Being wealthy and feeling wealthy are two very different experiences. While many in the West enjoy material abundance, we are currently facing an epidemic of loneliness and emotional isolation. Suicide rates are rising, and the pervasive sense of despair has driven people to search for meaning and connection in various ways. Practices like yoga and mindfulness have gained immense popularity as individuals seek spiritual fulfilment and mental clarity. At the same time, others turn to more destructive outlets like drugs and alcohol to numb their pain. This growing crisis highlights a deeper societal issue: despite our material wealth, there is a profound lack of emotional well-being and community, underscoring the need for more meaningful forms of connection and purpose in our lives. Contact me via e-mail if you are feeling isolated, anxious, worried or stressed?
Supporting DEI means supporting mental health
How to improve your workplace’s DEI for mental health?
1. Focus on culture
Encourage employees to be their authentic selves, eliminating the need for code-switching.
2. Educate your employees
Implement mental health training to help leaders and managers identify issues and support employees in seeking help.
3. Provide opportunities
Offer flexible workspaces and time off to prevent burnout and stress-related illnesses.
4. Eliminate negative factors
Address and eliminate micro-aggressions, unconscious bias, social exclusion, discrimination, harassment, and physical violence.
5. Diversify your mental health care
Assess the diversity of your mental health professionals. For example, what percentage of mental health professionals are white in Denmark? What percentage are women? What percentage are LGBTQ+?
6. Talk to your employees
Use anonymous engagement surveys to gather honest feedback from employees.
7. Implement wellness programs
Introduce programs such as meditation, gratitude training, and physical exercise to reduce anxiety and depression.
I think by ensuring that the team driving these efforts is diverse, you can better navigate the fine line between authenticity and discrimination and avoid perpetuating existing inequalities.
Second-guessing
Imposter syndrome is a feeling that many people experience at some point in their lives and can be described as having these three main elements to it:
1. The belief that other people have an inflated view of your own abilities or skills, a far more inflated view that you have of yourself.
2. You have this intense fear that you’ll be found out and exposed as a fake.
3. You consistently attribute your success that you do recognise, to other factors outside of your own abilities and talent.
Contact me via e-mail to arrange a confidential meeting.
What causes burnout?
I think burnout is a form of stress and stress is caused by wanting to do two things at the same time. In the field of engineering, stress refers to the presence of two opposing forces acting upon an object, and they are usually pulling in different directions. For example: It’s stressful when you are in a situation where you have an obligation to do something while lacking the motivation. It’s also stressful when you are experiencing the need to perform a task proficiently while harbouring uncertainty about your ability to do so. On the other hand, it’s not stressful to be where you want to be as I think being in a situation that aligns with your desires doesn’t cause stress. Contact me via e-mail for a 1:1 confidential meeting about your stress levels.
Solving problems
Everyone experiences problems at work, but how we approach these problems makes all the difference in how well we resolve them in an efficient manner. In fact, just like there is a process for solving mathematical problems there is a process for solving business and life problems as well. It requires that you approach the problem systematically and in an organised fashion.
Here are a few steps you can follow:
1) Clearly define the problem,
2) Identify the causes of the problem,
3) Gather all the facts relating to the problem,
4) Review the options available for solving the problem.
““We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.””
Talk is cheap
What are the changes we seek to make, in order to become the type of person we want to be?
There are a series of choices we have to make, and I think these choices are easier if we have habits. Habits get us results; goals are results! Having a goal that you are going to for example, go to lose weight does not tell me anything. Whereas having the goal to go to the gym every other day for 6 months and you are going to get as fit as a fiddle is a way more specific goal and is totally in your control.
Success is a numbers game
Do you consistently ask yourself the question, “What am I doing that someone else can do just as well?” Don't let others define what “success” is for you. Once you have defined your idea of success, commit yourself to doing all the great things you can do to achieve it.
Here’s a few factors of success:
1. Purpose
2. Vision
3. Goals
4. Choices
5. Reasons
6. Environment
7. Attitude
8. Time
9. Energy
10. Results
Decisions, decisions and more decisions
In a way nature protects us by shielding us from knowledge of the difficulties and obstacles that lie ahead because if we really know all of the problems we would face, the setbacks, the sufferings, the temporary failure, and disappointments - many of us would hesitate about everything, even starting out. Quitting is a habit and if you quit the first time you run into difficulties, you’ll always quit when the going gets rough, and in effect, you’ll establish a pattern for failure rather than a pattern for success.
Decision fatigue is a psychological phenomenon surrounding a person’s ability or capacity to make decisions. In other words, the more decisions you have to make, the more fatigue you develop and the more difficult it can become. This fatigue applies to all decisions, not simply the large or more difficult ones as when there are too many options, we tend to feel overwhelmed, anxious, stressed or otherwise out of sorts.
Brain contribution
When we express gratitude, our brain releases dopamine and serotonin - two hormones that make us feel lighter and happier inside. It’s been really important to take care of our minds during this pandemic and understanding how to trigger this feeling is an important tool to have at our disposal. Before you can trigger it, let’s understand why gratitude is so important. We experience gratitude when we shift our focus from what we don’t have to what we do, and when we take time to appreciate and be thankful for those who have contributed to the abundance in our lives.
Which part of the brain controls our important cognitive skills, for example, emotional expression, problem solving, memory, language, judgement, and sexual behaviours?
The amygdala is responsible for the ‘fight/flight/freeze’ mechanism of our bodies and when stress makes you feel anger, aggression, or fear, the fight-flight response mechanism is activated. The frontal lobe controls our short-sighted behaviours to be able to act with a goal in mind and this may include things like self-control, planning, decision-making and problem-solving. I think that it’s the subconscious mind that controls all our behaviours and since it is open to continued suggestions, we are being changed by the constant messaging.
Inside the bear
“Inside every person there are two bears, forever locked in combat for your soul. One bear is all things good: compassion, love, trust. The other is all things evil: fear, shame and self-destruction. When asked which one wins I answer, the one I feed the most.”
Don't blame the machine
I was very young when I heard the proverb - a bad workman always blames his tools - for the first time. The meaning of this proverb is our success does not depend on what kind of tools we have but how we use them. In other words, a person may have the best equipment in the world but if he does not know how to use them, he can never complete a job successfully.
I am not a medical professional, but I do think that it’s our beliefs and not our DNA that affects our biology. Throughout my life I have heard “sob stories” from people who believe that they are victims of their heredity. After reading masses of literature on the subject, modern research shows that genes do not control anything. We are the masters of our genetic fate because we can change our beliefs, environment and minds, and these are the things that control our biology.
Genes are only responsible for less than 1% of the diseases on earth, so 99% of illnesses are not because of a physical breakdown. It’s what Bruce Lipton metaphorically calls “driver error”. For many years scientists believed that our genes were controlling us, our genes were the “driver of our lives”. Nowadays we acknowledge that the mind is the real controller, and with good programming for example, how to take care of our health, our biology and the environment in which we live, then we will realise that we are the masters of our genetic fate.
Our thoughts, beliefs and how we interact with the world are affecting our genetic expression - mind and body. Our body responds to the chemistry of our thoughts, this can be easily demonstrated by a simple example: compare the feeling of being in love and the feeling of being scared. The chemicals released into our body when we are in love are completely different to the emotions felt when the brain is in fear mode.
Each one, teach one
"There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life - happiness, freedom and peace of mind - are always attained by giving them to someone else." - Peyton Conway March
The pandemic and the current economic downturn is causing mental health issues all around the world. We know that this has been an issue throughout the lockdown. I have heard from so many people who are feeling lonely, anxious and depressed with many of them stressed and having suicidal thoughts.
How is the pandemic hurting your physical and mental wellbeing?
I am a mentor and available to talk to you during these turbulent times.
Lonely, Frustrated or Bored
Image: Aman Dalal
Yesterday morning, I was speaking to my elderly parents in London about whether they had changed their eating habits during the pandemic. Jared Diamond in his book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, studied why some cultures today are highly advanced and others are still living very primitive. One of the key factors was the difference between how they ate. Today, I reached out to the health expert and nutritional therapist, Thorbjörg Hafsteinsdottir for her opinion. Thorbjörg is the best selling author of “10 Years Younger in 10 Weeks” - As I wanted to know if Thorbjörg agreed with Jared Diamond prognosis?
We know that what we eat has a great impact on our health and how old we get. The “Blue Zones” are areas across the globe where people tend to live the longest and have remarkably low rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity. Research has shown that these cultures are different from each other and the diet is not the same, for example, in Okinawa (Japan) their diet consists of fish, plants, sea plants, bitter melon and meat, once or twice a month. In Sardinia (Italy) their diet consists of high protein pasta, olive oil, fish, meat and red wine, and the Hunza’s in north Pakistan eat beans, whole grain bread, some meat and vegetables. Although food choices vary from region to region, what they all have in common are that Blue Zone diets are primarily homemade from scratch, with no added sugar or bad hydrogenated oils and they all steer clear of processed foods. Communal eating with friends and family, high levels of physical activity, low-stress levels and a strong sense of purpose also plays a huge role in their long lives.
Today, it is common knowledge that excessive sugar intake is extremely dangerous! Added sugar in starchy food, bread, cakes, pasta and other high glycemic food, interferes with the blood sugar balance and can make you insulin resistant, leading to obesity and inflammation, which is a part of almost all health problems and known medical diagnoses.
In my opinion, everyone wants to be happy, healthy, wealthy and to have good personal and professional relationships. How would you define who you are and what you do?
Well, I am one of those in your vision group 😊. For the past 30 years or so, I have been teaching, inspiring and motivating people to take action on their health by taking better and healthier choices. I am doing my best to walk the talk.
Currently, we are experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic and we are changing our behaviours and adopting new routines as the global lockdown continues. Everyone is speaking about a vaccine as the solution but I cannot help but think there must be an alternative and as the immune system is the operating system of the body. What role do you think strengthening our immune system could play?
Based on science there is no doubt that having a strong immune system is a good first defence against any germ, bacteria or virus. The elderly and people with pre-existing health conditions (e.g. cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic respiratory diseases, etc.) are, particularly at risk. There is so much we don't know about the coronavirus and how it behaves in the body. We know it attacks the lungs, and also that it is the immune system that fights this cytokine inflammation storm on the lungs. Due to the genetic range, it is quite normal that some people die from a viral disease while others do not even notice it. The bottom line is that there is no magic pill or a specific food guaranteed to bolster your immune system. I would recommend that you maintain a healthy diet, increase your daily vitamin D intake, improve your sleeping habits, reduce your stress levels and avoid excessive alcohol consumption.
The coronavirus has had unprecedented impacts on the world and some say the worst is yet to come. I have hope for the future and understand that during these uncertain times, it’s more critical than ever to take command of your emotions and attitude. Can you tell me a little about your upcoming online course (in Danish) which starts on Monday 20th April?
The immune system is vital and crucial for our life, all systems in the body are connected to the immune system. On this course, I will take you through the many functions of the immune system - I will speak about blood sugar and insulin, inflammation and obesity, stress, stress factors and sleep. I will also talk about food and diet, advise on what to eat in order to maintain a balanced immune system, sharing plenty of good advice for everything!
This course will provide you with a basic platform - a forum for people to meet, be inspired, gain motivational tools and guidance during these strange times. The loneliness, the frustration of not knowing when this will pass or feeling bored can easily be used as an excuse to lose control and eat your way out of the "crisis". I am here to help prevent that happening, to support you and to support your body and mind.
Thank you Thörbjorg 🙏🏽. I also know that good habits automatically transform our lives therefore I have signed up for your online course.
You can contact Thorbjörg via E: thorbjorg@thorbjorg.dk or T: (+45) 40 91 64 13
