The Beginner's Guide to Mindful Eating

With endless white elephant parties, holiday cookies, and champagne toasts on the horizon, indulgence is simply an inevitability this time of year—and we wouldn't have it any other way. That said, even though we're willing to feel stuffed in the name of mom's stuffing, the resulting food coma doesn't have to be a total guarantee.

Practicing mindful eating is a really easy way to actually savor the season's treats more while feeling less like you overdid it—because by truly learning to relish every single bite, you're able to better observe how satisfied you actually are. Most importantly, it has nothing to do with dieting or restriction. To the contrary, mindful eating is about maximizing enjoyment.

And there's no time like the present to give it a go. "You can practice mindful eating at a dinner party, out to dinner, on a date, with family, or with friends," says meditation expert Amanda Gilbert. "As long as you are being aware while you are eating, then you are practicing mindful eating. And you can be aware and mindful even when eating with others."

Curious how to get started? Try Gilbert's mindful eating technique for beginners below.

The 3-part technique

Step 1: Mindful eating begins before you even put the food in your mouth. Start by observing the color, texture, and smell of the food on your plate. Then, "bring awareness to the utensil and the bite of food you are bringing up to your mouth to eat," says Gilbert.

Step 2: "Mindfully chew and savor the bite of food itself," says Gilbert. "Notice the aromas, textures, and pleasure of eating this one bite of food."

Step 3: Maintain that awareness as you swallow and put your utensil down. Then, repeat this technique again with the next bite of food.

"When you bring your mindful awareness to what you are about to eat, how you eat, and to how hungry or full you become, this greatly increases the possibility of making healthier eating choices," says Gilbert. "It also allows us to slow down and savor our food more so we do not end up overeating regularly." In other words, it's an easy way to ensure that you truly enjoy every bite this holiday season—"healthy" or not—and evade the token food coma afterward.

                                                                                 Nov 16, 2017 by Victoria Hoff

William Butler Yeats

Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet;
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Safety fears as junior doctors left to run A&Es and other hospital units

General Medical Council says health of patients at risk with trainee medics forced to ‘act beyond clinical competence’

The safety of hospital patients is being put at risk because inexperienced young doctors are too often being left in charge of A&E and other units, Britain’s medical regulator has warned.

Understaffing and pressures on senior doctors mean trainee medics are being forced to “fend for themselves” by looking after patients whose conditions they are not qualified to treat, said the General Medical Council, which has shared the findings of an in-depth study with the Guardian.

“We are very worried when trainees tell us that they have been put in a position where they have been asked to act above and beyond their clinical competence and capabilities. That’s a concern because it creates very clear risks to patients from doctors who may not know what they’re doing,” said the GMC’s chief executive, Charlie Massey.

“In some cases trainees are being left to fend for themselves when they clearly don’t have the competence to make the decisions about patients’ treatment that are being asked of them. That’s a real concern. Significant proportion of trainees, especially those early in their careers, feel very exposed in terms of what they are being asked to do,” added Massey.

“Trainees left in this situation feel agitated and anxious that they don’t have enough supervision and worried that they might inadvertently cause harm to patients,” he added.

The boss of the regulator warned that junior doctors who act beyond their competence “are at risk of losing their licence” if the care they give a patient proves to be substandard and damages the patient’s health.

In its annual survey of the education and training received by Britain’s 55,000 junior doctors, the GMC heard about incidents that caused it concern about them being left in charge, despite their inexperience.

• In one hospital a group of young foundation-year doctors not long out of medical school began an overnight rotation in the A&E unit despite having had no induction or assessment of their skills. “There was a very real risk that they could be working beyond their competence because they were on a night shift with limited supervision, therefore they might have had to undertake tasks for which they weren’t qualified,” said Massey.

• In another emergency department a foundation-year doctor on duty in the resuscitation unit called three times for support from senior colleagues but no one came to help her. “She had no choice but to make decisions about that patient herself, even though she wasn’t confident that she was competent to do so.”

• Senior medics in a third A&E unit reported that junior doctors were displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, such as continually interrupted sleep and uncertain decision-making. “That worried them and that worried us.”

Dr Sarah Hallett, the deputy chair of the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee, said: “It is an all too common problem that many junior doctors move into new posts without a thorough induction.

“This is not the fault of senior doctors, who we know are under immense pressures and face ever-increasing workloads in a health service that is more and more overstretched. Despite this, it is crucial that junior doctors have access to appropriate training, and are able to work in an environment that is safe for both them and their patients.”

A year on from the junior doctors dispute in England that prompted eight walkouts by trainees, the number rating their training as good or very good remains high at 76%. However, “a worrying number of doctors in training continue to raise concerns about heavy workloads and shortness of sleep while on duty, with some missing educational opportunities because of these pressures”, the GMC’s report says.

• About 40% of trainees across all four home countries said their workloads were heavy or very heavy, although that is slightly fewer than last year.
• 54% work beyond their rostered hours, either daily or weekly.
• 22% regularly feel short of sleep while they are on duty.
•                                                                            The Guardian 27 Nov 2017

Future tenses

Better late than never!
Click here to see the summary of the different ways to express the future in Englisg:

Future_tenses

Black Friday

Now we are used to getting astonishing offers on the Black Friday in Spain, but it is something relatively new in our culture. As there is such a big difference in the prices, a lot of people decide to wait until Black Friday to get what they need or buy their Christmas presents in advance to be able to save money or even to be able to get more items for the same price.
Let's see where this special day comes from. Click here to see a short but well explained video:

How one country persuaded teens to give up drink and drugs

Watch here a short and really interesting video about how Iceland managedto stop this huge problem among teenagers.

Teens_bbc_video

After watching it, leave your opinion about the 5 rules mentioned in the video. Would something like this be possible in your country?