coverage brands now risk receiving when employees feel negatively about their employer. Ethical consumers won’t purchase from brands that have even a hint of unfair (or even just unpleasant) working conditions, so reputationally it pays to have a brand people love and are proud to work for.  

The business environment is shifting dramatically at the moment; if brands are to succeed they need to be flexible in the face of rapid change. Achieving that reactivity effectively isn’t just down to one person, even if that person is the CEO. It’s down to having an amazing, productive team, built of high calibre, engaged people. It’s imperative that as a business owner you create an environment where your employees can thrive, which is why you need to consider your team as much as, if not more than, your customers. 

Want ideas on how to become an employer brand?  Read this: 

Perk up: how to recognise and reward your employees 

Perk Up: How To Recognise And Reward Your Employees

All details were correct at the time of publication but may have changed since.

Truly great employers know there’s more to workplace satisfaction than just a good salary. And it’s those businesses that end up recruiting and retaining top talent. Here are eight approaches to recognise and reward your employees that don’t involve paying them more.

1. Say thanks more often

Give employees an opportunity to upvote their colleagues when they go the extra mile, and recognise them publicly. This could be as low-fi as a notice board, or an email to your staff publicly thanking the person in question for their hard work. Or you could mention it at a staff meeting and provide a physical reward, such as a bottle of wine, a box of chocolates, or a voucher for shopping or a day out somewhere indulgent.

2. Offer breakfast

Most offices provide free tea and coffee for staff, but what other small gestures can you make to help your employees feel at home? Providing free toast, or cereal gives people an incentive to avoid traffic and start work a little earlier. Eating breakfast also improves cognitive performance, giving your employees a little extra edge at the start of every day. GSK offers staff free breakfast if they walk, cycle or run on their commute. This is great for personal health and the environment, too.

3. Provide healthy snacks

Does your office have a vending machine stuffed full of crisps and chocolate? Stressed, time-poor people will grab whatever they can to keep going during that mid-morning or afternoon slump. Sugary snacks give people a temporary boost, but can leave people snappy or struggling to concentrate once their sugar levels dip back down. Couple bad snacking habits with largely sedentary jobs and you’re looking at creeping weight gain. It’s not the role of employers to police waistlines, but there’s no doubt obesity is linked to poor health and time off work sick. Head this off at the pass by providing free fruit, and rethink your vending machine selection to reduce opportunities to make poor choices.

3. Encourage good health and wellbeing

The NHS recently released data that suggested back problems cost UK companies 31 million sick days each year. The majority of us now work in offices and sit at desks all day long staring at computers. Long term, this leads to backaches and pains. Counteract this risk while helping your employees feel rewarded by arranging for a massage therapist (I know the name of a good one if you’re interested) to attend a day or two each week. A 25-minute massage weekly can improve posture, reduce headaches and stress, which help your employees concentrate on their day job.

Other holistic corporate services to consider are meditation, pilates, yoga, nutritional health, acupuncture and theta healing.  According to budgets, sessions can be funded by the company or individuals; either way, your employees will be grateful for an opportunity to spend a few minutes relaxing. Organise easy three-day taster events to gauge uptake and see what services get your employees excited and engaged.

5. Negotiate local discounts

Negotiating discounts with other businesses your employees are likely to use can pay dividends, especially if discounts apply for employees at both firms. You could look at local restaurants to see if they’d offer discounts to your employees on certain days (team lunches are another great way to help encourage bonding), or contact nearby attractions for your employees to enjoy on the weekends. In particular, family days out are expensive, and parents will appreciate a little extra help managing their outgoings.

6. Facilitate happy families

Parents, especially those with young children, will greatly value a company that makes life easier when it comes to childcare arrangements. Could you offer them flexible working hours, letting them start and finish a little later so they can breeze through the school run? The average cost for full-time (50 hours) childcare in London is over £300 a week per child; could you help parents cut these costs by letting them work their hours over four days, instead of five? Do you offer a private pumping room with a fridge for mums who are still breastfeeding? Better parking spaces for pregnant members of staff? Would you even consider investing in onsite childcare, or negotiating discounts with a local nursery, to help hard-working parents out? These are the kind of perks that can become deal-breakers for parents when it comes to employee retention.

7. Organise employee volunteering days

You can spend a fortune on team-building corporate away days, or you can give your employees the chance to bond while doing something great for your local community. Volunteering team days are favoured by companies like Amazon, who give staff a certain number of days out each year to give back locally. Not only does this help your employees to feel they work for an ethical employer, but it also has the added benefit of improving perceptions of your brand within your local community.

8. Develop them

As employees progress in their careers, their sense of responsibility and pressure increases. Add in feelings of increased visibility, and you’ve got the potential for stress-related absence, negative management styles, lack of focus and ultimately, burnout. An executive leadership coaching and development programme to help employees in their journey up the ladder gives employees something to aspire towards, as well as protecting them from failure. A robust programme will upskill your managers in commonly-feared tasks like public speaking as well as train them in strategy development, navigating complex problems, and organisational growth. It’s the employee perk that really gives back to your business.

As the job market becomes more competitive, attracting talent is about more than just a decent payslip. It’s thoughtful, employer-focused brands that have longevity, generate employee loyalty and create an environment that’s a genuine pleasure to work in. And after all, we spend on average nine hours a day in the office, so why wouldn’t you want it to be an amazing place to be?

Read more about employer brands in:

4 Reasons Employer Brands Smash Consumer Brands, Hands Down

Corporate Parties: The Ghost Of Christmas Past?

All details were correct at the time of publication but may have changed since.

It’s that time of year again… we’ve hit peak Christmas party season. A 2018 survey by consultancy Shine Workplace Wellbeing showed that a massive 75% of employees would prefer their employers to invest in regular wellbeing initiatives over throwing a Christmas party… which begs the question, does December 2018 mark the death of the corporate Christmas party?

Employee demographics and industries

The survey, undertaken in November, found that 80% of women advocated an employer-invested wellbeing programme over an office Christmas party. But well over half of the men surveyed (67%) also preferred this idea, demonstrating that it’s not just a gendered choice. It’s not an age-specific preference either; while the largest group of respondents in favour of a party were those aged 18–24, they still only represented 30% of their demographic.

It’s an employee trend which spans industry sectors, with 70% of those in marketing, and 60% of respondents in IT stating they’d prefer employers to invest in their emotional, physical and mental wellbeing, over throwing a big bash.

The cons of Christmas parties

For employers, ‘the most wonderful time of the year’ usually means a huge financial outlay, logistic olympics, and potential HR nightmares. Not to mention tax implications if your team bill back additional expenses and exceed the £150 per employee annual tax threshold for events. If it’s held on a weekday evening, there’s a good chance any over-imbibers will be less than productive (if they even show up) the following day. And, no matter how hard you try to foresee all eventualities, you’re always going to have people complain about some relatively minor issue that leaves you tearing your hair out in frustration.Could this employee trend be the excuse we’ve all been waiting for to move away from the Christmas party once and for all?

In place of parties

You don’t need to waste energy, time, and cash on one booze-fuelled night out for your staff. While I’m not suggesting you cancel this year’s event at the eleventh hour, smart employer brands will capitalise on this trend by thinking about ways to improve their employee wellbeing for 2019.

Bespoke wellbeing programmes can be implemented swiftly and efficiently onsite, which can be employer-funded or subsidised, or paid for by employees. The simplest way to kick-start a considered programme that works hard for your brand is to give your employees a taste, and see what really gets them engaged.

Body Mechanics three-day wellbeing taster events can be a series of physical treatments and classes, such as massage, yoga, and acupuncture, helping people relax and recharge.  You can also offer sessions to help your employees grow professionally, like one-to-one coaching or consultancy sessions. We also run events that help your team avoid burnout and stay focused, such as nutritional advice, meditation, or psychotherapy. Or you can choose to offer a combination of events that target the emotional, mental and physical needs of your employees.

Taster events take place onsite, meaning they fit in easily around the working day, giving your team members a chance to nip off and treat themselves in manageable sessions between meetings. You’ll soon be able to gauge whether a long-term integrated wellbeing programme would work for your business, based on engagement, feedback, and uptake.

Booking a taster session is easy, simply get in touch with me, Nikki Roy here.

If you need a little more convincing on how wellbeing programmes benefit businesses as much as employees, check out these articles:

Perk up: how to recognise and reward your employees

4 Reasons Employer Brands Smash Consumer Brands, Hands Down

Stress At Work: Try These Simple Relaxation Techniques From Yoga

This article was written by: Bene Spoelders, Yoga Instructor at Body Mechanics

When you feel stressed with work pressure, you feel in a constant state of alertness: your mind is focused on your job even after work hours and you wake up during the night worrying about your colleagues or deadlines. You know that you have managed similar and even worse pressures in the past, but you can’t stop your mind from racing and worrying. In this article, I briefly talk about stress at work and how it can impact your productivity and happiness, and why clever companies offer wellness programmes to their employees. I finish by giving you 3 simple practices that you can do right now to combat stress.

Fight or flight

Stress at work, financial worries, and emotional unrest can all be sources of stress that send your body into the ‘fight or flight’ mode. This is a useful state of mind sometimes, when you have to perform under pressure, but not when it becomes chronic. Chronic stress leads to a permanently increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, digestive problems, shallow breathing, a scattered mind, and anxiety. The problem is that we are often unaware of being in this heightened state of worry and alertness.  

Relaxation response 

Chronic stress is the cause of many health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, back pain, digestive disorders, a weakened immune system, etc. It is important to include activities in our daily lives that will counteract this chronic state of alertness. Dr. Herbert Benson used the term “relaxation response” to describe the state of recuperation after the fight or flight mode. To promote the relaxation response, he says we only need “10 to 20 minutes in a calm environment, a focus for the mind, and a passive (non-judgmental) attitude”.   

Interestingly, doing yoga fulfils these criteria: it happens in a calm environment, focuses the mind and the aim is not to judge or compare one’s performance. Doing physical postures with awareness, concentrating on the body and the breath, allows the “fight or flight mode” to change into the “relaxation response”. As yoga students, we often start a yoga session with a racing and troubled mind, sometimes without even realising the tensions. Amazingly, we leave the class feeling calmer, content and more clear-headed. It is not that we have tackled the problems head-on; on the contrary, the only thing we have done is paid attention to our body.  

Yoga for the workplace 

It is no surprise that offering yoga classes at the workplace is increasingly popular.  Research has repeatedly proven that yoga classes can be an efficient and cost-effective part of a company’s corporate wellness programme. The University of Michigan Research Centre found in 2010 that for every $1 invested in workplace wellness, a company can expect at least double in cost savings.   

The benefits of doing yoga for employees include not only physical ones such as improved back health, reduced neck, and shoulder tension, and optimized breathing but also mental benefits such as reduced anxiety and stress, greater focus and concentration, and reduced fatigue. All these lead to increased efficiency at work and greater job satisfaction. 

The gains for employers are an enriched corporate culture, reduced sickness and absenteeism, increased productivity, and increased employee retention. 

Try this… 

Maybe your workplace does not offer yoga classes yet, so today I would like to share 3 exercises that can promote your body’s relaxation response. I purposely chose practices that don’t require a lot of time and that you can incorporate in daily activities: one simple movement, one way of mindful walking, and one breathing exercise. You will get the best results if you practise these every day.   

1. Feet, breath, and focus:

Do this preferably in bare feet, but you can also do it in shoes when you are alone in a lift or waiting for the bus. 

  • Inhale and lift your heels so you come to stand on the balls of your feet.
  • Exhale and slowly bring the heels down. 
  • Repeat for about a minute, paying attention to the coordination of breath and movement. This means that you use the whole inhalation to lift the heels and the heels only touch the ground again at the very end of the exhalation.
  • Make sure you keep the weight behind all the toes, and not only behind the big toe or little toe, which can be detrimental to the strength and stability of your ankles. 
  • Once you have mastered the weight distribution and slow coordination of movement and breath, add the arm movement: bring your arms to the side and up to shoulder height as you rise onto the toes, lower them with the exhalation. This movement promotes calm, expands the chest, and strengthens the feet.  

As always with yoga: don’t do it if it hurts.   

2. Mindful walking:

While walking, consciously observe your surroundings: sounds, smell, colours, shapes, light, and shade. As soon as you catch yourself thinking of other things, bring your attention back to your surroundings. Try to practise this every time you walk. This is an interesting practice: it demonstrates how little we normally notice in our surroundings and how entertaining they usually are.   

3. Breathing to promote the relaxation response:

At your desk and need a little pause? 

  • Close your eyes or gaze at something non-specific and breathe in for 4 counts, out for 6 counts. It does not matter how fast or slow the counting is, just keep the ratio between the in- and out-breath.  
  • While breathing like this, feel your body relax on the chair, keeping the front and back of the body long and broad.
  • Continue for at least a minute.  

This breathing exercise is not only relaxing, but it will also allow you to take a step back from what you were just doing, giving you greater peace and clarity.