Hello!

The past few weeks have been jam-packed with content all about:

 - Mental Health & Happiness

 - Strokes

 - Death & Life Expectancy

All in all, some pretty light subjects!

Mental health is an aspect of our lives that's often swept under the rug in favour of physical attributes. However, with a few helpful tips and tricks, you can easily make sure that you live a happy and healthy life. 

For starters, meditating often can help to bring us into the present moment, eliminating the stress of the past and future. Most of our worries and woes come from thinking too much about what's coming up or has already happened. Yet, the current moment is where we can settle ourselves, com up with a plan, and live stress-free. Stress isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just needs to be managed, and meditation is one of the techniques that can help with that. 

Another technique is to keep a journal. Keeping our stressful thoughts trapped inside our head, bouncing around, and interfering with our productive thoughts only creates problems. What we need to do is to create an outlet for these emotions so that we can work through them and let them be free. This is a big reason why talking to others helps so much, but not everyone feels comfortable doing that. For those people, the next best thing is to jot your thoughts down on paper to make them more tangible. This brings the thoughts out of your head and into the physical world, making them easier to deal with and work through. It's also an incredibly cathartic process. 

The next topic we touched upon was strokes. Every year in the UK, there are more than 100,000 strokes which is around one stroke every 5 minutes. Thankfully, these rates are falling and there are some easy ways to reduce your risk through some helpful lifestyle techniques:

1. Reduce your blood pressure through eating a natural diet, exercising regularly, and implementing some de-stressing techniques such as meditation and journal writing.

2. Give up or at least cut down on any smoking

3. Drink alcohol in moderation and avoid binge drinking at all costs

4. Eat a healthy diet filled with nutrient-dense foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, lean meats, and oily fish

5. Sleep at least 6 hours per night, getting into bed around 10pm. With sleep, it's not just about length, but also about quality. You don't just want a long night under the covers, but a restful one. So, aim to do something relaxing such as reading a book or taking a nice bath before bed in order to put your mind at ease for a restful slumber. 

Lastly, we've also touched upon the cheery topic of death and life expectancy. Death is unfortunately an unavoidable part of life, but knowing this can help you lead a more fulfilled, enjoyable future. If you never think there's going to be an end, then why would you rush? Why would you push yourself? Why would you step out of your boundaries to try new things? 

In order to fit all of these exciting opportunities in, we need to also improve our life expectancy. A good sign is that mortality rates are actually falling which means that we must be doing something right! 

The current leading cause of death is heart disease which is caused by both exercise and diet, but also stress. Many of us take care of our body’s through the foods we eat and the activity we do, but our mental health can take a backseat. Using the tips listed above, you can easily reduce your risk of heart disease through stress each and every day. 

Life isn't about just living, but about living in peace and happiness. 

And with that, I'll leave you for another two weeks! 

I hope that everything comes up in your favour, and you manage to get a little time to enjoy something new and exciting.

John