Happy 2017: How to be happier

Happiness is a topic close to my heart; I’m certain that happiness levels are intrinsically linked to health levels, and let’s face it, who doesn’t want to feel happy?! As 2017 draws close with its connotations of new starts, I thought I’d share with you the three things that have made the biggest difference to my happiness.  

Being thankful every day

Over the last few months, I’ve started a great new habit. Last thing every night, I take time to reflect on everything I’m grateful for that day. No matter how challenging my day has been and how tired I am, I thank God for all my blessings. In fact I’ve found it’s even more beneficial at the end of a tough day! I list my daughters, Nick, and my family and friends by name each night, thinking of each of them as I do, and that alone can really transform how I’m feeling. I’m thankful for my health, house, job, and that we’re lucky enough to live in a relatively safe country. I recall moments from my day (a lovely walk in the countryside with Nick and our girls, a fun lunch with friends) and positive things that have happened to others (that a family member’s operation went well or that a friend is pregnant). I’m loving this new habit because it means I go to sleep with a smile on my face (which also means I sleep better) and I’m more likely to wake up in a positive frame of mind too.

Being thoughtful about media consumption

Like many people, I was in the habit of consuming media in a fairly mindless way: listening to, reading or watching whatever happened to be on my newsfeed or TV. Recently I’ve tried to be more thoughtful about the various screens in front of me, because I found it affected my mood (and productivity). I was spending too much time unintentionally half-watching TV or aimlessly scrolling through social media. These habits are hard to break but I helped myself by deleting apps, and changed my settings on social media so that videos don’t play automatically and I have to actually think to myself ‘do I want to spend time watching this?’ I now only watch TV shows that make me smile or laugh. (You may know that I’ve never been able to handle anything scary, but you wouldn’t believe how much better my TV/film experience is without all the gratuitous violence and depressing storylines!) I hardly ever watch the news anymore, because I decided there is no benefit to anyone of me watching news programmes that are so regularly focused on negativity and shock-value stories. I read the news because I want to stay informed, but only via publications that are more centred on the issues than shock tactics and doom and gloom. When there is a tragic news story I ask myself if I can do something to help, such as make a donation, but I don’t spend hours dwelling on the issue because most of the time me doing that won’t help anyone. I hope that doesn’t sound heartless; I’m not trying to bury my head in the sand or pretend tragedies are not occurring around the world but I’d rather be informed and do something about it, then spend hours just consuming the news reports. I feel the strong focus on the negative gives a warped perception, which is enough to make you despair about the state of the world and lose focus on all the good things.

Spending time helping others

I think this is the one that makes the biggest difference to my happiness. When I spend time helping others, I feel good about myself knowing that I’ve done something unselfishly to make someone else’s life better. I’ve read that there is a second reason why helping others improves our own happiness: helping people less fortunate changes our perspective of how fortunate we are. Most people’s assessment of their own situation is based on a comparison to those around them, and for most of us our circles of comparison are frighteningly small. If I find myself wishing I had a better house/holiday plans/whatever (which makes me miserable) then the chances are I am comparing my situation to friends, neighbours and colleagues in a similar situation to my own. If I look more broadly and consider the whole country, and even the world, I am reminded that compared to most, we're incredibly fortunate in terms of standard of living. Spending time helping others helps to broaden my perspective and reminds me that I am in fact already much more fortunate than many others. Therefore in doing so, I’m making myself happier, and making others happier too. So my resolution for 2017 is to increase my time spent helping others – here’s to spreading some happiness!

Thank you for reading; I’d love to hear what you think and if you have any happiness tips to share! Happy 2017! x

 These two are enough to put a smile on anyone's face!

Recipe - Aubergine Lasagne (dairy free, vegan and gluten free)

I’ve been surprised how many new parents I’ve met recently whose babies have a reaction to cows' milk with all sorts of scary symptoms including bleeding intestines, rashes and problems sleeping. Traditionally, in the UK at least, people have associated dairy with a healthy baby diet (and adult diet) so it can be overwhelming to imagine how to eat well without it. Anyway, having been dairy free for over two years now (and previously a total cheese addict) I am certain that a healthy and tasty life without dairy is very possible! Hearing about all these babies with their issues with dairy has also made me more confident that dairy isn’t the healthy food that we were brought up to believe. I feel loads better and have been MS symptom free since changing my diet to exclude dairy amongst other things. I’m not feeding my babies dairy and have discussed this with various doctors and dietitians now, all of whom have confirmed that there is no concern with a baby not eating dairy, as long as they are getting enough calcium from other sources (which is totally possible).

Anyway this recipe is for all those new mums and dads I’ve met who have recently found themselves living with a dairy-free baby and wondering what they can eat! This lasagne is delicious, filling and comforting, and totally free from dairy (and egg and gluten too). Hope you enjoy it!

Ingredients (enough for 6 portions- can be reheated in the microwave the next day!)

• 3 aubergines
• 3 onions, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 3 tins of plum tomatoes
• ¼ teaspoon dried chilli
• 2 teaspoons dried basil
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 3 tablespoons coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons gluten free flour
• ¾ carton oat milk (or almond milk)
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• 10-12 gluten free lasagne sheets
• Olive oil for frying

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Wash and chop the aubergines into circular slices about ½ cm thick. Sprinkle a little salt over them and layer between sheets of kitchen paper for about 10 minutes to remove the moisture.
2. Gently fry the aubergine circles in olive oil for a couple of minutes on each side. They should get a little colour, but there is no need to fully cook them. Remove from the pan and put to one side.
3. Using the same pan, gently fry the chopped onions, stirring regularly. After a few minutes add the chopped garlic and dried chilli and continue to fry until the onions are soft.
4. Add the three tins of tomatoes into the onion mix with another tin-full of tap water. Break up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon as you stir it all in. Add the basil, oregano and salt and pepper to taste too. Once the mixture is boiling, reduce the temperature and leave to simmer for 15 minutes. 
5. While the tomato sauce is simmering, start on the white sauce. Melt the coconut oil in a saucepan over a low heat. Once melted, stir in the flour. Once stirred in, slowly add the milk, stirring continuously. The sauce should thicken quickly, and you’ll be able to add more milk as it thickens.  Add the nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste. Keep stirring for about 10 minutes in total, adding milk so that your sauce is the consistency of runny honey.
6. Now it’s time to put the lasagne together. You should have enough sauces for two of each layer. First spoon a layer of tomato across the bottom of the dish, using half of your mixture. Next layer the aubergine circles on top. Next use the lasagne sheets to cover the aubergine, then finally cover the lasagne sheets with half of the white sauce. Then repeat with tomato, aubergine, pasta and white sauce.
7. Pop the whole thing in the oven at 180C for an hour. You can also pop it in the fridge and cook the next day if you prefer J

Recipe – Gorgeous Green Gnocchi

Here’s a recipe I’ve just made in 10 minutes in celebration of the fact that I managed to get my twins to sleep at a decent time! I used a dairy and gluten free ready-made sun-dried tomato pesto because I wasn’t confident they would stay sleeping for long (!) so it would be even yummier with home-made pesto.

Ingredients

• 1 onion
• 2 courgettes
• 2 peppers
• A couple of handful of small/medium sized tomatoes (I used multicoloured ones because they are in season right now)
• A couple of handfuls of frozen peas
• A few handfuls of spinach
• Dried basil
• Salt and pepper
• 3 or 4 teaspoons of pesto (ready-made or home-made)
• Ready to cook gnocchi (I use this gluten free one)

Method

1. Chop and sauté the onion in some coconut oil (or olive oil if you keep the temperature quite low to avoid denaturing the oil).
2. Chop the courgettes and peppers and add to the pan with the onions. Next chop and add the tomatoes, with the dried basil, salt and pepper. I try to chop all the veg roughly the same size as a piece of gnocchi.
3. Stir the pan and let the veg soften; this should take less than five minutes. Meanwhile boil a kettle of water for the gnocchi.
4. Gnocchi only takes about two minutes to cook (you can tell it’s ready when they rise to the surface). Add the frozen peas to the pan of veg at the same time as you put the gnocchi into the boiling water (there is nothing worse than overcooked peas!)
5. Just before you drain the gnocchi, add the spinach to the pan of veg along with the pesto sauce.
6. Drain the gnocchi and add to the pan of veg. And serve!

PS if you have an extra 5 minutes to make some home-made pesto, you just need to chuck a small handful of pine nuts, a big handful of basil, big handful of spinach, a few brazil nuts and a large glug olive oil into a food processor and wizz up. Sun-dried tomatoes optional!

A pregnant pause!

It’s been ages since my last blog post, but I have a good excuse… shortly after my last post I found out I was pregnant expecting twins and now my life is very full on looking after my two little cuties! Many people asked me if I was able to stick to my diet during pregnancy so I thought it was about time I wrote a blog post J

MS studies have shown that women often suffer from MS relapses shortly after birth, thought to be a result of the changing hormones, and being aware of this, I was determined to do everything I could to ward off a pregnancy-related relapse.

To begin with I had pretty horrific morning sickness and very little energy (normal twin pregnancy stuff I think, rather than MS-related!) I continued with my diet, tweaking some aspects to make it pregnancy/baby-appropriate and lower maintenance - as I don’t have much time to cook anymore!

These are my current diet “rules” (not that different from my original set of rules).

Avoidance of foods that potentially cause or worsen MS:

I’m still strictly avoiding:

• Gluten
• Dairy
• Alcohol
• Caffeine
• Animal fats
• Red meat (I ate some chicken during my pregnancy mainly due to peer pressure from my mum(!) but am meat-free again now)

I relaxed my avoidance of legumes so I could get some vegetable-based protein from beans and pulses- and this doesn’t seem to have affected my MS symptoms.

Abundance of foods that promote healing of the body or have natural anti-inflammatory properties:

I’ve continued to eat or drink quite a lot of these to help my body repair itself:

• Loads of veggies of all colours
• Avocado
• Turmeric
• Fish (especially oily fish)
• Coconut oil
• Olive oil
• Nuts (but not peanuts)
• Water and lemon water

I'm still taking Flaxseed for Omega 3 and Vitamin D (I've lowered my dose too 1000IU during pregnancy on advice of my neurologist).

During my pregnancy, and in the months since with two little babies, I’ve found I need all the energy I can get! I’ve been eating loads of gluten free oats in all different forms- porridge, oat cereal, flapjack, and oat milk.

For anyone trying to follow this sort of diet and needing some “low maintenance” tips, here are a couple of new staples that require (almost) zero preparation that I’ve found useful to have in the fridge!

  

• A gluten free oat cereal 
• Gluten and dairy free oat flapjacks 
• The “Easy Bean” range of pre-cooked plant-based meals (like a ready meal but without the bad fats, preservatives etc therefore much healthier) 
• Pre-cooked rice you can microwave
• Pre-cooked quinoa you can microwave
• Pre-chopped veggies if I'm really short of time!
• Hummus
• For a treat, chocolate oat milk 

My twins are four months old now, and since most pregnancy-related MS relapses occur within the first three months, I think I have managed to avoid it! J I definitely think my diet has played a big part in this, as has my continued reliance on yoga and meditation to keep a positive frame of mind (more on that another day maybe J)