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Health crisis for Britain's middle-aged

Ouch, a very interesting international health survey, that has just been released, reports:

"Middle-aged Britons are experiencing a mid-life health crisis, according to new research from Bupa, which shows that those aged 45-54 are more likely to be obese, more likely to smoke and more likely to suffer from depression than their peers around the world.

The international Bupa Health Pulse study, which asked more than 13,000 people in 12 different countries questions about their health and lifestyles has shown that late-middle age is the toughest time health-wise for Britons. No other country in the survey - which included Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Asia and Australasia showed such a consistent range of unhealthy results for this age group.

The study, which questioned more than 2,000 people in the UK, found:

15 minutes of exercise daily reduces mortality by 14% - and each additional 15 minutes gives 4% additional mortality benefit

There has been a ripple of media interest - and rightly so - in the recent Lancet article  "Minimum amount of physical activity for reduced mortality and extended life expectancy: a prospective cohort study."  The article's abstract reads "The health benefits of leisure-time physical activity are well known, but whether less exercise than the recommended 150 min a week can have life expectancy benefits is unclear.  We assessed the health benefits of a range of volumes of physical activity in a Taiwanese population.  In this prospective cohort study, 416,175 individuals (199,265 men and 216,910 women) participated in a standard medical screening programme in Taiwan between 1996 and 2008, with an average follow-up of 8·05 years (SD 4·21).  On the basis of the amount of weekly exercise indicated in a self-administered questio

D: Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing, session 4

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

So yesterday we had the fourth evening of this twelve session course.  I posted on the third session last week.  What we covered is illustrated on the Powerpoint handouts I gave out as two six-slides-to-a-page handouts.  Click on slides 1-6, Powerpoint or slides 1-6, PDF and slides 7-12, Powerpoint or slides 7-12, PDF to see.

B: Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing, session 2

If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.

- Jim Barksdale, former Netscape CEO

So it was the second session of the group yesterday.  I blogged about the first session last week.  Sadly a couple of people couldn't get to this second meeting - due to a pre-planned holiday and to an unexpected crisis.  It's quite common for participants to miss one or two evenings across a twelve session course like this, but I want to be careful when people miss such an early meeting.  It's important that they don't lose their way and get left behind.  They will get copies of the handouts and the Autogenic CD, but I also make a note to contact them myself.   

A: Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing, session 1

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.

- Seneca

Yesterday we had the first evening of the Life Skills group.  I've written in the past about the background planning behind this group.  How did this first meeting go?  Well there were nine of us - eight participants and myself.  Rather demandingly I'm both running a new course and trying to get used to new technology at the same time.  For years, when running small group trainings here at our house, I've used an overhead projector to shine transparencies up onto the wall.  For a while I've wanted to upgrade to a laptop and data projector, and this evening I went ahead to put this into practice.

Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing

I never lose.  I either win or learn.

- Nelson Mandela

In the 1970's I taught yoga and several different types of meditation.  In the 1980's I began teaching courses in Autogenic Training, a form of deep relaxation/meditation.  I continued running Autogenic classes for about 25 years.  In addition to the relaxation/meditation exercises, the teaching also covered several other life skill/stress management techniques.  For a much fuller description of these eight session courses, visit the Autogenic Training section of this website.

European positive psychology conference in Copenhagen: Corey Keyes, Barbara Fredrickson, fitness & strengths (second post)

Yesterday was the first full day of the conference.  I've already written about the first evening.  The full day started fairly bright and early at 8.30am.  First off was a talk by Corey Keyes, a sociologist from Emory University, Atlanta.  I've liked his work, but at first glance at this conference he looked a bit too like Johnny Depp for me to take him seriously (prejudice or what!).  The talk this morning soon put that right.  Passionate, informed, insightful.  Great stuff.

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