Optimising your nutrition with Ciara Murtagh

Ciara is an extraordinary health and wellness coach with an amazing ability to meet her clients where they are at on their nutrition journey.

On this episode she discusses some of the key elements to get right when it comes to your nutrition and how to ensure you are eating in a way that ties in with your overall lifestyle. She is never dogmatic but is very pragmatic in ensuring that her clients still have space for enjoying life, “everything in moderation including moderation”.

Here are some of the other important points we delve into:

1. How ready made meals and easy options still very much have their place in a balanced diet

2. Why lifestyle factors like people pleasing and lack of sleep have more of an impact on nutrition decisions than you might think

3. Practical ways of upping your vegetable intake that won’t feel like hard work

4. A very common mistake middle aged people make when it comes to eating right

5. Supplementation – the yays and nays of getting this element of your diet on point

6. Other key pillars to health and wellness besides nutrition

7. Key tips for developing a more positive mindset towards your food choices and overall wellness

8. How you can work with Ciara and the unique way she works with clients for optimal results

You can also find more about Ciara's company CM Nutrition on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/ciara_nutrition_coach/?hl=en

There are also so many great recipes on the page that I implore you to check it out 😊

In this lively podcast you will learn about the following to help you find some helpful tools to boost your mental health:
1. The importance of asking for help – a problem shared is a problem halved
2. What is healthy positivity and what it isn’t
3. The internal dialogue – the importance of healthy self-talk
4. Dealing with distorted thinking patterns that diminish self-confidence and mood
5. 4 key Buddhist outlooks that can help with mental health
6. Key short-term and long-term mental health strategies

The Norwich City mental health day video referred to can be found here - https://youtu.be/tX8TgVR33KM?si=47B7s5BzMgWHGBtj

That was a cracker!

Great to reconnect with Edit Lakatos and get her on the mind body soul podcast

Such a fountain of knowledge and help on areas of boosting your mental health, recovering from burnout, and differentiating between terms like depression, anxiety, and PTSD.

Edit also bravely discussed her own experiences of being a victim of domestic abuse as a child and coming to terms with that later in her life. She importantly acknowledges managing the PTSD from this is a continuous journey. She also shares some valuable tools and advice which helped along this difficult process.

She is an inspiration and I really hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I did 😊

If you enjoyed this podcast then you can find more helpful information on Edit’s blog here:

Science-based tools to tackle anxiety and depression

To find out more about Edit’s social entrepreneurship project which offers beautifully woven, crochet and/or embroidered creations as well workshops focusing on embroidery go here to Tulipane’s design website (a 1 € donation of each piece of jewellery sold goes to the Center of Prevention of Domestic Violence in Belgium)

https://www.tulipanedesign.eu/

Enjoy!

Why we multitask, why it's usually not a good idea, what the research tells us on the subject and the rare time it is a worthwhile pursuit...

My online course page offers you a snappy and free health, wellness and productivity guide - to download it go to www.decsfreeguide.com

You will see more about the course there too for more productivity hacks like this... 

"The faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory". 

This is an old Chinese proverb and whether you believe it or not, our most recent guest Kim Whyte makes a powerful case for the health and wellness benefits of "thinking in ink".

Kim discusses how putting pen to paper can help you with the following:

1. Your overall health and wellness
2. Appreciating the process of writing including the materials you use - Kim's extraordinary company which sells stationery for colour lovers highlights this - https://www.pawpear.ie/ 
3. Journalling in a way that can help you to make sense of life, give perspective, be looked back upon and very importantly help to make sense of the past to move forward positively
4. Realising the power of writing down goals as well as mind mapping ideas in a way that can give you a sense of confidence when it comes to beginning your plan of action
5. Noting down memories and musings can be a means to practice gratitude and savouring moments and both these have been proven to be positive psychological interventions
6. Developing a sense of self-knowledge and self-compassion when we write from a place of empathy and treating oneself like a friend 
7. Lastly, Kim kindly provides you with the following journalling prompts to help you start your own writing journey:

1. What values are most important to you in life (honesty, loyalty, kindness, etc.)?
2. What do you appreciate most about your personality? What aspects do you find harder to accept?
3. Describe yourself using the first 10 words that come to mind. Then, list 10 words that you’d like to use to describe yourself.
4. Describe one or two significant life events that helped shape who you are today.
5. Explore an opinion that you held in the past but have since questioned or changed. What led you to change that opinion?
6. What advice do you think your younger self needed to hear?
7. What three ordinary things bring you the most joy?
8. What parts of your life have surprised you the most?

You can also find more about Kim's company Pawpear on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/pawpear.ie/

What a podcast! If positive transformational change is what you’re after then look no further.

Thomas Ennis is a leader in sports and business. 

He kindly carved out time from a busy schedule to provide us with years of learnings on getting the best out of yourself in business and sport and how you can use one to fuel the other.

Here’s what you will learn from our action packed discussion on this the most recent episode of the mind, body, soul podcast.

1. Sparring in the ring taught Thomas discipline to build his Spar store empire - he expands on this and what the lessons are for business and life that he gleaned from boxing at the highest level.

2. He tells a story about the choice he made early on in a tough environment which set him apart from some of the lads he went to school with and grew up with. We can all learn something invaluable from this.

3. The grit and beginners mindset he had to adapt on his journey to becoming an ironman. Let’s just say it must have felt like swimming against the tide at times…

4. We discuss regrets, lessons learned and advice for younger selves…

5. Many other tidbits that can help you on your health and wellness journey.

Thomas and other business leaders offer support to returning Irish entrepreneurs – find out more here - https://www.backforbusiness.com/

To follow Thomas on twitter go here - https://twitter.com/sparmerrionrow?lang=en

Louise Macnab is a corporate lawyer turned gut health entrepreneur. She founded JERMS which is a gut health brand on a mission to restore bacteria’s bad rep and make Gut health accessible.

Louise answers these pertinent gut health questions in this episode:

1. What is gut health? 

2. What does optimal gut health look like for you? 

3. How can we treat our guts well? 

4. What is meant by good bacteria? 

5. Your product JERMS sounds really cool, can you talk to us a little bit about it and how it ties in with this gut health topic? 

6. Why is it important that we lift the stigma around talking about bodily functions? 

7. What other lifestyle factors helped when you were moving away from your high stress career towards a happier and healthier individual?

8. What is the Gut Brain Access?

Check out JERMS here at their website - https://wearejerms.com/ or on instagram - https://www.instagram.com/wearejerms/

What a woman and what a podcast!

Top Yoga instructor, entrepreneur and retreat leader Caroline O’Connor brings us through some lovely relaxation techniques to help us in a world that’s constantly changing.

Other topics we delve into are:

· Her unique retreat offering that gives a blend of the beautiful nature of Ireland, the amazing food of her business partner Tanya and Caroline’s awesome movement sessions.

· A beautiful and short movement meditation that is guaranteed to leave you feeling better in yourself and about yourself.

· Caroline’s own personal definition of what holistic health means to her and some outlooks that could help us to find that elusive balance in our own lives.

· Caroline’s upcoming wellness presentation at the Irish Ladies Open. 

And much more…

Enjoy 😊

For more about Caroline and Retreat Yourself, check out these links:

·         Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/retreatyourselfirl/

·         Website – https://retreatyourself.ie/

·         Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/Retreatyourselfirl

One of my favourite podcasts so far. I’m actually in the middle of Paul Weston’s book called “Running in the Rain” at the moment which I’m loving so getting him on the mind body soul podcast is a real treat!

And boy is there some key learnings coming your way. In effect Paul is an expert on helping people and teams deliver in a productive and successful manner on a consistent basis. His tips will enable you to develop skills that will help you to get your work done in less time and with more quality and who doesn’t want that? Employers and employees alike.

He frames managing our distractions really nicely, it’s a way to get work done quicker with better quality but it’s the why of the time saving that Paul points out that is really important. The time we free up enables us to spend more time doing the things we love with the people we love.

Here are a couple of the pack your bag learnings that you’ll get from this podcast:

· The importance of splitting your life into three spheres and trying to give respect and quality attention to each one.

· Why you need to become aware of a part of the brain called the STN which tells us a lot about how easily distracted we can became unless managed properly.

· How you can create your own personal focus zone as well as how companies are also creating focus zones for all staff where internal email is banned and what the astounding results tell us.

· The ABC system as an improved solution to the never ending and stress inducing traditional to-do list.

· Ways to build healthy habits so that you are not dependent on motivation to get out exercising but so it becomes a non negotiable part of your routine.

· Some suggestions for managing a multi-faceted extracurricular schedule while retaining the enjoyment and allowing for some much-needed downtime.

Oh and if that’s not enough, there’s also much more 😉

Here are some resources which Paul mentions in the podcast that you can dip into if you’d like to find out more:

The Benefits of a Silent Timer – Paul Weston Consulting

Paul’s Book – Running In The Rain