Civility

Much heard online right now.  A pretty important concept.  Do onto others as you wish to be treated.

Which made me feel rather red-facedly ashamed when I stood in front of the opening tube door this morning and didn't realise for a moment that I was standing in the way of someone trying to get off.

Because that's precisely the behaviour that I utterly and completely detest!

You're on a tube train, it pulls into your station.  You fought your way to, or nearer to, the door (or actually: you're just announcing your intention to get off at the next stop by standing up taller and looking very determined), the train stops, you see the people on the platform outside shifting around.  And just as you're congratulating yourself on having a clear path not just off the train but to zip along towards the exit too: someone shifts around some more and ends up right in your way: smack bang exactly in front of the opening door.  Usually with a really bovine expression on their faces: 'why aren't you getting off already so I can get on?'  When you say 'excuse me' the facial expression then changes to something like: 'Well, you can contort yourself and move around me, can't you!?' - I can't even begin to say how much that gets to me!

And this morning, I'm stood there like an absolute idiot waiting to get on the train, and I just couldn't understand why that wasn't possible straight away.  Not until that passenger said, rather annoyed (read: seriously pissed off): " 'scuse me!"  I completely understand the annoyance, believe me, only too well!

I hope that my "I am so sorry!" and jumping smartly out of the way was really as quick as I hope.  But, honestly, how daft of me!

I guess it's down to the fact that 'normally' at this time in the morning, no-one gets off the tube at this stop.  I must have been half asleep still.  But that's no excuse - I really should have been more with it and moved without having to be prompted.  Common courtesy.  It makes other peole feel better and it doesn't cost you anything.

I really must pay more attention, even when half-asleep and in my own little world.  It's not a new year's resolution (I don't do those), but I'd like to be a bit more conscious of the world around me, and something like this is definitely a part of it.  A big part.

I think I would like to think some more on the whole subject of good manners.  Wouldn't it be so lovely if I could raise my game a bit in that area, sort of generally, across the board?  That would really make me feel good about myself, I must say.

Here's to civility!

Are good manners important?  What do they mean to you?

Happy New Year!

I am looking forward to the new year:

+ I would like to enjoy the sunshine more when it is around (I can knit outside just as easily as I can inside)

+ I would very much like to call my loved ones more often on the phone: family and particularly friends.  Keeping in touch is so important and it can be a bit challenging, time just flies.

+ I have my heart set on a few crafts projects - the next pair of socks will be easy to start, the next sewing project needs a bit more follow-through after the previous three projects failed.

+ I would like to investigate a few more cafes that might be open later in the day so I can pop in after work.  Again to knit or just to sit typing up an email, we'll see.

+ More of the same for the point above: check out some of the public spaces like the Royal Festival Hall - I'd like to find out what other ones there are.

+ I am thinking about taking on more responsibility at work.

+ I am definitely going to post more to this blog, there are some subjects I'd like to remind myself about.  Think them through as I write them.

+ I have other less well defined ideas that I want to be open to (what's to stop me from freshening up the French I once knew?)

+ And above all I want to live a bit more 'aware' if that makes sense.  Not just slog along each day and resurface from the trance-like lull all too rarely, - but instead enjoy things more, think a bit more deeply and be more determined in going after the stuff I want.  No Sleeping Beauty coma for mother's daughter!  Let's kick that into touch.

* Most importantly: let's thoroughly enjoy things & kick ass...


Have fun and a fabulous first day of the year!

-

How I managed to stop smoking and stuck with it

This is part 2 of my 'how I stopped smoking' post.

I woke up one morning, my throat felt like a fuzzy chimney and I really, really did not feel like a cigarette (the run-up to that is in part 1).

After thinking about it for half the day of dozing, I did decide that I was going to see how the next hour would go without smoking.

It went okay.

I cleaned out all the ashtrays, I found things to do to take my mind off it - and after that hour I decided that I wanted to do this 'not smoking thing' for another hour.  Again, no pressure, and just to see how it would go.

That went okay too.

By then I felt emboldened!  Maybe I could go the rest of the day and not smoke, and actually make it the first day of being a non-smoker?  Wouldn't that be something?

It was quite exciting, actually.

I went through the day after, a Sunday, halfway expecting for that excitement and resolve to melt away and vanish into nothingness, - or give way to overwhelming craving that I wouldn't be able to stand up to.

I always thought that you would have to muster a heck of a lot of will power and really fight against the craving - to get to be a non-smoker.  I have never done well when my hopes and ambitions go up against pressure and expectation.

I figured out that you can deal with a craving a different way:  wait it out.

It may sound a bit silly, but I found out that the passive way worked much better for me.  So much better that I did stop smoking that day and for the last six years (hah, and a bit!) I have not smoked.  Not even one puff.  How good is that?

And I think that my success is down to how I did it.

The waiting out thing worked for me like this:  the craving would come and I'd be afraid that it would build and build and build, as in get stronger, with me climbing the walls (I could literally picture myself spider-like stuck to the wall near its ceiling) and that I would then have to give in and light up.  To make the horrid pressure go away and stop the craving.

Well, I wasn't using will power, I wasn't fighting this.  Instead I let the craving wash over me like a wave and I waited to see what would happen.  Funny thing is: the craving did not get stronger, in fact it wouldn't even last very long.  Maybe two minutes at the most?  But I think most of the time it wasn't nearly as long as that.  More like half a minute, some times even just 20 seconds, at other times closer to a minute.

But I found it really doable to just wait until it passed.

You can do a minute or two at a time of feeling crap and horrible and feeling like you want to give up.  My nicotine cravings didn't stick around for very long, they never got stronger than when the craving first hit.

Over the years I've had a pretty bad attack of the craving maybe up to ten times.  I almost faltered at about four of those occasions.  I am a bit surprised that I didn't.

The other thing I did was research on the Internet: I found out what happens with your body 20 minutes after your last cigarette (the nicotine level in your blood goes back to normal), and what happens after so and so many hours and days, weeks and months, etc.

It was nice to check my progress against that sort of timeline.  I also found some quite supportive stuff that built my morale.

The biggest help was imagining the face of my father once he realised that I'd stopped!  My inner eye produced quite a picture!  That got me past many sticky moments.  I also marked each day with a big red letter in a paper diary.  Particularly up to Day 20 when I knew I would meet up with my Dad.

It was the funniest thing ever: he noticed immediately that I no longer stank of smoke but didn't dare ask me straight away if I could have possibly given up.  In fact he left it almost two hours and by then it had become very apparent that I hadn't lit up and wasn't going to any time soon.  And I wasn't going to tell him because I wanted his surprised reaction!  It was wonderful to get his very hesitant question if it was at all possible that I might have, possibly, at all, uh... given up? And to be able to answer: Yes! I have!

That was so good.

The other things I did was to go for a walk around the block: before I would have taken a quick cigarette break in the morning, and also during the afternoon.  I was worried that I would miss those breaks away from my desk so much that I might be tempted to pick up smoking again.  So I checked with the people at work to make sure it was okay to disappear for five minutes for my breather - in support of this whole 'giving up smoking' business!  They were happy to.

It was brilliant to walk round and be able to smell stuff that I hadn't noticed for years: the scent from a flower pot, someone's perfume, even the acrid smell of petrol from somewhere were all reason for celebration and joy!

I also kept a diary that I wrote in almost every day.  Just to put on paper how I was feeling, what I was experiencing, how it was going.  Sort of chart my progress and how things felt.  I also included my findings from the Internet: if something I'd found helped, if it sparked off any ideas or insights.  It felt like I was getting support from this, getting rid of some of the tension: by sticking it all down on paper.

These are the sorts of things that helped me.  It was a huge relief to find that the craving would remain at that intensity instead of getting worse, and would diminish relatively soon.  I found my walks a welcome interruption from work, and the anticipation to tell people once I felt successful enough to tell them: that was wonderful as well!

I reckon most of the things I did were setting myself up for success.  I managed to avoid the things that had often served to set things up for failure.  I don't handle pressure and expectation well, letting the craving pass by waiting it out worked so much better.

I hope this helps someone else.  You may find that there are other things that are useful to you but perhaps what I said sparks off something beneficial.

And I must say: I really enjoy being a non-smoker.  The money I save, the time I have available, the absence of the cigarette smell in clothes, hair and my home, the relief that I am no longer endangering my health but getting better every day - it is all good.  And I am so very glad that I didn't smoke that next cigarette on the day that became my first day as a non-smoker.  I would have gotten there but it would have taken so much longer.

Good luck to you! Take heart.

It is difficult but simpler than you think.  It is not as easy but also not as harrowing as we expect.

My decision to stop smoking and how I got to it

This is the big blog post that I was looking forward to writing since I started this blog.  I am hoping this may help someone else, or perhaps just spark off an idea to set you onto your own path to do things your own way.

I used to smoke quite heavily, 40 a day for the last two years or so.  I smoked for 22 years.  The daily number of cigarettes had steadily increased over those years and I was worried, and more and more anxious about my health.  I didn't like the fact that I would get a cold and keep the cough for six weeks or longer.  I hated getting breathless and feeling annoyingly unfit.  I wasn't keen on being the only one to leave a restaurant to stand in some doorway for the cigarette that I needed.

I wanted to stop for a while but couldn't see how.  I didn't think I would succeed if I tried before I was ready.  Worse: whenever I had tried to stop in the past I would smoke quite a lot more when I failed and I couldn't get that number back down again.

Even thinking about not feeling able to successfully stop made me more anxious.

I reckon now that all my attempts failed because, when it comes down to it, I hadn't really wanted to stop.  I did enjoy it and I resented other people telling me that I should stop.  But for the last two or maybe two and a half years I got closer and closer to knowing that I definitely wanted to stop and that I now wanted to figure out how I would do so.

When you get ready to think about the practicalities (would I try sugar free lollies to keep my fingers and mouth busy? Chewing gum? Patches?) then it gets easier and easier to consider that you might me successful.  That old obstacle, the fear of failure, doesn't sit quite as tightly on you with its stranglehold.


The day I stopped smoking (the first day that I didn't smoke anymore!) was a day I hadn't known would be the one.  Might be the best way.  I had no idea that I was smoking my last cigarette the night before.  I think that's a good thing: less expectation, less pressure, more likelihood of success.

Any time I had tried to stop before I had felt like I was climbing the walls.  I thought I had to exert a lot of will power to stop myself from giving in to the craving.  And I didn't do well in that.  At all.  The whole thing made me even more anxious.  When I think back I see it as horribly oppressive pressure.  It just makes you feel small and powerless when you feel in the grips of something that's stronger than you.  And all the worry, fear and anxiety just makes it worse.

I had completely overdone it the night before.  I must have smoked about 50 cigarettes if not more (I wouldn't recommend doing that at all), I added another two self-rolled ones when I got home: I'd run out all of a sudden and had to resort to a bit of old, dried up rolling tobacco.  Those two cigarettes were horrible!  Hot smoke hitting the back of your throat, bits of tobacco too, eergh, horrible.

Even though I didn't want to just yet, I went to bed rather than having another one like that.

Woke up next day and didn't feel like another one.  Funnily enough that wasn't the first time this happened: I used to light up first thing on opening my eyes but for the last month or so, some of the time, I had been able to put off the very first one in the day to later.

That Saturday, between dozing and waking, I wondered if this was a good day for stopping.  Discarded the idea: nah, wouldn't happen, and besides: did I really want to?  Couldn't make up my mind.  Fell asleep again.  Woke up, wondered a bit more.  Thought it was worth a go, changed my mind.  Dozed some more.

Then it was mid day and I realised: this was half a day of those horrible, difficult first two days of no longer smoking gone!  A quarter of the hardest time had passed already!  I knew that if I smoked another cigarette that day then it would take me months to get to the same point.  Months of black smoke going into my lungs, months of wanting to but feeling that I wouldn't be able to stop.

I thought it was worth a try - just for the next hour.  No sense in piling on the pressure (I do not do well under pressure!  Put pressure on me and I crumble, guaranteed!).  Just to see how that would be.

So I went and cleaned out the ashtrays.  I didn't have to breathe that in if I could help it.

That hour went okay.


To be continued in part 2.

Relentless Positive Mental Attitude

Yeah, I know: PMA sounds like one of those - yawn - way over-used phrases that ought to get consigned to the dustbin never to see the light of day again.  I mean, come on: positive mental attitude?  There used to be scores of self-help gurus who kept spouting that and all sorts of nonsense that sounded good but suffered from the cotton candy syndrome.

That's what I call the stuff that looks utterly tempting, but as soon as you get your teeth into it... it just disappears into a sickeningly sweet coating on your teeth.  All style and no substance.  Nah, not for me thanks.

But there's a lot to be said for a positive outlook and in general terms: attitude.  How you look at things can make a huge difference.

I sometimes run around utterly grumpy and wonder why nothing will cheer me up.  Everything that happens seems to be designed to get on my nerves and get me down even more!

On those days it takes me a while (yeah right, if I stop to think) to realise that I'm impersonating negativity itself.  You could paint my world in sunshine, pick me up in a bear hug and twirl me around and it would, probably, not make a difference... (Hm, maybe a nice old hug would make things lots better).

There is one thing that I got myself into the habit of thinking positively about though.  That positive attitude does seem to stick whenever I think about it too.  A really good thing!



About 4-5 years ago I found out that I've got high cholesterol and need to reduce it by about 20%, just under.  At the time I was a week away from the major endeavour of moving house and really didn't have the head space to deal with this.

I made a conscious decision: I would put it off by two weeks and properly look into it then.  The GP surgery had given me a one page hand-out which wasn't hugely helpful (it quoted the outdated wisdom about eggs, if I remember correctly) but at least told me that I needed to avoid foods high in fats.

Saturated fat and trans fats in particular as I learnt later.  I think I managed to stay away from deep-fried items for the two weeks.  A good start.

There was a slight bit of misinformation I was initially given at the time: that the maximum cholesterol value was 6.5 (I was over by a bit) but I was then told the correct information: this value is 5 (in the US and continental Europe a different system is in use which, I believe, sets this maximum value at 200.  Oranges and lemons).

I wasn't unduly worried to begin with (because of that 6.5 figure) - a couple of weeks later I started to research the subject: online and a couple of books.  I found some useful stuff online, in particular a table of foods showing three categories: eat a lot of this (i.e. fresh vegetable etc), only eat those occasionally and the third was: avoid like the plague if you can (deep-fried stuff, innards, everything that's high in fats - all those beige looking, greasy items).

That was very useful.

Initially I found it annoying that I had to learn a whole new way of shopping: you can't just go up to your old favourites and chuck them in your shopping basket - you need to look at everything and check.

There was one thing I decided early on: I wanted to establish 'good habits' and not set myself up for failure by adopting the 'oh well let's eat the right stuff some of the time, but in reality stuff myself full of all the wrong stuff' - because, you know: it's a treat.

Except it isn't.

I had wondered, before that diagnosis, why I would feel particularly out of sorts, sluggish and frustratingly low in energy.  I would be hungry, pace up and down to try and think of what I wanted to eat but on investigating the cupboard find that nothing appealed.  There would be a lot of biscuits, crips, crackers, cakes, muffins and all sorts of other greasy foods.  If you can't check if an item is high in fat: if it leaves a bit of a coating on your fingers (like a biscuit or shortbread does) then it's high in fat.

None of those appealed.  The reason being: those high in fat foods were responsible for making me feel so sluggish - my cholesterol level just doesn't welcome more of the wrong foods, my body is craving the kind of stuff that's good for me.

Foods like: oats, avocado, fresh vegetables (let's not count potatoes though) and fresh fruit (I'm not keen on grapes and pineapple though) and there are others but I'll have to look them up again.

I think my cholesterol is a blessing in disguise.  I did mention that I was going to write about Relentless Positive Mental Attitude, right?  This is it.
When you think about it: it is a blessing in disguise.

What good are foods high in fat to you?  They are very "good" if you were a goose that's being fattened up to make fois gras.  That's the only reason: high-fat foods result in fatty livers.  Yum.

I would like to be slimmer than I am.  I specifically do not want to be a size zero nor anything approaching that.  A UK size 14 is my goal - this is the average size in this country and it would do me very nicely, thank you very much!  I am still one or two (more like two, sigh!) away from that, but I do see that as a gradual thing that I am moving towards.

And my cholesterol is helping me with that.  I do not want to feel low in energy and sluggish, I want to be slimmer because it would make me feel good about myself and very happy at my achievement.

So really, there's no need to get upset that I inherited familial cholesterol (Yup, it's the parentals' fault!) - I can most definitely see it as a good thing.  Avoid wrong foods, eat more of the stuff that I should, reduce my cholesterol, slim down, get very, very happy!

That's the ticket.

Just to add: I have had a couple of blood tests since the initial diagnosis.  I was told both times that my cholesterol level had come down and whatever I was doing was working: so keep doing that!  I may have to consider medication if my progress doesn't keep up, but so far so good.

Please note that I am not an expert in anything and please make sure you get proper medical advice if you suffer from high cholesterol or are overweight.  I would hate to be the cause for problems.  I just feel that a positive outlook can change the way you look at something, and that in turn may make it easier to follow a healthier lifestyle.

Please take everything I say with a huge pinch of salt and check it out for yourself.

I would love to hear from anyone about their experiences with high cholesterol.  And I just reminded myself that I need to get another test for an up-to-date reading.

The above image is from a site called EFN Your Health and Fitness Guide, and an interesting article: Good cholesterol can lower Alzheimer’s risk, worth a read!