The recent Bar Council report revealed that over half of barristers don't sleep well. They are certainly not alone. Sometimes the difficulty is in falling asleep after a busy day and working long into the evening. Sometimes we wake in the middle of the night to find thoughts racing and find we've been unconsciously planning tomorrow's work and worrying about things that didn't get done yesterday. Sometimes we'll wake too
And a really, really simple focusing exercise: Focus on your breathing for only a minute. When you become aware of thoughts intruding, just return to focusing on the breathing. (It's not as easy as it seems!) (Next) (This is an edited excerpt from my book A Lawyer’s Guide to Wellbeing and Managing Stress published by ARK Group in 2015.) (Back to index)
This focus takes about five minutes. Count the steps off with your fingers if this helps. It can help to regain a sense of perspective on days which are particularly chaotic. 1 Concentrate on your breathing. 2 Past: Think back about what has happened so far today. 3 Present: What's happening now, in this moment? What feelings and thoughts are around? What's happening around me? 4
Like Andrew, you may be sceptical about some of the ideas about mindfulness. You may (rightly in my view) be sceptical about what is being termed ‘McMindfulness’, the global commoditisation of an ancient Buddhist practice that seems to offer an escapist panacea to all pressure. But alongside its widespread commercialisation, many have found the practice of mindfulness helpful. And as we've seen, the practice of mindfulness has been associated with
How do we cope? Some of us will deal with stresses and strains by setting up an organised working environment. For most, the pressures of legal life will be tolerable and for many, enjoyable. But for some the pressures can become impossible. Like Andrew, we may find ourselves drinking more to keep anxiety at bay. Or we may self-medicate with non-prescription pharmaceuticals. We may know some of the signs and
Researchers at the University of Glasgow have identified 421 words relating to ‘snow’ for a new Historical Thesaurus of Scots. They range from ‘snaw’, to ‘spitters’ (small drops of wind driven snow), and ‘flindrinkin’ (a slight snow shower). Scots also have multiple words for ‘rain’ and ‘mist’. Little surprise there. The wide range of terms show how important observation of the weather has been for people in Scotland, a largely
