Messenger November 2017

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Coffee: Healthy or Harmful? If you’re a busy Manchester legal professional, the chances are you use coffee, or other caffeine based drinks, to perform better, increase focus, or simply get through the day. Coffee is a controversial subject, and depending on who you speak to, coffee is either healthy or harmful. So what’s the truth about coffee? Well, firstly it depends on who you are and why you drink coffee. There are ‘responders’ and ‘non-responders’, or to give an example, if I drink coffee past 3pm I’m in the wide awake club until the early hours of the morning, while others can drink coffee late at night and sleep soundly; caffeine affects different people in different ways! If you’re a caffeine ‘responder’, you’re using caffeine in large doses and long term to stay productive (or just keep awake / hold on to a busy life by your fingertips!), then the chances are you’re papering over some pretty deep cracks. These cracks need to be addressed at a deeper level, for instance through addressing lifestyle factors, nutrition, and stress hormones, rather than hammering increasing amounts of caffeine. I see people all the time who are using caffeine as a crutch when actually they need some help re-designing their QMS Skin Spa Offer Enjoy this summer afternoon tea for two with the relaxing spa. lifestyle habits, moving their body, eating better, sleeping better, and getting some support to remediate their stress hormones. Some need deeper help in testing their adrenal hormones in order to come back from ‘adrenal fatigue’. In these circumstances I’d say that coffee is a stimulant that is most likely doing more harm than good. Coffee can also lead to anxiety and disrupted sleep and it can create a dependency, with some undesirable withdrawal symptoms. Coffee can be super healthy too! The good news for coffee lovers everywhere is that coffee can be extremely healthy (no, I’m not talking about your double caramel mocha latte with 3000 calories per drink). Coffee is very high in healthy antioxidants, and is associated with both a reduced risk of chronic disease and increased longevity. Coffee can also stimulate your brain through its impact on the neurotransmitter Adenosine, increase metabolism, the amount of calories you burn, and exercise performance. Coffee drinkers have a significantly lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, Type 2 Diabetes, liver disease, and depression. Personally, I cycle my coffee use depending on my current workload, energy levels, and the dose I’m using (when it increases to two cups a day (I’m a big caffeine responder so that’s a lot for me), I know it’s time to switch to green tea for a few weeks (my favourite is organic green tea with Moraccan mint). I recommend the same approach to my personal training clients, and to you. To your lean, healthy, Optimised future, Matt Optimised Personal Wellness is based on Bridge St and is a private health clinic and personal training gym dedicated to taking care of Manchester’s busy professionals. For more information visit www.optimisedpersonalwellness.co.uk twitter: @mattopwellness facebook: /optimisedpersonalwellness Manchester Law Society Members receive a 10% discount on personal training upon production of their Benefits of Membership Card Pick from two treatments to spend your time in the spa. q Express facial q Express polish on your hands (shellac removal and application not included.) q Express polish on your feet (shellac removal and application not included.) q Back, neck, shoulder massage q Eye lash wax and tint q Express pedicure (shellac removal and application not included.) q Express manicure (shellac removal and application not included.) Minimum of 2 people £99 Monday to Thursday and Friday to Sunday weekends there would be an additional charge of £20 supplement pp ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! > ! ! ! ? ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !! ! Guests can book online through the Lowry website if they wish. Call; 01618274034 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !! Email; spa@thelowryhotel.com ! T&C All express treatments are 25 mins long. If you would like to upgrade your treatment to longer or a bespoke treatment to your needs, this can also be done however this will be an additional charge. Why not upgrade your afternoon tea to champagne afternoon tea for £10pp.
Lifestyle 29 Mental Wellness Make Happy Work... By Mick Timpson, Modern Meditation Teacher Workplace mindfulness meditation is everywhere these days. There are programmes for almost everything from compassion and leadership, to career development and productivity to cheesemaking. Okay, I made that last one up! Many meditation training programmes focus on workplace stress reduction, and rightly so. According to 2015’s Parliamentary Report on Mindfulness in the Workplace, the indirect costs to the UK for mental health in unemployment, absenteeism and resulting loss of productivity are estimated at between £70-100 billion, with employers paying £9 billion of that in sick pay and related costs. But this is only part of the story. Stress is also the biggest killer of creativity – a human-made, never-ending energy source that powers every successful business. We know as stress reduces, wellbeing increases, which in turn links to improved creative flow. It's that flow that everyone in business should be looking to increase. Not only is it key to business productivity and invention, but also to individual happiness and joy. It seems that creativity and happiness are connected, but you have to be present and paying attention. However, studies have shown that most of us are elsewhere, working on ‘autopilot’ at least 50 per cent of the time because the mind likes to wander. Moreover, guess what? Having the mind directed elsewhere, locked in a spiral of self-created thoughts doesn’t make us happy. It seems happiness is found only in the moment. That is what good meditation training will give you – access to the present where innate creativity, flow, invention, increased energy and productivity can be found. And that is just the start because as those attributes develop, the obstacles to change that we all have – anxiety, fear, doubt and stress – begin to fall away. It’s a win for everybody. Finding happiness People who have learned to work this way call it ‘being in the zone’. Scientists call it autotelic experience. Early research assumed that flow experience only developed through high-challenge, high-skill situations and included jobs such as concert pianists, mountaineers and Olympic athletes, to name a few. Flow, it was thought, results from a correlation between the degree of challenge and available skills. This is only partly true. A well-designed, practical meditation programme like the ones we have developed at beanddo are geared towards giving people metacognitive skills to switch on flow, so that all actions can be a happy, creative, flow-inducing activity. Getting into the flow The best place to start from is where you want to go. Assume everyone in your workplace is a creative wonder, and then work from there to nurture and expand that condition for purpose, wellbeing and profit. It’s a matter of shaping and aligning business goals and working methods with creative, natural human flow and potential. The model here is a mindful connection between being and doing, with an emphasis on not what you do, but how you do it. The technique is to unify one’s being and doing, so work is undertaken for its own sake rather than for one’s individual relation to it. This means simply directing one’s attention on the doing of it and not on the supposed or imagined outcome. This is where meditation practice helps to bring your attention into the present moment, which is when flow happens. The top five flow experiences can include: ● Observing how the very action, thought or idea seems to support the next, creating conscious, continuous feedback towards a solution. ● A deep, relaxed feeling that blooms within, filling the whole body. Self-consciousness reduces along with the need to be in one’s ‘comfort zone’. ● Sharpening of the senses; touch become sensitive and everything appears in high definition. An intense awareness grows around the present moment where one’s experience of self and time is profoundly altered. ● An emerging happiness that seems connected to a momentum, pushing you along in what you are doing, towards your goal. ● A doubt-free, joyful certainty emerges in your work. New things appear. Fear of failure or falling behind vanishes and then you ask yourself, did I do that? If you are considering a meditation-focused wellbeing programme for your workplace, my advice is to think carefully about what you need and how your organisation would benefit. Do not assume meditation will solve all of your problems. It also has to come with the honest objective that you want your people to thrive. Your organisation needs to be set-up to achieve that from the start. Meditation promotes clarity, combined with a smarter grip of what is going on, so make sure your business is ready to grasp the opportunity. The practice is more effective if it is focused on maximising being in a good place, rather than having to deal with being in a bad place. So it stands to reason that we should try and figure out ways of staying present to our happiness. To make that day at work a good day, every day requires knowing a dimension of experience that we never knew could exist in the office. By learning to assume a different perspective, mindset and relationship to what we do, we can make every activity into a happy moment, no matter what. Email: mick@beanddo.co.uk Call: 07808 501765 www.beanddo.co.uk Manchester Radical Literature Walking Tour I joined a group of walkers on one of Manchester Literature Festival’s walking tours around the city. The subject for this walk was Manchester Radical Literature. The walk, led by Sue McCarthy started at Manchester Cathedral. It was here that Thomas Clarkson (1760 - 1846) an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade gave a speech in 1787 to a huge crowd calling for the abolition of slavery, and described how much of the wealth of Manchester, came through the slave trade. Clarkson spent his entire life campaiging and collecting evidence, speaking to over 20,000 sailors around the country. supported Marx financially to do research and write Das Kapital and when Marx died, he edited the third and fourth volumes. The site of Boots on Cross Street was the former home of the Manchester Guardian, where C.P Scott was the editor for 57 years from 1872 and was a staunch supporter of womens’ suffrage. CP Scott was also a Liberal MP for Leigh. Further down Cross Street is the former site of the Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, where Elizabeth Gaskell’s husband was the minister. Mrs Gaskell’s time in Manchester impacted her writings, which often highlighted social and industrial problems. much history has been forged on these streets, and the works of fiction and radical literature that Manchester and its industiral heritage has inspired. The walking tours were sponsored by Weightmans. Richard Corran, Partner and Head of the Weightmans Manchester offices said: “Weightmans is proud of its long standing commitment to - and admiration of - Manchester culture, which is diverse and plentiful. “Our relationship with the Manchester Literature Festival allows us to explore this breadth of culture and our Walking Tours offer guests a chance to learn more about a variety of genres, from gothic literature to punk poetry, amongst others. Manchester is truly a place to see and be seen, and we can think of no better way than on foot, retracing the steps of the city’s finest authors.” We then moved around the corner to Chetham’s Library, where Friederich Engels, who was sent to Manchester by his parents at the age of 22, spent much of his time reading and researching. On his way to Manchester he met Karl Marx, which started a long collaboration between the two. In 1845, Engles published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on his personal observations and research in Manchester. In 1848, Engels coauthored The Communist Manifesto with Marx. Engels 86 Cross Street was home to Thomas de Quincy, who wrote Confessions of an English Opium-Eater in 1821. He worked as a journalist around the North West, which he used to fund his writings and opium addiction. He spent a number of years living with William Wordsworth at Dove Cottage and died in penniless in1859. Walking through the streets of Manchester with its high-rise buildings and modern facades, it is easy to forget that so D
Page 1 and 2: November 2017 October 09 1 North We
Page 3 and 4: Contents 3 North West Law November
Page 5 and 6: 5 President’s Column 5 It has bee
Page 7 and 8: Regulation 7 Regulatory Affairs Com
Page 9 and 10: Movers & Shakers 9 Hill Dickinson s
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Page 15 and 16: PEN OR NTRIES For more information:
Page 17 and 18: Legal Costs Update 17 Legal Costs U
Page 19 and 20: • Proposals would remove the need
Page 21 and 22: Seeing things from your perspective
Page 23 and 24: Local News 23 MYSG Update This Autu
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