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)

Recipe - Spaghetti Caulinese

I’ve just got back from a week in Southern Italy and I love a portmanteau so here’s a quick and easy recipe for an alternative spaghetti bolognese… Cauliflower Bolognese, aka Caulinese, replacing mince with finely chopped cauli. This was an experiment, but the result was surprisingly great so I thought I’d share the recipe. Even meat-loving Nick thought it was pretty tasty!

Ingredients

• One head of cauliflower (chop the florets finely in a food processor, leaving out the leaves, or if you are feeling lazy but it pre-chopped from Tesco)
• One large white onion, chopped finely
• A couple of cloves of garlic, chopped finely
• A handful of chestnut mushrooms, chopped roughly
• A tin of tomatoes
• Herbs and seasoning to taste (I used basil, oregano, salt and pepper)
• Pasta of your choice (I like Dove’s Farm gluten free organic brown rice pasta)

The sauce should take about 10 -15 minutes to make so depending on the type of pasta you use, it should be easy to coordinate it to all be ready at the same time!

Method

1. First get a saucepan onto boil for the pasta.
2. Sauté the chopped onion and garlic in oil (I used extra virgin olive oil at a fairly low heat).
3. After a few minutes, add the chopped mushrooms, stirring now and again. Add salt and pepper as the mushrooms are cooking.
4. Put the pasta onto boil.
5. When the mushrooms are almost cooked, spoon in all the cauliflower mince. You may need to turn the heat up a little now; cook the cauli for about three minutes, stirring continuously so it doesn’t burn. Don't cook for too long or the cauli will loose its bite.
6. Next add the tin of tomatoes into the pan with the herbs and stir.
7. Leave the sauce simmering for about four to five minutes and then it’s ready to serve!

 PS we are still kitchen-less in our new house so this is simple enough to cook in the camping-style kitchen that we've set up in a spare bedroom!

Budget airlines and numb fingers

A couple of days ago, a series of events left me feeling stressed and anxious. By the time I arrived at the airport after a tricky afternoon and a delayed, turbulent flight, I had already noticed that the pad of my third finger on my left hand was numb. As I was waiting for my luggage, my right arm was experiencing deadness in sporadic pangs from my shoulder down to my wrist. As I drove along, appreciating the golden-lit wheat fields, the sole of my right foot suddenly twisted in extreme cramp. I panicked. I was driving on a pretty busy road and there was nowhere to pull over. I could feel the adrenaline pumping round my body as thoughts raced through my head. I told myself to carry on- to ignore the unusual sensation and recognise that my foot was still working on the accelerator, so if I could disregard the physical feeling and dampen the whirring adrenaline, my ability to drive wasn’t actually impeded.

I don’t know if this was a flare of multiple sclerosis or something else. But I have noticed a definite link with these physical twinges and feelings of stress and anxiety. Mindfulness helps with anxiety- as the plane rattled with turbulence, I found myself breathing deep into my stomach; and as my arm panged with numbness I breathed into the pain. Breathing exercises can help to reduce pain, and still anxiety so that calmness returns more quickly.

I love mindfulness, but I’ve let myself start thinking of it as something to ease the symptoms, not the cause, of stress and anxiety. When I talk to other people about their use of meditation, yoga and exercise as their preferred method of managing stress, I don’t think I’m alone in this. To truly be happy and balanced, I think you need to address the cause of anxiety. This means going one step further with mindfulness. When I lie in bed trying to sleep, mindful techniques allow me to notice that my jaw is locked tightly together. The awareness helps to relax the muscle, so I don’t wake up with a headache and ground-down teeth. But I am starting to think that the critical step is to recognise why it’s happening in the first place. What subconscious thought is going through my mind which makes me clench my jaw? Once I can identify the cause of the anxiety, hopefully I can do something about it! In that sense, I suppose I should be grateful for the physical symptoms I’m getting – because they are like a very visible warning bell to me – “you’re feeling stressed and it’s creating an unhelpful mix of emotions in your body which is disrupting your physical health”. Without the physical symptoms, perhaps I might be less likely to pay attention to the underlying cause. Either way, whether you experience the physical “warning bell” symptoms or not, feelings of stress and anxiety affect all of us. And I think it’s worth investing time diagnosing the cause and not just the symptoms, in order to reduce anxiety in the longer term. What do you think?

Here's a pic of a 'happy place' we found in the French mountains recently- certainly nothing to cause stress on that afternoon!

Healthy habits

March 2015 marks a year since my vision suddenly turned double in one eye, and this whole saga began. It also marks seven months of my new lifestyle, which has now become my new normal. Whenever I tell people for the first time about my diet (often some poor person responsible for an event’s dietary requirements) the response I hear most often is “what can you eat?!” However, I can honestly say it’s become totally normal to me now, and doesn’t feel like an effort at all. If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be living my life free from gluten, dairy, caffeine and booze – and not even finding it a chore- I would have laughed into my large glass of Sauvignon and plate of cheesy nachos!

So I’ve been reflecting on how I made such a big change. Human beings are capable of change, it’s one of the brilliant things about human nature. However, whilst making a temporary change is relatively easy, sustainable change is much harder. I know this because much of my working life has been about helping people (children when I was teaching, then adults in my work as a consultant) learn and develop by forming new habits. If you want to make a sustained change in your life, you need to pick up new habits that reinforce the change you want to make, and let go of negative habits that are obstacles to the change you want to make. We can help ourselves to do this by making it easier for ourselves to keep going with the new habits, and removing the temptation for old habits. For example, if you’re trying to form a new habit of going to the gym every morning, apparently the easiest way to do this is to sleep in your gym clothes for the first month! This makes it harder for you to turn off the alarm and skip the gym (can’t say I’ve tried this one myselfJ)

Here’s three of my new habits that have made a huge difference to my life:

Breakfast

• Old routine – I used to grab breakfast on the run to the office, and typically it consisted of a large latte and a croissant, or porridge and honey if I was trying to be healthy!
• New routine – Now I always make time to eat breakfast at home, even if I’m up at 5am for an early start in London. I have warm water with lemon (which kick starts the digestive system), followed by Barleylife supplement drink (good for creating an alkaline environment in which disease cannot thrive), followed by either a smoothie or gluten-free toast, marmite and banana. Plus a big glass of water with my various supplements. Doing this means I start the day in a structured manner and on a full stomach, setting me up for a positive day. I also feel pleased with myself that I’ve started the day on a healthy note, and saved the £5 I would otherwise have spent in Pret!

Commuting

• Old routine – I used to live in London on the Victoria line and only had a few stops to my office but it was hellish because the tubes were so crowded. I would attempt to read the Metro whilst crammed up against strangers, and would typically arrive at work feeling grumpier and less energised than when I left home.
• New routine – Now I live in the Essex countryside I have a far longer commute but I spend at least some of it meditating. I time my trains and position on the platform so I get a seat, shut my eyes and do a breathing exercise or body scan exercise. It’s a great use of commuting time, takes my attention away from the crowding and constant announcements of delays (which are well beyond my control so not worth me worrying about) and it means I arrive at work feeling refreshed and energised.

Saturday nights

• Old routine – I used to make the most of London nightlife, and drink / dance the night away. Whereas the rest of the country might spend weekends like this in their 20s, there is something about London which means it’s totally normal for people to being living this way well into their 30s. I loved the social side of it, but hated the hangovers!

• New routine – Now I spend my Saturday nights mostly at home, at the moment occupied by DIY / renovation activities! If I do go on a night out, I’ll be drinking water out of a wine glass (there is something psychologically nicer about that then a pint glass!) and nothing could ever stop me dancing! Giving up booze has been one of the toughest changes for me; not for the alcohol itself but more for the social connotations and handling the way I feel in response to the assumptions people tend to make about someone who doesn’t drink (maybe I’ll write more on that another time). On the positive side, not drinking takes away the temptation to ‘treat’ problems or bad days with booze – it’s taught me to address the problem instead. I definitely feel significantly healthier for a life without drink, and I’m grateful for a good 15 years spent partying hard! Seven months without a hangover is a wonderful feeling J

The next habit I need to try and form is exercise – I feel so much better when I’ve been for a run, but it’s one habit I’ve found hard to make stick! xxx