If you resisted that piano practice when you were younger, don’t worry it is never too late and if can’t manage to tinkle the ivories now what about something else like handbell ringing or singing?  Any form of musical training – like regularly rehearsing or performing – will help prevent age-related delays in the thinking process according to a new study from Northwestern University in the USA.

The study is the first to provide biological evidence that lifelong musical experience has an impact on the aging process. In fact when measuring the automatic brain responses of younger and older musicians and non-musicians to speech sounds the older musicians had a distinct neural timing advantage.

Northwestern neuroscientist Nina Kraus reported that ”The older musicians not only outperformed their older non-musician counterparts, they encoded the sound stimuli as quickly and accurately as the younger non-musicians. This reinforces the idea that how we actively experience sound over the course of our lives has a profound effect on how our nervous system functions.”

Staying sharp as we age has usually involved recommending doing daily crosswords, puzzles or Sudoku but the value of musical ability has never been tested in this way.  I don’t play an instrument but I do belong to a Community Quire that teaches aurally and can vouch for the brain enhancing qualities of learning a complex interweaving melody by memory alone – no visual aids for us!

If you are not sure about your musical ability then I can’t do better than recommend you seek out Australian voice master Chris James who teaches internationally about the healing power of sound, and song, voice and self expression.  As he says: “As we discover our natural voice, we learn to trust our creativity and intuition, speak our truth and be heard.” He believes that everyone has a beautiful voice and helps you release it through group sings, sound toning workshops and using the healing power of the voice.

We are lucky enough to have him in the UK in March for various events including a weekend in Surrey on 3-4 March of Transformation Through Sound.  I have worked with Chris on several of his trainings and he is a profound presence, and laughs a lot too.  His full UK and international schedule is on his website at www.chrisjames.net together with his inspirational CD’s – there is no finer way to fight off aging!

His particular area of expertise is in helping people bring passion and spirituality to business so if you have ever wanted to be your own boss but somehow haven’t got round to it – then his new book has your name on it.  One of his previous books, The Work We Were Born To Do, helped many of us give up work that didn’t feed our souls and identify what our real purpose was in being here.

His new book is Resisting the Soul  – a Handbook for Inspired Entrepreneurs – and it is a call to everyone who has felt held back but longing to follow your inspiration and make the vision of the higher self you truly are become a reality.   If you are ready to explore your full spiritual and creative potential in the area of entrepreneurship then this is your blueprint. Oh, and if one of your complaints is not enough time then the 101 bite sized suggestions for overcoming resistance knocks that excuse on the head.   The suggestions come in five sections or keys and if you are in a hurry then key 4, the tool kit, gets you under way but you do realize that is another form of resistance too?

He shows you how to move from the life you are currently living to the one you are meant to live by overcoming resistance and procrastination. In simple punchy headlines he helps us understand what resistance is,  how it operates, what purpose it seeks, and how to get beyond it.   And he doesn’t claim that he doesn’t still get caught in that web of resistance himself but what he does do is share the key strategy that works for him, and can for you too.

My only complaint is I wish the type were bigger as it is not physically an easy read but as the 101 pieces are short, and prefaced with inspirational quotes, it is worth persevering – perhaps my resistance could be overcome with a magnifying glass?

Resisting Your Soul  is a Handbook for Inspired Entrepreneurs at £9.99

She is certainly an expert in the field and even that august body The Times calls her The Queen of Pilates which is a lot to live up to. She sees Pilates as a mind and body conditioning programme that teaches you to be in control of your body. Hopefully you will then become more aware of how you are using it and more aware of your posture, breathing and movement.

It is in the area of core training, or Centring, that it certainly has been most successful and Lynne Robinson works with a wide range of elite athletes, including the England cricket team and GB Olympic rowers. I admit that put me off, being neither elite nor anything vaguely resembling an athlete, but Pilates The Core Workout is clear, straightforward and an excellent introduction for beginners with a mix of relaxation, alignment, breathing, centring, co-ordination, flowing movements and stamina that flows into a total workout.

If you are already a fan then there are new variations of favourite exercises, plus an Ab Blaster section specifically designed to challenge you and give your core muscles the ultimate work out. I freely admit I fast-forwarded that bit, but the basic workout was fine for me.

If you want to get the New Year off to a healthy start, it could be just the thing and you will find it either at www.amazon.co.uk or her website at www.bodycontrol.co.uk at £14.99

As everyone I now seems to be fighting a recurring cold, if not actual flu, then his “Flu Fighting Soup’ recipe should be just the ticket.

Dale’s Flu Fighting Soup

Ingredients:

1 red onion

1 green chilli

4 cloves of garlic

5 cm (2 inch) piece of ginger

2 medium sized sweet potatoes

1 punnet of shiitake mushrooms

2 Handfuls of goji berries

Vegetable stock

Method:

Finely chop the onion, chillies, garlic, and ginger. Add to a pan with a little olive oil, and a pinch of crystal salt. Sauté on a mid to high heat until the onion softens.

Dice the sweet potato. Slice the shiitake mushrooms. Add these two ingredients, plus the goji berries to the onion, garlic, chilli, and ginger. Stir well, then add enough vegetable stock to cover all the ingredients. Simmer well, until the potato is soft.

At this stage, add the soup to a blender, and blend into a vivid orange, spicy soup.

There are many excellent recipes in the book, and if you want to show off to your friends, these are the medicinal properties of the soup’s ingredients:

Sweet Potato:  a very rich source of the antioxidant compound beta carotene. which is a subtle but effective anti-inflammatory, which can help reduce the severity of generic cold and flu symptoms.

Shiitake Mushrooms: these have been used as a tonic for the immune system for centuries as certain types of mushroom can deliver a stronger influence to the immune system than any other substance, natural or manmade. Medicinal mushrooms, such as shiitake and maitake, contain a group of very chemically complex sugars called polysaccharides and almost 40 years of clinical study in Japan, USA, and China, has revealed that these sugars are the magic bullets that make medicinal mushrooms such powerful immune boosters.

Garlic: one of the most powerful natural antivirals whose oils help to kill viruses and bacteria in the upper digestive tract.

Ginger: has essential oils that are strong anti-inflammatories that relieve the inflammation of the mucous membranes that line the nose and sinuses and that give us that bunged up feeling when we have a cold. It also stimulates circulation, which helps to increase the rate at which white blood vessels move around the body on their way to the site of infection.

Chilli:  has been used medicinally by almost every traditional medicinal system and has a powerful stimulatory activity, and painkilling properties.  It can rapidly thin out mucous, making it far easier to remove from the body.

Goji Berries: they contain polysaccharides, similar to those found in shiitake mushrooms, which also have been shown to up-regulate white blood cell production.

For help with virtually all medical problems this book is invaluable and if you suffer from joint problems I can recommend the ginger, pineapple and celery smoothie – which tastes infinitely better than it sounds.

Medicinal Cookery is worth every penny of its £7.99 price and for more information on the author visit www.dalepinnock.com

So what’s on your wish list for 2012?  I would settle for world peace and being able to always find my keys, but if you want happiness, success, vitality, health, wealth and fortune fast and effortlessly, then it seems that this is the book  for you.  There  is a lot of hype in the pre-publicity claiming a blend of ancient wisdom and new science, backed up with the latest mind research. It has reliable techniques, based on universal laws, with a 100% success rate when used correctly – so be warned incorrect use will lead to disappointment – just like life.

In my view it is promising nothing you haven’t seen before, but maybe this time it will work if you are ready to start creating your own reality – aren’t you doing that already?  Having said that I loved the format: it is in a ring binder, has really easy to read, clear content and more check lists than a management consultant would see in a lifetime.

It is designed as a completely interactive personal workbook, and has three sections:

1   How Reality Creation Works – explaining the combination of ancient wisdom and modern science that makes this method so effective

2   How to Manifest your Own Reality – a set of clear and simple instructions for reprogramming your mind for positive manifestations

3   Creative Tool Box – a tool kit of techniques for creating abundance and wealth in any part of your life has practical exercises and is backed up with audio downloads

Susie Pearl ran a celebrity brand PR agency which is clear in the marketing of this book and her list of celebrity clients which include Madonna and Victoria Beckham. If you want more, then you could do a lot worse than take the word of Robert Holden -Oprah Winfrey’s Happiness Guru – (wonder if she has a Sadness Guru to complete the set?) who called it ‘a beautiful book that will help you lve a wonderful life.

Published on 5 January by Quadrille at £12.99 Instructions For Happiness And Success could be just what you need to start your New Year in the best possible way.

I call it boredom, but University of Illinois psychology professor Alejandro Lleras, who led the new study, believes that you start performing poorly on a task because you’ve stopped paying attention to it, but you are always paying attention to something. Attention is not the problem, getting some fresh stimulus is.

Lleras had noticed that a similar phenomenon occurs in sensory perception: The brain gradually stops registering a sight, sound or feeling if that stimulus remains constant over time. For example, most people are not aware of the sensation of clothing touching their skin. The body becomes “habituated” to the feeling and the stimulus no longer registers in any meaningful way in the brain. ”Constant stimulation is registered by our brains as unimportant, to the point that the brain erases it from our awareness,” Lleras said. “So I thought, well, if there’s some kind of analogy about the ways the brain fundamentally processes information, things that are true for sensations ought to be true for thoughts. If sustained attention to a sensation makes that sensation vanish from our awareness, sustained attention to a thought should also lead to that thought’s disappearance from our mind!”

In the nw study, Lleras and postdoctoral fellow Atsunori Ariga tested participants’ ability to focus on a repetitive computerized task for about an hour under various conditions. The 84 study subjects were divided into four groups:

•The control group performed the 50-minute task without breaks or diversions.

•The “switch” group and the “no-switch” group memorized four digits prior to performing the task, and were told to respond if they saw one of the digits on the screen during the task. Only the switch group was actually presented with the digits (twice) during the 50-minute experiment. Both groups were tested on their memory of the digits at the end of the task.

•The “digit-ignored” group was shown the same digits presented to the switch group during the task, but was told to ignore them.

As expected, most participants’ performance declined significantly over the course of the task. But most critically, Lleras said, those in the switch group saw no drop in their performance over time. Simply having them take two brief breaks from their main task (to respond to the digits) allowed them to stay focused during the entire experiment.

“It was amazing that performance seemed to be unimpaired by time, while for the other groups performance was so clearly dropping off,” Lleras said.

“We propose that deactivating and reactivating your goals allows you to stay focused,” he said. “From a practical standpoint, our research suggests that, when faced with long tasks (such as studying before a final exam or doing your taxes), it is best to impose brief breaks on yourself. Brief mental breaks will actually help you stay focused on your task!”

Or in other words, leave your writing or painting or potting and go do something else for 10 minutes – a walk, listen to music, phone a friend.  It doesn’t matter what it is – as long as it helps stir up those tired creative juices.

Ego is the engine that drives us.

Love is the road we set our feet upon.

Compassion is where we meet ourselves in truth.

Truth is the mirror we face when we project false images.

Tenderness walks by our side to tend our wounds.

Trust shows the way.

Joy is the destination.

All of these individual thoughts are to be developed further and are the basis of a book that has been simmering away for some time, and 2012 seems to be the year to write it.

A double blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial carried out on overweight women, proved that FULLfast – a 100% natural appetite control spray – reduces hunger cravings within five days, which then resulted in weight loss.  It appeared in the International Journal of Obesity to much rejoicing, especially with Christmas goodies lining up to tempt us to overeat.

FULLfast helps curb your appetite and it does by 3 quick sprays under your tongue, five times a day.   It’s portable – as it would have to be – so you can gain control over what you are eating.     The all-natural ingredients include the amino acid, 5-HTP, which is essential to the production of serotonin – a naturally occurring chemical created in the brain.  We usually think of it as the ‘feel good’ actor but it can also help to keep hunger pangs at bay.

Just one word of caution – FULLfast contains very small amounts of caffeine and fructose which means those who are pregnant, diabetic or use antidepressants, should check with their doctor before using it.

Obviously – though sadly – you can’t just binge and eat all you want and hope to lose weight with a few quick sprays.  That truly is science fiction, but if you have a sensible, well-balanced, low-calorie diet and some light exercise you should see results.  Tempting though it may be to think  you can spray forever, the recommendation is not to use it for more than two months without a one month break.

One bottle, a month’s supply, costs RRP £23.95 and is available from most good independent pharmacies orwww.fullfastonline.co.uk

However, these Tasty Little Numbers are real food uniquely made to whole numbers of calories so you can have a 200 calorie meal or a snack. I don’t know who their chef is, but he or she has produced exactly what it says on the packaging in that they are tasty.   The Mushroom Stroganoff was tried by a vegetarian friend who declared it excellent and the Cottage Pie made up for the previous one!   Handy pots with their own forks and packed to be popped in a bag and heated in a microwave – good way to lose weight in time for the turkey and trimmings.

The White, Milk and Dark Chocolate Bars are a bit of misnomer as they are indeed enrobed in chocolate but the centre is crispy rice so you have the chocolate hit without the calories and it is a decent sized bar so I felt I was having a real treat.  The savoury snacks didn’t do it for however – I don’t like flavoured crisps whether diet or not and I found them too salty and intense in taste for me.

Number 1: think before you write.  No, really, because if you don’t then you are storing up trouble later on.  Give yourself the luxury of a ‘think tank’ all of your own before you ever put pen to paper.

Number 2:  what do you want to write?  I am talking form not content here.  Short story, novel, play, radio drama, podcast, film?  Each has a different approach so back to number 1 and think about it first – it’s not always your first thought of the appropriate medium that would suit your writing best.

Number 3:  why do you want to write it?  Creative fulfilment, to make money, to get clients, to enlighten and/or entertain?  All of these are valid, and it helps to know what your focus is.

Number 4:  who do you want to read it? Your ideal reader: are they a business person, a child, someone under 30 or over 60?   It matters because you will use different language to reach different audiences.

Number 5:  perspiration.  Because writing is not for the fainthearted, you need to put some effort in – though not necessarily sweat your way to success!

Number 6:  heart or head?  You, and your reader, are you appealing to their intellect and sense of logic or tugging their heartstrings – or both?

Number 7:   style and content.   Always go with your natural style if at all possible because then it will be your authentic writing voice.  Is that warm and chatty, cool and distant, short spiky sentences or long expositions?  You can do both, but match the style to the content: for example, a love story written in academic language won’t stir many hearts and a manual on how to get out of debt will irritate the reader if the language is not direct, clear and from the heart.

Number 8:  consistency.  A natural follow on to number 5 because if you are applying yourself to your writing you must do it regularly and consistently.  Block time out in your diary and make it sacred – it is.

Number 9;  edit and review.  However brilliant that first draft, it will be improved by your re-reading, editing and reviewing it – and then giving it to someone else to do see if it makes sense or could be improved.  You do’t have to accept their ideas, but it’s a good idea to do a little testing to see if you have achieved what you set out to do.

Number 10:  inspiration.  Why is this last?  Because for most writers it comes first, and they ignore the previous 9.  Inspiration is necessary, but not always and not all the time.  If you are waiting for it before you start writing then you will never get round to it.  Apply rules 1-9 as if you had been inspired and you will find by the end that you probably have been.

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