Discover the power of deep breathing

The quality of the oxygen you consume is absolutely crucial to the health of your blood and your brain.

Your brain uses a huge proportion of your oxygen intake, over 20%. If it’s not getting good oxygen then your thought processes will be impaired. Likewise if your blood isn’t well oxygenated, your energy levels will drop.

Whenever you exercise, consciously take deep breaths, using the lower part of your lungs, not just expanding your chest.

Ten deep breaths, three times a day will energise you to a level that will surprise you.

To protect yourself from cancer, drink green tea.

Most people in the West prefer Ceylon style tea, but drinking green tea is far healthier.

Indeed one study showed that Japanese who consume 4 – 6 cups of green tea each day have a significantly lower incidence of liver, pancreatic, breast and skin cancer than people who drink less or no green tea at all. In one part of Japan where green tea drinking is at its highest, lung cancer rates are at their lowest.

Use a face moisturiser even if you’re male

Females happily use moisturisers but most males think they’re being effeminate if they even consider one.

Let me tell you why they’re important. In business, people often have a prejudice against old people. Senior citizens often report finding it harder to get new jobs and to fit in with younger workmates.

So clearly the longer you can stay looking young the better.

Use a face moisturiser every day for the next 20 years and in your final years of business you’ll still look like a player, not some over the hill grandpa or granny.

It may be wrong that people judge by appearances, but they do, so accept it and address it.

Never underestimate the power of a smile

The power of a sincere smile is incredible!

Here’s three ways smiling can change your life:

l.   A sincere smile makes others feel good. A fantastic grin can lift almost anyone’s spirits, and single-handedly change the mood of a room.

2.   A smile says you’re confident, that you’re on top of things. It says you’re in control.

3.   It’s a clinically proven fact that a big smile stimulates the thymus gland located below your throat, which then produces pleasure-increasing opiates. So when you smile, you’ll actually begin to feel happier inside.

Make your home a mind gym

Recently experts on the human brain discovered a remarkable thing. Contrary to popular opinion, you do not have to get more senile as you get older (see Brain Longevity).

On the contrary, extensive research has revealed that if you keep using your brain you can actually get brighter and brighter as years go by!

Here’s a few tips for keeping your brain sharp:

•           Play chess or draughts a few days a week.

•           Play along with the quiz shows on TV.

•           Read at least half an hour each day.

•           Invite different people over for dinner.

•           Cook something unusual twice a week.

•           Write letters to people you’re rarely in contact with.

•           Learn a language at home.

•           Play charades occasionally.

•           Rearrange the furniture.

They’re only little things, but they help keep your brain active and healthy, turning a home into a gymnasium for the brain.

Plan your recreation

People have no problem planning their workday, but often throw such planning out the window when it comes to their time off.

This is madness, as in many ways our recreation is more important than our occupation. It’s time we can use to improve relationships, get healthy, de-stress and generally enjoy life. It should definitely not be wasted.

Before you go home at night, or prior to a weekend, spend a couple of minutes working out how you can make the most of your leisure time. That way when you do return to work, you’ll arrive refreshed and invigorated, not still stressed and irritated.

Get 20 minutes sun each day

In Australia the majority of the population looks at the sun in two ways.

They either love it, and end up spending too long in it and get aged by its powerful rays. Or they hate it, and never get exposed to its beneficial effects.

Modern research suggests both lifestyles are wrong. While everyone knows too much sun is harmful, few people are aware that too little sun is harmful too.

The solution, as always, is neither extreme. Twenty minutes sunlight a day provides the body with a vital source of vitamin D. Get 20 minutes daily and you’ll be far healthier than if you avoid sunlight altogether.

Best times are morning or late afternoon, but never at lunchtime.

Never have a holiday at home

It may be cheap, but it’s rarely relaxing.

When you stay at home during your holiday you tend to just mope around and clean up the house. It’s not particularly enjoyable, and it’s certainly not refreshing for the mind.

A change of environment is vital to getting a good break. When you go somewhere new, even if it’s just a country shack a few hours’ drive away, you forget about life back home. You experience new things and break your usual mental habits, your brain and soul get a wake up call.

Time changes too. One week in a different environment often makes you feel like you’ve taken three weeks off, whereas time at home goes by in a flash.

Exercise daily

Something. Anything! But do it daily.

The body was made to move! Depriving your body of daily rigorous movement is unnatural and devastating to psychological health.

Countless studies show that people who don’t exercise regularly are more stressed, less happy and even less intelligent.

And if your excuse is you don’t have the time, don’t kid yourself. If President Clinton can find time for a morning jog, with all the pressures of his nation (and indeed the world) on his shoulders, then so can you.

Don’t spend too much time alone

Research indicates that people who spend lots of time alone tend to have lower levels of happiness.

Maybe it’s because when you’re by yourself you think too much, or maybe it’s because you don’t get to express yourself to others, we can only guess.

Don’t get me wrong. In many ways I myself am a loner, I certainly enjoy getting away from the madding crowd. But too much isolation can definitely be damaging to the psyche...

Take holidays often

I’ve met so many people working in companies that never take their annual holidays. They say they’re too busy.

What a load of garbage. If you honestly can’t find the time to take a decent break, then your business is simply too disorganised. And in actual fact, you’re not doing your company a service at all by not having a holiday.

A good holiday freshens the mind and the body. People who don’t take breaks are often stale thinkers, and are usually too stressed to contribute anything brilliant anyway.

Finally, I believe you get many of your best ideas when you’re on holiday. Your mind thinks big thoughts, away from the constant grind of urgent deadlines.

Get out of the office, and go on holiday.

train yourself to expect the best

When you expect good things to happen and goals to be achieved, you work more confidently and often get more done.

Doctor Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism," says positive thinkers are not only healthier and happier, but also more successful. But it takes discipline. Train yourself to replace every thought of failure with an expectation of success and your entire life will soon change for the better.