Below you will find a selection of the most recent entries from bloggers in our Family/Health section. To view the entries from individual bloggers, click on the links below:
- Lee Eldrige
The Athlete Tribe
- Dr. Michelle Wright
Dr Michelle Wright is a British-trained General Practitioner and Director of HealthFirst, providing physical First Aid training and Mental Health First Aid training, as well as Health Education, throughout Switzerland (www.healthfirst.ch). She also has a regular radio show about health on World Radio Switzerland. Believing that prevention is better than cure and that we should be treating the root cause of illness, Dr Michelle is also a Lifestyle Medicine enthusiast. - Birgit Suess is a Swiss-American who grew up between the US and Switzerland and speaks English, German and Swiss-German. Because of a worldwide shortage of Speech Therapists, she uses technology to connect special needs students around the world with English speaking Speech Therapists. With almost 20 years of experience as a Speech Therapist and 10 years experience with Teletherapy, she is a pioneer in the Teletherapy world. Her personal specialty is working on social language with high functioning children on the Autism Spectrum. Her passion is finding new and innovative ways to help children with special needs.
- Dr. Irina Schurov is a Nutritional Neuroscientist with a PhD from Cambridge University (UK) and over 20 years’ experience in science and health-providing services. She created and founded LiveRight, an initiative to help others through nutrition and wellbeing strategies. By building an educational platform around healthy eating habits, by restoring the relationships between people and food, by supporting your individual circumstances and through personalized coaching in nutrition, she wants to help you and your family achieve the optimal balance between help and life.
- Dr. Penny Fraser
Dr Penny is a British-trained Emergency Medicine doctor, who lives in Geneva. She is also the mother of two busy little skiers aged 7 and 8. Along with Dr Michelle Wright and her other colleagues at HealthFirst, she has a passion for delivering health education and First Aid training to the English-speaking community in Switzerland
By Hiba Samawi, Wiser Humans
Rejection hurts. Literally.
And like most human behavior, it makes sense.
It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective because back when we were cave men and women and we did something that was out of line with the social group, we were kicked out.
And being rejected meant social exile, which meant being left to fend for ourselves in the savanna.
And without the group, we wouldn’t have lasted very long on our own in the wild.
So the human brain became hardwired to be very sensitive to rejection.
To avoid doing anything risky which meant avoiding rejection which meant avoiding exile which meant avoiding death.
Or as a shortcut:
REJECTION = PAIN
And because we don’t especially enjoy pain, most of us learned ways of avoiding the possibility of rejection.
- By not taking risks.
- By avoiding social situations where we might not succeed or where others might be critical of us, like public speaking.
- By comparing ourselves to others to make sure we are not doing anything ‘wrong’.
- By avoiding situations where rejection is possible, like online dating.
- By trying to behave flawlessly - to reach a state of perfection where we are beyond reproach.
- By developing these amazing pro-social skills like empathy and compassion…for others - while simultaneously being really hard on ourselves. Because criticising ourselves before anyone else can is a sort of pre-rejection meant to help us avoid real rejection.
By Jennie Delreeve, Peak of Wellbeing
Are you somebody who wakes up determined to be in a good mood, but somehow by midday, you are back to feeling grumpy and irritated again?
Do you find that you are often worried and anxious by seemingly small things?
When you look around, does everyone else seem to be happier and doing better than you?
If the answer is yes to one or more of these questions, read on, this article is for you.
What is happiness?
Should we feel happy all of the time? How do we achieve happiness? We have all asked these three questions at some point in our lives and maybe many of us are still searching for the answer.
by Milena McRae, www.milenamcrae.com
I’ve been truly lucky to be working with some very special and unique people over the last few months. In that time it feels we’ve jointly moved a few mountains, making some important changes to not just one person's life, but also to many of the most important people who share the lives of each of us.
Lucy is one of those special people and she has asked me to provide some feedback on her experiences in the hope that her story will inspire others. We have worked together closely over three months completing my DreamBuilder program. The quotes below are written personally by her.
Lucy explained that “As a family we had been through a number of difficult challenges - infertility, behavioural problems with our children, and two international moves. Combined with giving up a career to become a full-time mother, I felt like I had given up all sense of me. Whilst my priority will always be with my children, I wanted to work out what I could do for me to give myself back a sense of pride in myself and to actually feel like I was achieving something again.”
She has now discovered her dream to “…run a small business doing something that I love, and that I'm quite good at!” Lucy, has also acted on her discovery. Her business is now operating, leveraging what she can do from where she stands today,…she had more capability and help at her disposal than she expected. “I now know that I want to "design" my life rather than just live it by "default"...and do what I believe is expected of me. I definitely feel a greater sense of enjoyment in my life now and I am excited for the future.”
By Tanya Jeannet, Rockmybaby
Many clients have questions regarding the differences between a Nanny, Aupair and Babysitter. We have outlined the main differences below, which may enable you to better understand your needs and requirements. To discuss your childcare needs, please don’t hesitate to contact Rockmybaby® on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Babysitter
A babysitter is someone who takes care of your child / children for a few hours on an ad hoc basis i.e. when you are going out for dinner or need to attend an appointment etc.
The main role of a babysitter is to care for your children in your absence, making them feel safe and secure and ensuring all their needs are met. In Switzerland, babysitters generally range from the age of 13 upwards, are paid hourly and hold a first aid certificate. All Rockmybaby® babysitter’s are aged from 18 years onwards.
Cost: Depending on age of babysitter anything from 10CHF/15CHF per hour for a teenage babysitter to 20CHF-30CHF per hour for a more experienced babysitter
Working hours: Flexible, ad hoc hours
By Hiba Giacoletto, Wiser Humans
It has been six months since the end of my 11-year marriage and I wanted to share my personal experience of getting through the past six months in the hope this might help others, too.
I have room for it all
I learned that I could feel deep sadness about the end of this chapter, this identity, this relationship - AND ALSO excitement, gratitude, anxiety, doubt and regret all at once. In the past I would have denied some of these emotions as not being ‘real’ because I thought they couldn’t co-exist. And yet they can, and even more: They always do when we are honest with ourselves.
I learned that I had room for all of these emotions, that I didn’t need to reduce my emotional experience to ‘just’ grieving. That it was OK to feel whatever I was feeling - that I could hold all these experiences at once.
Grief ain’t linear
One of the most important experiences I had was realizing just how un-linear emotions are. One minute I would be feeling OK, and then BAM - a painful pang of remembering would show up. Or just when I thought I was reaching the end of it, a new realization that of this is really over would bring on a whole new stage of grieving. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
It all felt more like waves than a linear progression of feeling better. Again, being OK with this, even expecting it, made all the difference.
Peaceful turmoil
I have not cried or grieved as much in my life as I have in the past months. And yet, there has also been a sense of peacefulness because I was not fighting my emotions. I was neither trying to repress them nor allowing them to explode all over the place. As much as possible, I was simply allowing them to be, to hang out.
I noticed that inner peace is not about not having emotions or difficulties in life and being permanently zen. That isn’t realistic. It isn't real life. Instead, it is about bringing an OK-ness with whatever we are experiencing in all its messiness.
