Ingredients of Wellness

Mindfulness Matters! and it’s mascot, The Little Green Frog, is now available in Hong Kong. Mindfulness paves the way to be alert and make kind, conscious choices in the present moment. Janet Etty-Leal Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment, without judgment. More simply, it is purposefully bringing attention to what is being experienced. […]

Are you passionate about life? Are you giving what you can? Are you living your life? Here are 3 videos that aim to inspire, engage and get you thinking if you are living the life you want! Isabel Allende: How to live passionately—no matter your age Isabel Allende, author of Aphrodite: The Love of Food & the […]

Mindbody wellness  mindfulness apps It’s truly mindboggling the number of mindfulness or meditation apps available.  Meditation apps can be helpful for those who are not yet able to meditate in silence or even if you need some help getting into that silent space.  Sometimes a guided meditation is what you need because the mind is […]

I don’t sleep well when I travel and I never sleep on planes.  When I’m not in my own bed I toss and turn for what seems like the entire night and after a few days of this my body and mind are exhausted.  Is this experience of sleep deprivation familiar? Sleep Health Sleep is […]

We would all like to think that we are compassionate beings.  Most likely compassion extends towards friends, family, co-workers, the people we come across daily and even with strangers.  Does this same level of compassion extend to animals and the natural world and do we extend compassion toward ourselves? In this short video, Shauna Shapiro […]

I’ve long wanted to add a new monthly feature post and at last here it is.  I’m calling this ‘Favorite Ingredients of Wellness’  and it will feature some of the wonderful wellness things I’ve experienced in the past month. I hope you enjoy this offering. I hope you find the desire to try some of them. […]

Why do we meditate, practice mindfulness, or other mindbody therapies?  Perhaps you’ve tried it for relaxation, or to ease the mind, or perhaps because you’ve heard it helps with stress and anxiety.  Perhaps you are looking for some way to relieve pain when the drugs are just not working.  Or you may be thinking of […]

If you are a regular follower you may have noticed I have been away for a while.  Now that didn’t make me happy! but the reason for the absence certainly did.  I was engaging in passionate pursuits of the academic kind.  More on this another time but needless to say I was working in flow, […]

letting nature recharge our battery of senses brings balance to our personal and collective lives      Michael J Cohen     Cooped up in a cold apartment and office throughout the day, a glance outside has in recent weeks offered nothing more than grey polluted skies and little inspiration to get outdoors.  But being in […]

    As part of my work at RMIT I am conducting research into teaching mindfulness in schools.  My research considers teachers perceptions of the experience of teaching mindfulness meditation for the first time.  I have been impressed by the rich descriptions and impressions of the teachers I have interviewed.  Their reflections of the benefits […]

On average patients visiting their primary care physician will spend 50 minutes in the clinic and only 10 minutes with the physician. Does this sound familiar? How does that make you feel toward the health system? What about hospitals where medical staff don’t even introduce themselves to patients. This is the experience of Dr Graham […]

Wellness at work, what does that mean? As this is a blog about wellness I do have a definition: Wellness is taking control of self and learning to make choices towards a more balanced and healthy existence, towards a more fulfilling life physically, psychologically, spiritually, socially, environmentally, intellectually and occupationally to create the best chance […]

Human health and wellbeing, on a sustainable basis, should be the primary objective of urban policy and planning. An increasingly growing body of research from fields as diverse as psychology, ecology, urban planning and architecture, and health and wellness, are determining that a connection to nature is essential to human health (Brymer, Cuddihy & Sharma-Brymer […]

Big question?  Actually, the study of what it means to have a meaningful life has been tackled for many years, probably even before the introduction of positive psychology.  But thanks to the founders of this field, Martin Seligman, Chris Peterson, Barbara Frederickson and many, many others, we’ve seen the emergence of the exploration of human […]

The 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) of the Amer Psychiatry Association has attracted a barrage of criticism from many sources.  From my research I see an overarching issue being over-diagnosis potentially leading to the over-medicalization of children, adolescence and adults. Particularly worrying is over-diagnosis of ADHD in kids.  Does your child […]