Listening does not come naturally. We want to be heard far more than we want to hear.

It’s rarely ill-intentioned. Often, we enthusiastically want to relate and show we understand or share their concern, or have had a similar experience. However, the outcome is the opposite: the relationship suffers, and the other person feels less connected, and more frustrated.

To improve your active listening, try these tips from experts:

1. Stop talking. The simplest but hardest tip of all. Give the other person space to talk, even after they seem to run out of puff. Often people only get to the real point after they have covered the superficial talk. Use the acronym WAIT to remind yourself: W.A.I.T stands for “Why Am I Talking?”

2. Clear your mind. Adam Bryant, author of The Corner Office and The CEO Test, says we should “think of listening as a form of meditation. You have to clear your mind of everything else, so you can focus entirely on what the other person is saying.” Bryant advises putting your phone down, and if you are at your desk, turning your chair around so you are not looking at the monitor.

3. Don’t jump ahead. “The best kind of listening is about being comfortable not knowing what you’re going to say next, or what question you might ask,” says Bryant. Have faith in your ability to respond naturally and sincerely to the other person, without formulating your response while they are talking.

4. Remove judgement. “Listening, done well, is an act of empathy. You are trying to see the world through another person’s eyes, and to understand their emotions,” Bryant says. Judging the other person for their words, tone of voice, actions or reactions is not going to help you achieve empathy.

5. Aim to learn. Use every conversation as a chance to learn more – about a topic, about a person. Billionaire venture capitalist and co-founder of LinkIn, Reid Hoffman, says the most important quality he looks for in employees is an “infinite learning curve.” “I’m looking for an ability to be learning constantly, and fast.”

Bryant adds, “If you show interest and energy, people will respond and share what they know and how they learned it. It’s a fast and free education, plus you’ll build relationships.”

Common listening mistakes to avoid

• Getting distracted. Someone is talking, but you are thinking about what to cook for dinner. You could be making eye contact and saying “yeah” and “OK” in all the right places, but you are not really listening.
• Adding your anecdote. We often want to show we understand, and that we have shared a similar experience, and so off we go with a “yes, the same thing happened to me!” story, and we have hijacked the other person’s conversation.
• Waiting to talk. You know how it feels: you get the very clear sense that the other person is just waiting for your noise to stop, before they say their piece. They haven’t listened, they just want to make their argument, or say something clever.

If you only eat turkey at once or twice a year, reconsider! There’s good reason to add it to your diet all year round.

We generally think of turkey as a good source of low fat protein (and it is – it has more protein per gram than chicken). Yet we forget that it is also high in all sorts of vitamins and minerals that can boost your health.

Turkey is high in selenium, which is great for your thyroid and immunity and as a powerful antioxidant can help fight free radicals. Free radicals cause cell damage and contribute to ageing and illness.

Plus, turkey gives essential B vitamins including B3, B6 and B12, along with niacin and zinc.

You might have heard advice to eat turkey before bed because it makes you sleepy. It turns out that is not quite true. Turkey does contain tryptophan, which promotes a good sleep and a good mood by helping to produce serotonin and melatonin, but turkey is not very high in tryptophan.

To put it in perspective, a tryptophan supplement to help with sleep usually contains 1-4 grams, whereas a serve of turkey only contains around 205 milligrams.

So go ahead and enjoy your turkey for its protein and vitamins, but do not blame it for making you sleepy.

What is the best time to set your alarm for an energised and productive morning? The night before.

We have all done it. It gets towards bedtime and you slip in one more episode of that series… which rolls straight into the next episode and the next. Or you decide to just check one more email… which leads to fixing up that document… and before you know it, it is hours past bedtime.

You go to bed late, wired and wake up tired and grumpy.

Sleep experts recommend setting a pre-bedtime reminder alarm. You set it up to an hour before the time you need to go to bed, to give you screen-free time to wind-down and relax.

Psychologist, sleep expert and author of The Women’s Guide to Overcoming Insomnia, Shelby Harris, says, “when we turn off screens and switch to more relaxing non-screen or non-electronic activities for the hour before bed, it helps the brain quiet down and fall asleep faster”. It also helps your body and brain get into the habit of being calm and ready for sleep.

You can also set a reverse “snooze alarm”. Just like you might set a second alarm in the morning in case you fall back asleep, you can set an alarm 15 minutes before bed as an extra reminder to stop what you are doing.

The choice of drink options can be confusing.

You cannot go past plain water, which is all you will need to replace fluid, especially in low intensity and short duration sports. But if you are involved in high intensity and endurance sports, a sports drink with added carbohydrate (often in the form of glucose, sucrose or fructose) and electrolytes will enhance your performance.

The carbohydrate in these drinks provides a muscle energy source as well as improving flavour.

Electrolytes such as sodium are lost in sweat and must be replaced during and after prolonged exercise. Sodium in a drink improves your fluid intake as it stimulates the thirst mechanism, promotes both carbohydrate and water intake in the intestines, and reduces the volume of urine produced after exercise.

And a word of warning about alcohol. It is not a good choice immediately after exercise. It impairs vital recovery processes and may also reduce your ability to rehydrate effectively.

1. Naps may help you live longer.

Research shows a regular nap can lower your blood pressure and cut your chance of having heart attack in later life. One study found that a 20-minute nap resulted in an average drop in blood pressure of 5mm Hg – that’s about the same as a low dose of blood pressure medication.

2. Naps help repair a sleep deficit.

Sleep scientists say for the best physical and mental health we should aim for between seven and nine hours’ sleep every day. Many of us don’t get anywhere near this, and a build-up of sleep loss over a few days can affect us physically, mentally and emotionally. Napping can help plug this gap.

3. Naps improve mood, alertness and energy.

A wealth of research has found that even a short nap can boost your energy and alertness. Other research suggests naps help improve emotional regulation and increase your ability to tolerate frustration.

4. Naps improve our ability to learn and remember.

Neuroscientists at the National University of Singapore reported in the journal Sleep that brief dozes revive the hippocampus, an area of the brain responsible for forming new memories.

5. Naps can lower your stress levels.

A short sleep during the day can help strengthen your ability to manage stress, says Psychology Today. Recent research shows that naps reduce stress and strengthen the immune system in people who are sleep deprived.

Why is olive oil so good for us?

Olive oil contains mainly monounsaturated fatty acids (MLFAs). These are known to reduce inflammation in the body – which is associated with diseases ranging from heart disease and Alzheimer’s to cancer and type 2 diabetes. MLFAs can also lower your unhealthy cholesterol levels.

Olive oil is also packed with antioxidants and polyphenols, plant compounds that benefit your health and help fight disease.

Extra virgin oil contains more of the beneficial chemicals than virgin or regular, as it’s the least processed. It’s also the most expensive, so save it for drizzling on salads and vegetables, and for adding to mashed potatoes instead of butter.

How to protect your eyes

Always use eye protection that compiles with your national Standards, and choose protection that fits the situation:

-Low impact protection – for tasks including chipping, riveting, spalling, hammering and managing a strap under tension. Recommended protection includes safety glasses, safety glasses with side shields, safety clip-ons, eye cup goggles, wide vision goggles, eye shields and face shields.

-Medium impact protection – for tasks including scaling, grinding and machining metals, some woodworking tasks, stone dressing, wire handling and brick cutting. Choose items appropriate for medium impact protection.

-High impact protection – for tasks including explosive power tools and nail guns. Recommended protection includes face shields, marked as appropriate for high impact protection.

-For chemicals, use protection designed specifically for dealing with chemicals – the protection may differ depending on the chemicals in use.

-For dust, choose protection designed for dealing with dust and fine particles.

All protection should conform to national or international standards.

“Empathy fuels connection while sympathy drives disconnection,” says Brown.

“Empathy is I’m feeling with you. Sympathy, I’m feeling for you.”

Brene Brown first talked about empathy and sympathy in her hugely popular video, ‘The Power of Vulnerability.’ She has since written more about them in her new book, Atlas of the Heart.

In ‘The Power of Vulnerability’ video, she says: “I always think of empathy as this kind of sacred space when someone is kind of in a deep hole, and they shout out from the bottom and they say, ‘I’m stuck. It’s dark. I’m overwhelmed.’ And then we look and we say. ‘Hey, I’m coming down. I know what it’s like down here, and you’re not alone.’

“Sympathy is, ‘Oh, it’s bad, uh-huh. Do you want a sandwich?’”

What is empathy?

She says empathy is the ability to understand and echo what someone else feels. It’s like being with someone in their hard times, side by side with them. You can understand their pain, you can communicate that you understand and that you are there for them.

You understand and accept the other person’s feelings, even if they might not be the same feelings you’d have in their place.

Brown says empathy is a choice, and is often a hard choice. To feel empathy, we have to tap into our own difficult feelings such as vulnerability, frustration and failure. We have to feel these again, and communicate them to the other person. She adds that compassion is empathy plus action: It’s the practice of relating to others and, as a result, acting to ease their suffering.

What is sympathy?

Sympathy, says Brown, draws a clear line between the person suffering and ourselves. It’s feeling bad for someone, but being unable (or unwilling) to relate to that person.

She adds that pity is sympathy with a sense of hierarchy: We don’t just feel bad for the person suffering, we feel like they are somehow “less than” we are. It’s less active than compassion – we don’t feel obligated to help people we pity.

Sympathy often involves the words “at least”. We try to find the silver lining for the other person.

Brown gives the example:

“I think my marriage is falling apart” – “At least you have a marriage.”

“John’s getting kicked out of school” – “At least Sarah is an A student.”

How to do empathy

Brown gives four qualities of empathy. Use these as steps to be more empathetic and less sympathetic to people who are struggling.

1. Take perspective: understand their perspective, even if it’s not how you would see it or how you would feel in the same situation.

2. Stay out of judgement: “not easy when you enjoy it as much as many of us do,” says Brown.

3. Recognise emotion in other people: again, even if you feel differently.

4. Communicate the fact that you understand and you are there for them without judgement.

What is optimism bias?

Optimism bias is a tendency towards optimism. It’s a spectrum, and most of us fall somewhere along the spectrum from “dubiously hopeful” to “blinded by the light”.

Neuroscientist, Tali Sharot, author of Optimism Bias, says our brains are hardwired to look on the bright side.

“We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures. We watch our backs, weigh the odds, pack an umbrella.  But both neuroscience and social science suggest that we are more optimistic than realistic. On average, we expect things to turn out better than they wind up being.” Says Sharot.

She says people underestimate their chance of problems like divorce, job loss or cancer, and overestimate the likelihood their child is gifted. We even overestimate our likely life span – sometimes by 20 years or more.

“When it comes to predicting what will happen to us tomorrow, next week, or fifty years from now, we overestimate the likelihood of positive events, and underestimate the likelihood of negative events.”

On the flipside, people tend to underestimate how long a project will take to complete and how much it will cost.

Optimism bias exists in every culture and age group. Studies consistently report that a large majority of the population (up to 80 percent) have an optimism bias.

Our optimism is irrational

Sharot says that even when we are pessimistic about the state of the world, we remain optimistic about our own little worlds.

For example, we might have felt pessimistic about the covid stats, but we were optimistic about the chances of our family staying safe.

“It seems that our brain possesses the philosopher’s stone that enables us to turn lead into gold and helps us bounce back to normal levels of wellbeing,” says Sharot.

It’s a two-edged sword. While optimism bias might stop us from taking precautions, such as wearing a mask or applying sunscreen, it does help us keep on going even when things are tough.

Researchers studying heart disease patients found that optimists were more likely than non-optimistic patients to take vitamins, eat low-fat diets and exercise, thereby reducing their overall coronary risk.

Without optimism, we’d be depressed

Sharot says the only people who are relatively accurate when predicting future events are people with mild depression.

Healthy people expect the future to be slightly better than it ends up being. People with severe depression expect things to be worse than they end up being. People with mild depression “see the world as it is.”

So should we stay optimistic?

If our optimism is irrational, and goes against logic and facts, should we still go along with believing things will be ok?

Optimistic people live longer, save more and get more promotions at work. They might not be “right”, but they seem to be happy.

Sharot suggests striking a balance: “to believe we will stay healthy, but get medical insurance anyway; to be certain the sun will shine, but grab an umbrella on our way out – just in case.”