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Have you ever imagined yourself doing something and being great at it? Well, if you haven’t, than you better start. Mentally rehearsing your success is powerful and can be crucial to your success as it helps you achieve your goals through the art of visualisation. Visualisation is a powerful tool as it trains the mind in advance and increases your performance potential. For example, once you visualise and imagine yourself finishing a marathon, your mind already sees it and feels that it can do it again when you are actually running the marathon and in the same manner you previously imagined it. Now right off the bat you might think this is an over exaggeration, not true at all or maybe just work sometimes, but trust me, visualisation is a proven method and can be very effective. Benefits of visualisation: It creates a clear connection to your future, in turn pushing your mind into action as it sparks desire and the need to accomplish. Visualisation makes things more clear as you know what you want and you can go after it. Your mind is also programed to focus. On a similar note, it potentially activates the commonly discussed ‘law of attraction’ where it helps you go into the right direction and connect with the necessary resources. As the saying goes, “seeing is believing,” therefore, visualising creates a stronger connection than writing down your goals, but both writing and imagining together can make an even greater effect. For example, when we envision ourselves going for a run, the neurons in our brain receive an impulse that tells them to perform the action of running. This then creates a new neural pathway that tells our bodies to act as we have just imagined, so when you visualise yourself doing things, your body is literally and physically creating pathways and memories of how to do that action although you never actually performed the action. Professional athletes are known to use mental imagery as training and practice. Our brains process visualisations the same as if they were actually what you were experiencing. They do not differentiate between a real memory or an imagined one, therefore, you can really stimulate and create your future. Mental rehearsal also works better when you immerse yourself in a similar environment; you should include smells, taste and even sounds of the context you are imagining yourself in. In the previous example, you could try closing your eyes and imagining yourself completing the marathon successfully while you are outdoors, wearing your running clothes and taking small sips of water as you visualise. In conclusion, the daily practice of visualising your goals and dreams as successes can really accelerate your achievement of those ambitions. There have been numerous studies on the power of visualisation and they have definitely proven the theory. Let’s take one study done on basketball players as an example. The athletes were divided into three groups where the goal was to improve their free throw shots. The first group physically practiced free throw shots during the day, the second group only visualized making shots everyday and the third group physically took practice shots during the day as well as visualising making perfect shots before going to bed. The results were astounding! The first group who were actually practicing improved their shots by only 7% while the second group improved by 10% and more importantly, the last group improved their shots by a whopping 32%! Now that’s a huge difference just though the art and power of visualisation. Let’s take it a bit further by including affirmations to your daily visualisation. Including positivity will definitely help boost your subconscious transform into a positive go-getter where you can more likely reach your goals. Do not underestimate the positive effects such as teaching your brain to recognise what resources you will need to help you succeed in reaching your goals, creating an inner motivation to strive for your goals and dreams and promoting positive thinking which will help you to stay on track to be successful over time. All in all, always envision your life as if you have reached your goals and make your mind believe that you are already successful, so sit back, visualize and watch your future success turn into reality. *The author is a wellness advocate and influencer @keys2balance.

It’s the question I’m asked all the time.  In a world where more processed, polluted and packaged food, riddled with pesticides and preservatives has continued to drive down the cost and cheapen meals, the organic industry is moving the opposite way.  Healthy food – actual organic ingredients – haven’t become more expensive, they are being perceived as expensive as junk food dominated the market.   Understanding why vegan dishes can be significantly more expensive than your average fast-food junk-food takeaway dish is key. It all comes down to the quality.  Admittedly, several years ago, many ‘specialist’ vegan goods are likely to have cost more, but this was when they were not so readily available and could only be found in specialist stores and health shops. The situation has since then changed significantly, with big-name retailers, including Monoprix here in Doha, offering numerous vegan items, including cheaper, own-brand ranges. Despite this transformation, veganism’s history of being a more niche diet has likely led to the continuing belief that it will still cost a little bit extra to follow. For new vegans, there is a chance that your shopping bills will be a little higher when you first become vegan, as you may stock up on products like vegetables, beans, and pulses that you are likely to be eating more often. Furthermore, with plenty of processed vegan products available like vegan cheese, pies, mince, steaks, and more, new vegans may end up spending more simply by trying all these different items. As vegans get more used to their new diet, this potentially expensive ‘experimental’ period is likely to be replaced with a level of spending that is comparable to their previous outgoings. Our mind and mentality need to shift in the way it has shifted when we’re purchasing clothing, house appliances, and cars. We see people riding the most expensive cars. Others carrying the most exotic bags, travelling around the globe, or spending on one-time experiences. Yet, when it comes to food, many questions come in mind. In the same way designer bags are considered an ‘investment’ in a quality product, we need to realise that organic food is perhaps the most important ‘investment’ – the investment in ourselves. Yes, it’s true – fresh, organic fruits and vegetables may cost more than some junk foods, but what you’re really doing here is putting a value on your health.  I’ll end with this: you shouldn’t be asking why organic food is considered expensive, you should be concerned why junk food is cheap… * The author is an expert in vegan wellbeing and health. Instagram handle: @Ghanim92 

Health workers across the US looked on in horror when New York became the global epicentre of the coronavirus. Now, as physicians in cities such as Houston, Phoenix and Miami face their own Covid-19 crises, they are looking to New York, where the caseload has since abated, for guidance. The Guardian sat in on a conversation with two emergency room physicians — one in New York and the other in Houston — about what happened when Covid-19 arrived at their hospitals. Dr Cedric Dark, Houston: When did you start worrying about how Covid-19 would impact New York? Dr Tsion Firew, New York: Back in February, I travelled to Sweden and Ethiopia for work. There was some sort of screening for Covid-19 in both places. On February 22, I came to New York City, and nothing — no screening. At that point, I thought, “I don’t think this country’s going to handle this well.” Dark: On February 26, at a department meeting, one of my colleagues put coronavirus on the agenda. I thought to myself, “Why do we even need to bother with this here in Houston? This is in China; maybe it’s in Europe?” Firew: On March 1, we had our first case in New York City, which was at my hospital. Fast-forward 15 days and I get a call saying, “Hey, you were exposed to Covid-positive patients.” I was told to stay home. Dark: My anxiety grew as I saw what was happening in Italy, a country I’ve visited several times. I remember seeing images of people dying in their homes and mass graves. I started to wonder, “Is this what we’ll see over here? Are my colleagues going to be dying? Is this something that’s going to get me or my wife, who’s also an ER doctor? Are we going to bring it home to our son?” In March, we repurposed our urgent care pod, which has eight beds, into our coronavirus unit. And for a while, that was enough. Firew: In late March, health workers without symptoms were told to come back to work. It felt like a tsunami hit. I’ve practised in very low-resource settings and even in a war zone, and I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing in New York. The emergency department was silent — there were no visitors, and patients were very sick. Many were on ventilators or getting oxygen. The usual human interactions were gone. Everybody was wearing a mask and gowns and there were so many people who came to help from different places that you didn’t know who was who. I spent a lot more time on the phone talking to family members about end-of-life care decisions, conversations you’d normally have face-to-face. In New York, the severity of the crisis really depended on what hospital you were at. Columbia has two hospitals — one at 168th and one at 224th — and the difference was night and day. The one on 224th is smaller and just across the bridge from the Bronx, which was hit hard by the virus. There, people were dying in ambulances while waiting for care. The emergency department was overwhelmed with patients who needed oxygen. Its hallways were crowded with patients on portable oxygen tanks. We ran out of monitors and oxygen for the portable tanks. Staff members succumbed to Covid-19, exacerbating shortages of nurses and doctors. My friends who work in Lower Manhattan couldn’t believe some of the things we saw. Dark: I went to medical school at NYU and have a lot of friends in New York I was checking in with at the time. I thought that in Houston, a city that’s almost as big, we had the conditions for a similar crisis: It’s a large city with an international airport, it attracts a lot of business travellers, and thousands of people come here each March for the rodeo. In late March, a guy about my age came into the hospital. It was the first day we got coronavirus tests. A few days later, a nurse texted me that the patient had tested positive. He hadn’t travelled anywhere — it was proof to me that we had community transmission in Houston before any officials admitted it. You became infected, right? Firew: In early April, I became sick, along with my husband. I never imagined that in 2020 I would be writing out a living will detailing my life insurance policy to my family. Walking from my bed to the kitchen would make my heart race; I often wondered: Is this when I drop dead like my patient the other day? A few days before I got sick, the president had said that anybody who wanted a test could get one. But then I was on the phone with my workplace and with the department of health begging for a test. It was also around that time that a brown-skinned physician who was about my age died from Covid-19. So I knew being in my mid-30s wouldn’t protect me. I was even more worried when my husband became ill because, as a Black man, his chances of dying from this disease were much higher than mine. We both recovered, but I still have some fatigue and shortness of breath. When did cases pick up in Houston? Dark: We saw a gradual increase in cases throughout April, but it stayed relatively calm because the city was shut down. The hospital was kind of a ghost town because no-one was having elective procedures. Things were quiet until Texas reopened in May. I remember when I lost my first Covid patient. He started to crash right in front of me. We started CPR and I ran the algorithms through my mind trying to think how we could bring him back, but kept ending up at the same conclusion: This is Covid and there’s nothing I can do. It’s like serving on the front lines of a war. We initially struggled to find our own personal protective equipment while the hospitals worked to secure the supply chain. Although that situation has stabilised, a lot of patients who come in for non-Covid reasons wind up testing positive. Covid is everywhere. Our patient population is heavily Latino and Black and, for a time, our hospital had some of the highest numbers of Covid cases among the nearly two dozen hospitals in the Texas Medical Center network. It’s revealed the fault lines of a pre-existing issue in terms of inequities in health care. As area hospitals fill up, they reallocate additional floors to Covid patients. Who knows, if we don’t get this under control, maybe one day the whole hospital will be Covid. Firew: Now I’m just chronically angry. The negligence came from the top all the way down. Our leaders do not lead with evidence — we knew what was going to happen when states reopened so quickly. Dark: Yeah, this was completely avoidable, had the governor (Texas Governor Greg Abbott) decided not to open up the economy too fast. How are things in New York now? Firew: There have been several days where I’ve seen zero Covid cases. If I do see a case, it’s usually someone who has travelled from abroad or other states. People are coming in for non-Covid reasons. Recently, a woman in her early 40s came in with a massive lesion on her breast. She’d started experiencing some pain three months ago, during the peak of the pandemic, and was too frightened to come to the hospital. To make matters worse, she didn’t have insurance and couldn’t afford the telehealth that many had access to. By the time she made it to our hospital, the mass had metastasized to her spine and lungs. Even with aggressive treatment, she likely only has a few months to live. This is one of the many cases we’re seeing now that we are back to “normal” — complications of chronic illnesses and delayed diagnoses of cancer. The burden of the pandemic layered with a broken healthcare system. Dr Tsion Firew is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Columbia University and special adviser to the minister of health of Ethiopia. Dr Cedric Dark is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and a board member for Doctors for America. — Kaiser Health News

Thousands of letters stuffed with money flooded Jonas Salk’s mailbox the week after his polio vaccine was declared safe and effective in 1955. Everybody wanted his vaccine. Desperate parents clogged doctors’ phone lines in search of the precious elixir; drug companies and doctors diverted doses to the rich and famous. Some of the first batches of the vaccine were disastrously botched, causing 200 cases of permanent paralysis. That barely dented public desire for the preventive. Marlon Brando even asked to play Salk in a movie. Eight years later, with polio a fading threat, the first measles vaccines went on sale. Measles had killed more than 400 children the year before and caused permanent brain damage in thousands more. Interest in the vaccine was modest. Its creator, Maurice Hilleman, was never lionised as Salk had been. “People felt, ‘What’s the big deal? I had measles; why does my kid need a vaccine?’ It was a very difficult sell,” said Walter Orenstein, an Emory University professor who headed the national immunisation programme at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1988 to 2004. When a coronavirus vaccine becomes available, will it be met with a roaring ovation, like the polio vaccine, or communal yawning, like the measles shot? Or some strange hybrid of the two? Americans’ trust in authority, affordable access to the vaccine and a sense of solidarity will determine the result, said Orenstein and other public health veterans and historians. Perceptions of particular diseases — and vaccines — reflect the seriousness of the diseases themselves, but popular values, culture, human risk assessment and politics all play important roles. Acceptance of public health measures — be they face masks or vaccines — is never entirely determined through a rational balancing of risk and benefit. We can see that in the history of national campaigns for new vaccines meant to vanquish a scourge. No disease was more feared in the mid-20th century than polio. With the possible exception of Aids, no disease since has been as feared until the arrival of Covid-19. The polio vaccine was one of the few the public greeted eagerly. Diseases like measles and whooping cough were familiar childhood afflictions. In most years they killed more children than polio, but polio, which put people in iron lungs and leg braces, was visible in ways that an infant’s death certificate, tucked away in a drawer, could never be. Vaccines are often a hard sell, since they prevent rather than cure disease and seem scary even though they are generally quite safe. Since vaccines must be widely used to prevent outbreaks, successful vaccination campaigns rely heavily on trust in those who sell, recommend and administer the medicines. And trust in science, government and business has not always been in steady supply. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, when public health laws were in flux, authorities battling smallpox epidemics would often send vaccinators out with police to enforce the jab. They’d enter factories where cases had been reported, lock the doors and frog-march the workers through a vaccination line. The workers’ resistance was not unmerited; the vaccine sometimes caused swollen arms, fever and bacterial infections. Vaccination could cost a week’s missed wages. Authorities had learned their lesson by the 1920s, when the diphtheria vaccine came on the scene, as James Colgrove notes in his book State of Immunity: The Politics of Vaccination in Twentieth-Century America. Diphtheria was a much-feared killer of children, and publicity campaigns run by public health officials, insurance companies and charities sought to educate and persuade rather than coerce. Polio terrified Americans, peaking in 1952 with more than 57,000 cases. In 1938, President Franklin D Roosevelt, himself a polio patient, had begun a national scientific programme to battle the disease, backed by millions of Americans’ contributions through the March of Dimes. The result of this national quest, uniting government and the people, was Jonas Salk’s inactivated polio vaccine. It cemented a powerful post-World War II trust in the US scientific and medical establishment that would endure for many years. Social solidarity was also important. Vaccines prevent the circulation of a disease among the unvaccinated via what scientists call herd immunity — if enough people are vaccinated. When a reliable rubella vaccine became available in 1969, states quickly required childhood vaccination, even though rubella was practically harmless in children. They wanted to protect a vulnerable population — pregnant women — to prevent a repeat of the 1963-64 congenital rubella epidemic, which resulted in 30,000 fetal deaths and the birth of more than 20,000 babies with severe disabilities. The embrace of the rubella vaccine, as historian Elena Conis of the University of California-Berkeley notes in her book, Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationship With Immunization, marked the first time a vaccine had been deployed that offered no direct benefit to those who were vaccinated. Still, it took a combination of fear, solidarity — and coercion — for Orenstein and his colleagues at the CDC and state public health agencies to drive childhood vaccination rates for measles, whooping cough, rubella and diphtheria to 90% and above in the 1990s to assure herd immunity. Shame was also a tool. Orenstein remembered testifying to the Florida Legislature when it was considering a tougher vaccine mandate. He showed them that disease rates were lower in neighbouring states that had tighter mandates. It worked. What’s different now? In a politically divided nation, trust in science is low and experts are distrusted, politicians more so. Childhood vaccination efforts are already beset by large numbers of hesitant parents. And efforts to fight the Covid-19 epidemic in the United States have been clumsy and chaotic at best, leaving Americans to doubt the competence of their governments and institutions. There is still fear. “Maybe I’m an old-fashioned fool, but I think that most people will welcome a vaccine, if the rollout is done right,” said David Oshinsky, a professor of history at New York University and author of Polio: An American Story, a Pulitzer Prize-winning history. “Most people are desperately afraid of Covid. A minority thumb their noses, many of them for political reasons. How will this change when there’s a vaccine that (hopefully) changes the health risk equation to some degree?” Recent surveys show as few as half of Americans are determined to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Those numbers could change depending on a number of hard-to-predict factors, said Conis of Berkeley. “A lot of people will be really eager to get it,” she said. “A lot will be hesitant, not only because of misinformation but because of a lack of trust in the current administration.” When a coronavirus vaccine is introduced, it may be sold as personal protection, even for young, healthy people. But those who suffer most from the virus are usually older or sicker. An effective vaccination campaign may try to instill a sense of solidarity, or altruism, as well as a more general sense that without vaccination, the economy can’t get back on its feet. “I’m not clear if people accept that solidarity,” Orenstein said. “People look more for what’s good for themselves than what’s good for society.” That said, the risk of Covid-19 to young people is “not zero. That’s one of the major ways to sell this, in a sense.”  – Kaiser Health News

August 14th 1971: On this day, an innocuous psychology experiment was slated to begin where young male participants were randomly assigned the role of prisoner or guard. They were made to live in a makeshift area designed as a prison and asked to act according to their assigned role. The only rule was that physical assault of the prisoners was not permissible. Something sinister started that day that nobody, not even the chief experimenter, could have imagined. In 6 days, the experiment had to be called off because it had become an unconscionable justification for ‘scientific progress’. The guards harassed, mentally abused, and physically beat the prisoners, to the point that prisoners had to plead to be released.  So, how did all hell break loose in this spectacularly messed up way? Being put in a position of power made those men feel like they had the right to exercise it as they pleased. This veneer of power, authority, and dominance that came attached with the designation of ‘guard’ drove them to do what they did. You might be thinking that this was a freak experiment, and in real life, nobody could actually take things that far. Whether the capacity for depravity exists within all of us is debatable, but one thing is certain: the power (or lack thereof) of roles we’re given changes our thoughts and behavior.  Positions of power exist everywhere, starting as early as school with leadership positions like class monitor and sports captain. Research suggests that student leadership positions give you heightened self-confidence and professional poise (Bialek & Lloyd, 1997). As a student leader myself, I experienced this self-confidence which quickly turned into something else. I, with a refusal to explicitly admit to anyone, believed that I really was superior. The power held by the guards in the experiment manifested through their actions, but mine manifested in my thoughts about myself in relation to others and the world.  A nasty afterthought now pops up as a result of this confession. Did my feelings of superiority come at the expense of my peers feeling inferior? Did the lack of a leadership position cause others to feel subpar and self-conscious? This is a sobering thought.  Losing these games of value at school can drastically change the way we see ourselves. These effects may even have a longer shelf life because of the horns effect, a cognitive technique we use whereby we fixate on one singular negative quality of a person to assume that they hold other negative qualities as well. For example, if somebody is overweight, we assume that they’re also irresponsible, lazy, and unambitious. When we use the horns effect to judge students by their lack of leadership or scholastic achievement, we degrade them even further by believing other negative things about them. It becomes harder for them to crawl out of the judgment people have superimposed on them, making impressions more resistant to change.  We must intervene before power and leadership have such an adverse effect on students.  Students with power should see it as a privilege, not an accolade. They must use it to be more empathetically connected to the people they serve, mobilise action in the right direction, and remain open-minded and well-intentioned. Realising that a shiny badge that reads “captain” or ‘leader’ doesn’t make them immune to poor decision making and mismanagement is crucial. Conversely, students without power mustn’t judge their value by the inability to secure leadership positions. They must tap into their strengths, hold their own ground, and keep the leaders accountable for their decisions. There is merit on both ends of the scale of power; the trick is to control it before it controls you. 

Your mind is the most powerful thing that you can use to create well-being in your life. However, if not utilised the right way, it can be the most devastating force in your life. Controlling your thoughts means changing the way you spend your life. Your mind, especially, your thoughts have a great impact on your perception and hence interpretation of reality. We all may want to have only those thoughts and feelings that we want and like, and it would be simply great to have only our desired thoughts and eliminate the rest! Everyone would just love it, if each feeling or thought that comes to their mind fell within their definition of good and normal. It would be the psychological perfection for anyone!  When you vigilantly try not to think about some thing or person, you unconsciously force the part of the brain to be on guard for that specific thought. Keeping your thoughts there, even subconsciously, saves them and keeps them alive, and sometimes these thoughts come out of the prison and blow up in our active thoughts. Most probably it happens when you are under stress or exhausted.  We only know about the small part of thoughts that goes on in our mind and only a little part of our unconscious thoughts is under our control. Most of our thinking efforts continue to move on subconsciously. At a time, only 1 or 2 of these countless thoughts can possibly come into our consciousness. Accidental actions and slips of the tongue are some of the examples of the unfiltered subconscious life of your mind.  In simple words, we don’t choose our feelings or our thoughts consciously; we just become aware of them. When you try not to think about something, it is almost confirmed that the same thing will pop in your consciousness. The good news is, you are not alone facing this situation and feeling that way, says Harvard University psychologist Daniel Wegner, author of White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts: Suppression, Obsession, and the Psychology of Mental Control. His research proved that trying not to think about someone or something almost confirms that we’ll think about it.  It may seem contradictory, but in reality, it makes sense. When you avoid some thought, your brain works to keep that thought away, but at the same time, the other part of the brain keeps checking to ensure that the job is being done correctly. Unintentionally, this checking process puts attention towards the undesirable thoughts, and makes you more susceptible to the ideas you are escaping from. The interfering and disturbing thoughts you may undergo during the day or at bedtime, shows the distressing fact that numerous functions of our mind are not under our conscious control. Whether we keep proper control over our thoughts is a crucial consideration of free will. Even our thoughtful choices and judgments are not completely under control. Our consciousness only controls the start and the end of the objective, but hands over the implementation process to the unconscious mental process. Now, perhaps you have concluded that you cannot completely control your thoughts and feelings. But you don’t have to worry about it, as you are not alone, none of us can control our thoughts completely. The realisation that you can’t actually control your thoughts, can leave you feeling hollow and weird. The perception that your thoughts don’t belong to you or you can’t control them, can actually guide you towards a healthier, happier, and more aware way of life.   By learning that, you cannot control your thoughts, you can let them grow and when they arise, just see them from a different perspective. This is the exact meaning of mindfulness i.e. experiencing our feelings and thoughts with more precision and clarity instead of accepting them as outs without any question; therefore you can choose which one to trail and identify yourselves only with those! * The author is a consultant in Public Relations and Personality Types. Instagram: @Tipsbyhalahill

This week I am writing to you from the Algarve, Portugal. The beautiful Atlantic Ocean with its stunning shades of blues and greens is exactly what my body has been craving after a very difficult and challenging year both emotionally and physically. The idea of being immersed in nature to improve health and well-being is not a new one, many years ago the Greeks evolved a healing therapy called the ‘water cure’. This was made up of a number of therapies, including hydrotherapy.  Immersion in nature plays an important role in therapy, from holistic perspective, literally being submerged in the ocean plays a particularly powerful role, it gives a sense of newness, freshness and the feeling of starting over. While I have been here, I have been forming a connection with the sea through the power of visualisation with beach meditation and yoga, it seems to be the perfect way to relax the mind and reduce stress.  The ocean provides perspective in a way that nothing else in nature therapy can. It is constantly changing and shifting right before our eyes, which is engaging from both a physical and psychological perspective. It forces us to learn to quickly adapt and take in new information as the environment changes before us. The ocean bombards us with multi-sensory stimulation, we feel the grains of sand, we taste and smell the salt, the wind rushes over our face and body, we hear the waves break and move and feel the water on our skin. It is complete sensory immersion leaving us with no choice but to remain in the present. I hope this summer you can use the ocean to heal you (if you need it) or just to give you a sense of wellbeing. If you are not travelling this summer, we have beautiful beaches in Qatar that are now open to the public again. *The author is a consultant and coach. Instagram handle: @miss_shefa,  Website: missshefa.com

Do you cook at home? If yes, then that’s amazing, but if no, why not? Cooking at home is healthier and can also be cheaper, but the hardest part is actually doing it. One thing you really have to understand is that no matter how ‘healthy’ a restaurant may be or how ‘clean’ a packaged good might claim to be, it will never be as clean and healthy as food is when cooked at home. Commercial products and places use so much oil, fat, salt and sugar to sell their food that you can easily cut out all those extra calories and unhealthy ingredients. So how do you start? It all starts with grocery shopping. You might think you do not have the time but you can make the time. If you really can’t find the time to get your ingredients then you can easily order online and get the groceries delivered straight to your door. So there are no excuses, you can easily take the first step and get the necessary foods items. If you think about it, cooking is a habit and you have to put in as much effort as any other habit you have achieved, therefore, look at it like a fitness class you schedule or when you set aside a few hours to watch your favourite show. You can set aside one hour a week to get your groceries for that week. There are no excuses, if you want to make it happen, you can, you just have to be committed to start cooking and reaping the benefits. Then comes figuring out your basic kitchen necessities. This is your homework, you have to figure out the easy items you can keep in your kitchen for those last-minute meals and/or cravings. For example, you know you will need olive oil and spices to prepare basic meals. Opting for long-lasting carbs such as brown rice or grains and seeds such as quinoa and lentils are great to have in stock. Don’t forget your frozen protein such as chicken breasts that you can easily defrost and turn into a great meal. Keep simple, easy-to-make food items around your kitchen to keep you from making excuses and preventing you from being the best you. Once you have finalised your kitchen essentials, start planning and writing down your food choices for the week ahead. Before you shop for your groceries, you have to somewhat plan, but be realistic and just list the items that you know you will feel comfortable cooking and eating. Don’t forget that you might already have some stuff in your kitchen so make sure to incorporate as much as you can so you do not let things expire and go to waste. Also think of meals that have similar bases and toppings as you can use leftovers for the next day’s meal. To start, it is critical to look for meals that you love and that you can make with one pot or pan. When it comes to cooking, efficiency is the key. You need to cut out all the excuses so look for meals that don’t take too much of your time at first or you risk the chance of feeling overwhelmed. Remember, you can make a week’s worth of one meal (if you don’t get bored) and you can even freeze certain foods so you can enjoy another time. This goes back to the suggestion above where you can use the same base of your meal twice. For example, you might enjoy black rice with salmon one day but then use the leftover black rice with a homemade poke bowl the next day. There are even apps that help you by providing you a grocery list corresponding to the meals you choose. Most importantly, start cooking once a week then start gradually increasing the frequency the more you feel comfortable. Enjoy the fruits of your success by sharing your meal with others and even better, giving away the leftovers to those in need like your neighbours who are still struggling with cooking or maybe the security guards in your compound who literally have no time to make their own food as they are taking care of your community. Cooking and food are beautiful experiences and are made to be shared with others. Lastly, look for ways to motivate yourself like putting on your favourite songs and dancing as you cook or inviting friends or family over and making it a social even. Who said cooking couldn’t be fun? So gather your ingredients, friends and family and get cooking! *The author is a wellness advocate and influencer @keys2balance.

Veganism isn’t only making a breakthrough on our eating habits; it’s also turning heads in the luxury fashion world. According to fashion intelligence company Edgeexpo, the global fashion industry is expected to be worth $3.3 billion by 2030. The other side of the story? It’s also the second biggest polluter in the world, generating over 15.1 million tons of textile waste annually. The clothes we wear contribute to 20% of the greenhouse gas emissions from industries. There’s not much time to change our ways, either, because climate change is not a distant threat – it’s looming on the horizon, threatening to create a world our children can’t live in. We’re likely to reach near-catastrophic levels of global warming by 2040, according to a report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel. There is positive news, however: designers around the globe adopting sustainable alternatives, luxury vegan fashion is becoming increasingly popular. This adoption is beneficial as a long-term investment in our environment while also providing ethically sourced items. Thanks to the creativity of the sector, vegan fashion has transformed into a luxury enterprise using better materials – not just vegan leathers made from plastics – without compromising the quality or design. Designer brands – many of which are incredibly popular here in the Middle East – have an opportunity to change the way we shop and shape a consumer future that’s more ethical, more sustainable, and in line with the growing worldwide trend of veganism.  Of all the luxurious vegan fashion brands, Stella McCartney’s pledge to vegan fashion is probably the best known, since Stella was one of the original designers to insist on vegan ethics in her creations. McCartney strives to ensure that her entire production process for every item is as transparent and sustainable as can be, including using vegan leather.  Vegan leather is often made from polyurethane, a polymer that can be made to order. It can also be made from innovative and sustainable materials such as pineapple leaves, cork, apple peels, other fruit waste, and recycled plastic and used to create products that put animal skins to shame. Stella McCartney is on the growing list of designers who feature only vegan leather in their collections. While she has admitted that her brand isn’t perfect and has work to do, McCartney has made steps towards making her line kinder to the planet, animals, and people.  Sustainable fashion is a broad term. It is about more than simply using fabrics that are environmentally friendly, covering all areas of fashion. For example, McCartney doesn’t use glue, as it is derived from animal and fish bones, and she ditched PVC after learning that the chemicals involved in the manufacturing process can be harmful for workers health. She has also been involved in the development of eco-friendly alternatives to fabrics like viscose and silk. “Fashion feels like it is finally waking up to the fact that it is one of the most harmful industries environmentally,” McCartney she said. “Let’s hope it isn’t a trend and here to stay!” The author is an expert in vegan wellbeing and health. Instagram handle: @Ghanim92 

As airports around the world restart operations, providing important connectivity and essential operations, their primary focus is on protecting the health and welfare of passengers and staff, as well as to minimise the opportunities for dissemination of coronavirus disease. The entire aviation ecosystem is adjusting to the complexities of the ‘new normal’ and responding to the needs and expectations of passengers is crucial in rebuilding confidence that air travel is safe. It won’t be erroneous to say that aviation will be a key engine driving the long-term global economic recovery from the effects of Covid-19.  As the cases of coronavirus spiked up in Qatar, various technologies and preventive measures were put into place to curb the spread of the virus, including mandatory wearing of masks, Ehteraz application for contact tracing, social distancing and mandatory temperature checking at all entry points of any building or work place by hand held devices. The hand held devices are the most affordable option available in the market, but not with the most accurate results. This isn’t the first time thermal scanning is being used to screen higher body temperature related to infections that can cause an epidemic. During the 2002-03 outbreak of Sars virus, airports in Singapore and China deployed them and have been using them since. Similarly, here at home, Bayanat Engineering Qatar had it first installation of Cantronic body temperature scanner in August 2017 in Hamad International Airport, which was during the Swine flu and Ebola pandemic, for various reasons, including the level of accuracy, convenience, and efficiency.  Comparing to the hand-held thermometers, that can only scan one person at the time  — scanners that are well in use now, can scan hundreds of people per minute. In addition to that, the storing mistakes and battery levels affect the performance of the hand held monitors. Human factor also plays a big role — with the scanning system — even if the dedicated person is not at his post, the scanner creates a sound and a visual notification (with the picture of the person with higher temperature), which can help to decrease the possibility of mistakes is shared with the authorities. Furthermore, scanners have the possibility to integrate with third-party health monitoring systems/software’s (for example Ehteraz) which can be beneficial for the various sectors.  All live objects emit infrared energy or heat. Unlike regular cameras that record light reflected by objects, thermal cameras use heat sensors that can record heat generated by the body of a person or an object to create a 2D image with differing temperature levels. When a person stands before the cameras, on the computer screens the hotter objects are highlighted with a different colour palette than the rest. These cameras can be calibrated to detect abnormal body temperatures. Every pixel of the image has a temperature associated with it, so a higher resolution camera scan offers more detailed images. Speaking to Community about the Cantronics body scanner at HIA, Zameer Basha Shaik, Project Manager at Bayanat Engineering, said, “ I feel that the Cantronics body scanners are very accurate, reliable and user-friendly, especially at enormous crowd monitoring in the public areas. It’s a bit challenging during a busy time slot to monitor each person without disturbing their movement. With Cantronics, we can overcome all those issues. I say it is the industry best system and adopted by one of the best organisations.”  Hassan Ezzeddine, General Manager at BEQ, added, “Bayanat Engineering Qatar continues to improve the safety measures at Hamad International Airport and Qatar. Body temperature measurement systems reduce the human and technical error with the level of accuracy up to 99.99%. The systems already have been implemented in various institutions including the airport, along with oil and gas, government, semi-governments and private sectors across Qatar.”

The first call in early April was from the testing centre, informing the nurse she was positive for Covid-19 and should quarantine for two weeks. The second call, less than 20 minutes later, was from her employer, as the hospital informed her she could return to her job within two days. “I slept 20 hours a day,” said the nurse, who works at a hospital in New Jersey’s Hackensack Meridian Health system and spoke on the condition of anonymity because she is fearful of retaliation by her employer. Though she didn’t have a fever, “I was throwing up. I was coughing. I had all the G.I. symptoms you can get,” referring to gastrointestinal Covid-19 symptoms like diarrhoea and nausea. “You’re telling me, because I don’t have a fever, that you think it’s safe for me to go take care of patients?” the nurse said. “And they told me yes.” Guidance from public health experts has evolved as they have learned more about the coronavirus, but one message has remained consistent: If you feel sick, stay home. Yet hospitals, clinics and other healthcare facilities have flouted that simple guidance, pressuring workers who contract Covid-19 to return to work sooner than public health standards suggest it’s safe for them, their colleagues or their patients. Some employers have failed to provide adequate paid leave, if any at all, so employees felt they had to return to work — even with coughs and possibly infectious — rather than forfeit the paycheck they need to feed their families. Unprepared for the pandemic, many hospitals found themselves short-staffed, struggling to find enough caregivers to treat the onslaught of sick patients. That desperate need dovetailed with a deeply entrenched culture in medicine of “presenteeism.” Front-line healthcare workers, in particular, follow a brutal ethos of being tough enough to work even when ill under the notion that other “people are sicker,” said Andra Blomkalns, who chairs the emergency medicine department at Stanford University. In a survey of nearly 1,200 health workers who are members of Health Professionals and Allied Employees Union, roughly a third of those who said they had gotten sick responded that they had to return to work while symptomatic. That pressure not only stresses hospital employees as they are forced to choose between their paychecks and their health or that of their families. The consequences are starker still: An investigation by KHN and The Guardian has identified at least 875 front-line health workers who have died of Covid-19, likely exposed to the virus at work during the pandemic. But the dilemma also strains health workers’ sense of professional responsibility, knowing they may become vectors spreading infectious diseases to the patients they’re meant to heal. A database of Covid-19-related complaints made to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration this spring hints at the scope of the problem: a primary care facility in Illinois where symptomatic, Covid-19-positive employees were required to work; a respiratory clinic in North Carolina where Covid-19-positive employees were told they would be fired if they stayed home; a veterans hospital in Massachusetts where employees were returning to work sick because they weren’t getting paid otherwise. “What we learned in this pandemic was employees felt disposable,” said Debbie White, a registered nurse and president of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees Union. “Employers didn’t protect them, and they felt like a commodity.” Indeed, the pressure likely has been even worse than usual during the pandemic because hospitals have lacked backup staffing to deal with high rates of absenteeism caused by a highly infectious and serious virus. Hospitals do not staff for pandemics because in normal times “the cost of maintaining the personnel, the equipment, for something that may never happen” was hard to justify against more certain needs, said Dr Marsha Rappley, who recently retired as chief executive of the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System in Richmond. That has left many hospitals scrambling to find skilled staff to tend to waves of patients with Covid-19. The nurse from Hackensack Meridian, the largest hospital chain in New Jersey, told the hospital’s occupational health and safety office that she could not return to work, citing a doctor’s instructions to isolate herself. No threat to fire her was made, she said. But in daily calls from work, she was reminded her colleagues were short-staffed and “suffering.” She also discovered her employer had revoked most of the paid time off she believed she had accumulated. White said Hackensack Meridian had conducted what it described as a “payroll adjustment” in March and taken leave from many of its employees without explaining its calculations. A statement provided by a Hackensack Meridian spokesperson, Mary Jo Layton, said the system’s occupational health office “has followed the CDC recommendations as it relates to the evaluation, testing and clearance of team members following infection with Covid-19.” Hackensack Meridian adjusted some employees’ leave to correct a technical issue that prevented leave from being counted as it was taken, it said, adding workers were provided “an individual PTO reconciliation statement.” “No team members were shorted any PTO that they rightfully earned,” Hackensack Meridian’s statement said. Federal officials acknowledge that staffing shortages may require sick health care workers to return to work before they recover from Covid-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even has strategies for it. The CDC website lists mitigation options for short-staffed facilities, some of which have been implemented widely, such as cancelling elective procedures and offering housing to workers who live with high-risk individuals. But it acknowledges these strategies may not be enough. When all other options are exhausted, the CDC website says, workers who are suspected or confirmed to have Covid-19 (and “who are well enough to work”) can care for patients who are not severely immunocompromised — first for those who are also confirmed to have Covid-19, then those with suspected cases.  “As a last resort,” the website says, healthcare workers confirmed to have Covid-19 may provide care to patients who do not have the virus. Like soldiers on the battlefield, Rappley said, front-line workers have been absorbing the consequences of that lack of preparedness on an institutional and societal level. “This will leave scars for many generations to come,” she said. Shenetta White-Ballard carried an oxygen canister in a backpack at work. A nurse at Legacy Nursing and Rehabilitation of Port Allen in Louisiana, she needed the help to breathe after battling a serious respiratory infection two years earlier. When Covid-19 began to spread, she showed up for work. Her husband, Eddie Ballard, said his paycheck from Walmart was not enough to support their family. “She kept bringing up, she gotta pay the bills,” he said. White-Ballard died May 1 at age 44. Legacy Nursing and Rehabilitation did not respond to requests for comment. Ballard said his wife’s employer offered no support for him and their 14-year-old son after her sudden death. “Only thing they said was, ‘Come pick up her last check,’” he said. Liz Stokes, director of the American Nurses Association’s Center for Ethics and Human Rights, said immunocompromised workers, in particular, have faced difficult decisions during the pandemic — sometimes made more difficult by pressure from employers. Stokes recounted the experience of a surgical nurse in Washington with Crohn’s disease who took a temporary leave at her doctor’s recommendation but was pressured by her bosses and co-workers to return. “She really expressed severe guilt because she felt like she was abandoning her duties as a nurse,” she said. “She felt like she was abandoning her colleagues, her patients.” Residents, or doctors in training, are among the most vulnerable, as they work on inflexible, tightly packed schedules often assisting in the front-line care of dozens of patients each day. Not long after one of New York City’s first confirmed Covid-19 patients was admitted to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Lauren Schleimer, a first-year surgical resident, reported she had developed a sore throat and a cough. Because she had not been exposed to that patient, she was told she could keep working and to wear a mask if she was coughing. Her symptoms subsided. But a couple of weeks later, as cases surged and ventilators grew scarce, she was working in a Covid-19-only intensive care unit when her symptoms returned, worse than before. The hospital instructed her to stay home for seven days, as health officials were recommending at the time. She was never tested. A NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital spokesperson said of its front-line workers: “We have been constantly working to give them the support and resources they need to fight for every life while protecting their own health and safety, in accordance with New York State Department of Health and CDC guidelines.” Schleimer returned to the ICU symptom-free at the end of her quarantine, caring for patients fighting the same virus she suspects she had. While she never felt that sick, she worried she could infect someone else — an immunocompromised nurse, a doctor whose age put him at risk, a colleague with a new baby at home. “This was not the kind of thing I would stay home for,” Schleimer said. “But I definitely had some symptoms, and I was just trying to do the right thing.”                            — Kaiser Health News

Veronica Alexander came to physical therapy in a wheelchair on a recent afternoon wearing a bright red dress and a blue mask that covered the oxygen tube she still needed nearly two months after her coronavirus symptoms began in June. She didn’t remember the month she spent in Temple University Hospital, where she was on a ventilator for weeks. After that, she needed a month of therapy at PowerBack Rehabilitation in Center City before she could go home. Her physical therapist, Tram Tran, started with the toughest exercise: climbing a portable staircase with three stairs. When she arrived at PowerBack, Alexander, 61, could stand for only three seconds before her legs buckled and she collapsed in a chair. On this August day, with Tran near for support, she walked to the stairs, climbed one at a time as instructed and returned to the chair. That was enough to make Alexander’s heart rate shoot to 135 beats per minute, what many people would see after a jog. Normal is 60 to 100, Tran said. Her blood oxygen, meanwhile, had plummeted to 80. Anything below 90 is too low. The numbers rose and fell again and again as Alexander tossed a ball to Emily Trott, a rehabilitation technician, and walked about 50 feet a couple times. This was an achievement for a woman who arrived terrified that she might never walk again. She still wonders if she’ll be able to use her hands and arms normally someday. Her shoulders were injured while she lay on her stomach in the intensive care unit, a process called proning that improves breathing in Covid-19 patients. Alexander, who was disabled by arthritis before she got sick, was only a few days from returning to her North Philadelphia apartment, but she was nowhere near her pre-Covid-19 self. No-one knows whether she ever will be. “I think that most people kind of understand that this is a brand new illness, a brand new phenomenon, that we’re dealing with, and we’re just doing the best that we can,” said Jason Pan, a Penn Medicine physiatrist, a doctor who specialises in rehabilitation. Penn recently created a clinic for Covid-19 patients who need post-hospital follow-up. He said patients will probably make most of their gains in the first year after their illness, but he can’t tell them how much they’re likely to recover. Videos of joyful sendoffs as Covid-19 survivors leave hospitals are a staple of TV news and social media. But they don’t hint at what comes next. “There’s a great deal of celebration that occurs when people are leaving the hospital, and for good reason, but the journey to recovery still has a long way to go,” said Reg Blaber, chief clinical officer for Virtua Health. “This virus is just so evil. It wreaks so much havoc.” Long before Covid-19, doctors knew that patients who needed intensive care were at high risk for long-term physical, cognitive and mental health problems, a condition that was named post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) in 2012. Survivors of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a severe form of lung infection that is often the reason people with diseases like Covid-19 need a ventilator, were especially likely to struggle. Dale Needham, a critical care physician at Johns Hopkins University, has been studying how patients fare after ICU stays and ARDS for more than 17 years. Up to 70% of ARDS patients, he said, still have severe fatigue six months to a year after hospital discharge. A year after an ICU stay, a third of people who were working before they got sick are jobless. Joint problems and muscle weakness can last for months or years. A third of survivors of respiratory failure or shock have cognitive impairment a year later. Anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are common years later in people who’ve had an ICU stay regardless of how sick they were. Surprisingly, chronic lung problems have not been an issue in past ICU survivors. “Patients come into the ICU for ‘lung failure’ but go home with long-lasting problems with their thinking, their mood and their muscles,” Needham said. “These problems can be less obvious as a consequence of ARDS and get easily overlooked.” The coronavirus, Needham said, has led to a huge increase in ARDS, so some health professionals are seeing such patients for the first time. They may not know, for example, that hair loss is a common reaction to the physical stress of severe illness, or that steep changes in heart rate and oxygen levels with minimal activity occurred in ARDS patients before the coronavirus. But coronavirus patients could be worse off than others with PICS. Many had especially severe lung complications and spent an unusually long time on ventilators, heavily sedated and immobilised. Unlike typical ARDS patients, fear of contagion deprived them of physical therapy in the hospital and even family visits, which often calm and motivate patients, Needham said. Doctors are also seeing what some have dubbed “long haulers,” patients whose symptoms persist even after relatively minor illness. Mount Sinai Hospital in New York opened a clinic for such patients. Most were never hospitalised, yet are still dealing with shortness of breath, chest pain, weakness, fatigue and difficulty concentrating, said Zijian Chen, an endocrinologist who is the clinic’s medical director. In some cases, imaging and blood tests tell doctors the patients have organic damage. In others, there is no explanation yet for the lasting symptoms. Acute rehabilitation facilities like PowerBack, Magee Rehabilitation Hospital and MossRehab at Elkins Park opened units specifically for Covid-19 patients who couldn’t leave the hospital for home. Therapists and doctors said these patients are sicker and stay longer than similar patients they saw before Covid. Some patients still test positive when they arrive and must be treated very carefully to keep staff safe. Many receive therapy in their rooms, which calls for portable equipment and creativity. Some patients have arrived with unusual pressure ulcers on their faces and knees as a result of proning. One doctor had a patient who needed plastic surgery. Some have survived clots in their lungs or other organs. Amputations are a hazard of serious Covid-19. Therapists and doctors have been struck by how many coronavirus survivors have trouble with memory or organisational ability. Brian Kucer, a Magee physiatrist, said patients often feel foggy and overwhelmed. “It’s not particularly different from how people feel after having a concussion,” he said. Emotional problems are common. “One thing that stands out is they’re all depressed,” said Paula Bonsall, a Magee occupational therapist. “They’re all isolated, and they’re all anxious.” The first rehab priority, though, is usually muscle weakness and endurance. Some new patients can’t sit on the edge of a bed for more than 30 seconds. Norma Sampson, 77, who stayed at PowerBack from April 23 to June 12, discovered that she couldn’t move a blanket from her lap to the foot of the bed. “It seemed so heavy,” she said. Kucer said he’s seen patients who were so exhausted after putting on a shirt that they needed to sleep the rest of the day. This weakness largely stems from weeks of lying in bed. Patients can lose up to half their muscle mass, Kucer said, adding that doctors estimate that patients need three or four days of therapy for every day of bed rest. Therapists have to very slowly help patients build muscle strength while monitoring heart rates and oxygen frequently. The goal often is making patients strong enough to walk, sit on a toilet and climb stairs when they go home. Wearing protective gear makes it harder for therapists to form a strong bond. Hallie Zeleznik, a physical therapist at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, has learned to talk more. “I know you can’t tell, but I am smiling so big for you now,” she’ll say, “or I know you can’t tell, but I am so sorry you’re feeling this way.” Doctors and therapists are confident that many patients will return to normal. “I think a lot of them are going to get close enough to where they don’t notice a huge difference,” Kucer said. Robert Andersen, 66, who lives in ManorCare Health Services in Montgomeryville, got treatment there when he had Covid-19. When he started therapy there in April he had trouble going from his bed to a chair and his balance was off. He had lung disease and had had a stroke before he got the coronavirus. By late July, he felt normal even though he was still easily winded, possibly because of the earlier lung damage. The illness itself felt unreal. “Sometime it feels like getting Covid, it’s like a bad dream almost,” he said. Norma Sampson, who spent a month at Thomas Jefferson University with Covid-19 that led to a mild stroke, insisted on walking the two blocks home when she left PowerBack in June. Members of her therapy team accompanied her. She made it — with four rest stops. She was plagued by “really dark” dreams for weeks, but is doing well now, even doing her own grocery shopping. She recently walked 10 blocks from her doctor’s office to her apartment. “I’m close to 100% now, I think,” she said. “Believe me, it was a long road.” Virginia Hamilton, 63, of West Oak Lane, said she spent four or five days on a ventilator at Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia before transferring to MossRehab for 16 days. She needed help walking and her voice was “fuzzy” and “squeaky” from the breathing tube. She got speech therapy and used bikes that strengthened her arms and legs. By June 2, she was back at work as a peer counsellor at Friends Hospital, a job that requires a lot of walking. She’s riding the bus again and caring for her father, who has dementia. She still coughs occasionally, but feels normal. And very grateful. “It’s like I got a renewed lift on life, a second chance, you could say,” she said. Alexander, who was on disability before she got sick but could walk two blocks on her own with a cane, is in the early days of recovery. Once she started breathing on her own, she realised how weak she was. “I was devastated, because I thought I would never walk,” she said. Tran saw how anxious her new patient was. “I just looked at her and I said, ‘You will be able to walk again. Trust me.’” The next week, Alexander walked 25 feet across the room while Tran followed behind with her wheelchair. They both cried, although Tran hid her tears because she thought they were unprofessional. “I thank God and I thank Tram. I get emotional about it,” Alexander said. She is still upset that all her efforts to avoid the virus failed. “I realise now nobody is safe.” She is still worried about her arms. She can’t use her right hand and four fingers on the left are numb. A doctor told her that surgery could help. “I might not never get the strength back in my arm,” she said, “but I thank God that I’m still here.” Tran doesn’t know how her patients will feel in a year or two, but Alexander’s progress makes her feel good. “It’s very rewarding as a therapist,” she said, “just seeing her ability to hope again.”  – The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

We all agree that respect is earned and never given. This has made it harder for people to respect one another. Earning respect is about sticking to your convictions and making the best possible decisions.  One may ask how then do I earn respect? Many articles have been written in the past about what should be done to earn respect. Many of the points though crisscross between respect and being liked. Truth be told, there is a big difference between being liked and being respected. Ideally if you gained respect then you’ll have both.  If you respect other people, they’ll be more inclined to respect you, and so on. A lot of importance is placed on treating everyone with equal respect, whether they’re above or below you in the corporate hierarchy or social class. Here is what you need to do in order to earn respect: 1. Avoid excuses and be ready to change You do not need to be giving excuses, because we all know actions are based on our choices and they have consequences. Be ready to accept that you have done or said something wrong, but you believe things will get better and that you are working to ensure that everything works out best for you.  Accept that you made a mistake and find a better way to do things better. Being stubborn won’t get you anywhere. 2. Kindness is your pillar One great way to get respect is to ensure that you are polite to everyone, kindness is the pillar between you and your children, your spouse, or co-workers. All of them and I mean everyone should be treated well with utmost care as a way to earn respect from others. This might sound easier said than done, but if you want to be respected then that is the first step. You will get the same respect you give to others and politeness is the key to this fate. Be kind enough to check on who is behind you, smile and be thankful at all times. 3. Listen well to every conversation Listening is important. If you want to earn respect, treat listening as an active act rather than a passive one, that has long been forgotten. As you listen, participate by actively and keenly listening to what other people are talking about. Be brave enough to crush your own opinions and beliefs and focus on what is at hand. Practice effective listening skills and you will earn your full deserved respect. Trust me it will go overboard. 4. Act respectfully at all times. Many people are against one or two behaviours, a good example of some of these behaviours is rolling one’s eyes, being on your cell phone for long, etc. Such behaviour push people away from you. They are bound to make negative judgements and draw conclusions that are unfounded or unreal.  Then what do you need to do?  It is pretty simple, create a good environment of respectful listening, concentrate and maintain eye contact at all times during a conversation. 5. Are you useful? If not try to be One way of earning respect is by being ready to take a useful step in other people’s lives, when in need or when you see an opportunity to help. As a person, one faces many different situations that will let one need to lend a hand. Stand up to the occasion and find opportunities that you may have previously overlooked. Go out and be useful, don’t wait until someone reaches out to you. Be helpful at all times. All in all, to earn respect you need to respect others too. Step out and try the above-mentioned points and you will earn the respect you are longing for! * The author is a consultant in Public Relations and Personality Types. Instagram: @Tipsbyhalahill

Challenging times can play havoc with our emotions, but creating a strategy that works for you can guide you through any crisis. As a life coach I have witnessed my clients suffering in many ways and of course I have also been through my own crises.  These are a few strategies that I use. These principles have helped me steady my nerves and guide me through chaos, I use them in times of fear and uncertainty and hope they can help you navigate life’s inevitable rocky patches too.  Don’t be afraid of your thoughts — we all have trains of thoughts, but if we board a scary one, we will travel to a frightening place in the past or the future. It’s usually my thoughts about my thoughts that get me into trouble. Feeling frightened simply means I am having some not very nice thoughts, the more I see that I am creating my own experience the faster I begin to unwind from the drama and come back to reality. From that calmer place I usually know the right thing to do.  Worrying won’t make the problem go away — when our minds are full of worry, we have no space to see the situation clearly. We may think we want to stop but subconsciously we have learnt to see worry as beneficial.  When we understand what worry is (anxious thinking rather than important information about our future) we can find the courage to leave it alone. With a clearer mind we can find solutions to the challenges we are facing.  We all what to feel in control, somehow it makes us feel safer. No one knows what’s going to happen, we just live in the illusion that we think we do.  We like what’s familiar, but we learn from what’s new. Adversity creates new perspectives, different priorities a deeper appreciation of life and most importantly a trust in ourselves that we can handle this disordered uncertain world. We have all had experiences when we have had to rise to the occasion, and these times allow us to see how strong we are and even in the worst circumstances we have the capacity to find something good.   * The author is a consultant and coach. Instagram handle: @miss_shefa,  Website: missshefa.com

Juicing is very popular and what has become more popular is the juice cleanse diet or as some call it, detoxing. When this new healthy trend came out years ago, I went straight to it and gave it a try before actually researching the pros and cons and confirming the strongly marketed benefits. I tried a three-day juice cleanse that was supposed to do a quick reboot for my system with the potential effects of detoxing my body, increasing my energy and possibly losing fat and improving my overall health. I didn’t struggle that much and thought it was a smart way to refresh my overall well-being. The only thing is, I didn’t know of its highly potential risks or the best way to use juice and gain the claimed benefits. There are a variety of juice cleanses that includes fruits, veggies and other ingredients such as spices, superfood powders, seeds and non-dairy milk. Some encourage on making pressed juice and some ask you to blend to make smoothies. This is the critical part, experts say that juiced cleanses are potentially harmful as they are full of sugar and have no fibre. Fibre is what actually helps your body cleanse itself and detox. Fibre also controls your appetite which is critical if you do want to lose some weight. Yes, it is true that drinking fresh fruit juice does wonders for your body, but of course, when it is full of pulp, fibre and good enzymes only — drinking juice does support and aid digestion. Blending your juice does not contain as much sugar or have as much roots and leaves. This fibre is needed to make a nutrient dense smoothie and to also make you feel more satiated, meaning it reduces hunger. Juicing might help you lose fast weight either through decreasing water retention, bloating and/or getting rid of fast calories, but once you stop, it is highly probable that you will gain it back and faster than expected.  Another big factor of juicing is the freshness of the juice or smoothie. When you buy store bought blends you are buying mass-produced and fruitier versions rather than vegetable-rich ones due to the pasteurisation process. The fresher the better, so do not be incentivised to buy the easy way out as it is not necessarily the best for you. A big issue for me is that there are limited studies around the actual benefits of juice cleanses and if they are actually safe. A huge problem with juicing is that they lack vital proteins, essential fats and numerous vitamins and could be dangerous for those who have health problems. Another important side effect to note is the unpleasant feeling of most common symptoms such as dizziness, constipation, diarrhoea and nausea. Not getting the fibre needed to help slow down the entrance of sugar into your blood stream, you are most likely going to feel changes in your energy and mood levels. Another symptom might be dry skin. Your body needs amino acids for it to detox, if you aren’t getting them through food, it is low when it comes to juice and smoothies. Therefore, juicing and blending are good components of a well-balanced diet as they help you increase your fruit and vegetables intake, therefore more of those nutrients supporting your overall health that you do not usually ingest. You can also add fish oil, lots of leafy greens, protein powder and grasses to increase the benefits. Just do not forget the best option of all, eating whole fruits and vegetable and foods that include those essential nutrients your body needs. In conclusion, juicing is not so beneficial for your health and has many risks, but if incorporated throughout and into a well-balanced diet you can reap many benefits. Remember, always do your research, do not be afraid to consult a physician and always be safe when it comes to anything you want to do, especially when it comes to your health. * The author is a wellness advocate and influencer @keys2balance.

Veganism is everywhere. It’s all over social media, we’re seeing an increase in vegan options in grocery store aisles, including here in Qatar, and more people in the last year have made the switch to veganism than ever before in history.  Whether people choose a plant-based diet to improve their health, save animals, play their part in protecting the environment, or just to know what they’re putting in their body is better than anything you’ll find in any other diet —  the very concept of veganism is now largely understood, and that’s a great thing. However, something no one talks about is the reasons why many vegan diets ultimately fail.  According to a recent study, of 11,400 U.S. adults, nearly three-quarters — 70% to be exact — of those who have tried a vegan diet end up abandoning it. The numbers are even higher for vegetarians. Alarmingly, the survey found that there were five times more ex-vegetarians/vegans than current vegetarians/vegans. Firstly, we must recognise that veganism isn’t a diet — it is a lifestyle. A diet is something you can go on and off for any given amount of time to achieve a short-term result.  A lifestyle includes diet with other aspects of your life into an ongoing, long-term goal.  While going vegan isn’t hard, going vegan for the wrong reason can definitely make it that way. The most important question you will ask yourself on your vegan journey: “Why do I want to go vegan?” A lack of nutritional or culinary knowledge and creativity is usually to blame for many reformed ‘vegans’ going back to eating meat, or dairy. Many people become overwhelmed by the learning curve and changes involved with a vegan lifestyle. At my vegan restaurant in The Pearl, the most common response I hear frequently from guests is their amazement at “this is a fully vegan dish?!” — revealing that many still consider the idea of vegan food to only be a lettuce and kale — a stereotype far from the truth!   One message that the vegan industry should be pushing is how new vegans discover the foods that make meals easy, pleasurable and varied. Helping people make a realistically paced transition is key as well. For me, I always tell people to start their journey to veganism by replacing an existing meal with one vegan meal every day. This means replacing your ordinary breakfast, lunch, or dinner with a vegan meal. If you’re able to stick to creating a dish that consists of plant-based foods that are organic (for extra goodness), that’s a bonus. Once you’re ready, ramp up your journey by replacing the second ordinary meal of your choice, with a vegan dish. Before you know it, two thirds of your daily meals will be vegan, which will set you on track for a stronger journey.  Managing temptation to consume snacks you are used to consuming is going to be a factor for anyone spending a lot of time at home, so try to make sure there is enough food, snacks, kale chips, nuts and seeds, healthy vegan crackers, hummus, peanut butter and apple slices, fruits to keep you going. Education is key – and falling off the horse doesn’t need to be an option if you’re committing to veganism for the right reasons, and then beginning your vegan journey in a way that best suits your individual needs, cravings, lifestyle and more.  We have to do better not just in convincing people to try veganism, but also in helping them stay vegan. Once you make the connection, you’ll stop looking for excuses to give up, and start finding reasons to keep going. There’s a reason vegans are more likely to do yoga regularly, or engage in activities like Pilates, or exercise routines: the stronger you are in body, mind, and spirit — the more likely you are to uphold a lifestyle you know is benefitting you in many ways.  As always, should you have any questions about your vegan journey…feel free to contact me via Instagram.  * The author is an expert in vegan wellbeing and health. Instagram handle: @Ghanim92 

Aim to hold poses for 10 seconds on each side of the body. Complete the sequence three times, breathing steadily throughout and exhaling deeply as you move between stretches. 1. Shoulders Stand in a relaxed position with feet shoulder-width apart. Put one arm out straight and pull it across your body with the other hand. Repeat on the other side. 2. Calf Step forward into back leg straight. Press against a wall to deepen the stretch. 3. Butterfly Sit on the floor and bend both knees, keeping feet together and back straight. Use your elbows to deepen the stretch. 4. Hamstring: Sit on the floor and put one leg straight out in front of you, with the other leg bent.  Lean forward and reach as far as you can. Repeat on the other side.

“You are what you eat is a term that I consider during food shopping trips, cooking and snacking. Fuelling your body with the best nutrition will contribute to your wellness, health and welfare”. Ceri Jones is a qualified nutritionist based in Doha with a BSc in Human Nutrition from London Metropolitan University, UK. As a committed sports person, she has always participated in different activities while growing up — playing netball, going to the gym, and participating in athletics. She soon realised that while training for sports that nutrition was an essential part of fuelling the body to replenish it and improve sports performance. Due to this new consideration, she decided to pursue a degree in nutrition. Talking to Community, the trained nutritionist shed some light on the kind of food people need to take and what to avoid during the hot and humid summer. Ceri primarily stresses on keeping oneself hydrated during the hot weather. “To keep yourself hydrated, aim to drink a minimum of two litres of water every day to ensure sufficient hydration especially when the temperature is above 30C. Those who most vulnerable during hot conditions are the elderly, people with conditions such as diabetes, young children and people working or exercising outdoors. “Our bodies sweat more in hot weather, it is really important to replenish lost water levels. Our physical thirst is not a very reliable indicator of how dehydrated we are [urine colour is better], so you should try to drink plenty before you feel parched. Try not to drink too much caffeine as they are diuretics that can increase dehydration. Foods with high water content such as strawberries, cucumber, lettuce, celery and melon can also help you stay hydrated. Consume these throughout the day or keep these kind of fruit snacks in your bag or take them with you to work so you can consume gradually throughout the day.” The nutritionist is all out for consuming a variety of food instead of sticking to some certain kind of stuff to remain healthy. “As a nutritionist, I am not an advocate of dieting, my passion is to help those to understand nutrition, and how to obtain healthy habits and long-term healthy lifestyle changes. I recommend consuming all of the macronutrients such as protein, carbohydrates and fat along with a range of fruits and vegetables. If you are a vegan or vegetarian, aim to consume lentils, chickpeas and oats for your protein alternatives. “For many years, carbohydrates and fat have received a lot of negative media in the UK but fats are essential for absorption of some of the essential vitamins – A, D, E, K – and carbohydrates are essential in providing energy for the body. Variety is very important. Aim to follow – the more colourful, the better – approach. Often consumers eat the same fruit and vegetables a day but for the best results, variety is essential as each will provide different nutritional properties in aiding the body so eating bananas for potassium, raspberries for vitamin C and carrots for vitamin A. I ensure to consume a minimum of five large pieces of fruit and vegetables per day, a minimum of 100g in each portion.” In response to a question on what kind of food intake is helpful for the residents of Qatar during the hot and humid weather, Ceri said: “I would highly recommend carrying a one-litre-bottle of water with if you can. And it may be useful to add cuts of fruits in the bottle such as lemon and oranges for your vitamin C, strawberries, and cucumber to increase your consumption of vitamins and minerals. “As a qualified nutritionist, I do not advise or consume any shop bought vitamins and minerals from large businesses but aim to obtain all my nutrients from whole foods and fluids. During hot and humid weather, aim to consume sources that have got vitamin C such as oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit each day.” For further support and guidance on how to adopt a healthy relationship with food: Contact Ceri on 50424263, email at [email protected] and follow her on Instagram: @mslightbrightlife 

Desperate to continue the tradition of a family beach week, I hatched a plan that would allow some mask- and sanitiser-enhanced semblance of normality. We hadn’t seen my two 20-something children in months. They’d spent the lockdown in Brooklyn; one of them most likely had the disease in late March, before testing was widely available. My mother had died of Covid-19 in May. So in July, I rented a cute house on the Delaware shore. It had a screened-in front porch and a little cottage out back, in case someone needed to quarantine. I asked my son, who had participated in several protests and had been at a small outdoor July 4 gathering, to get tested before he came. Testing had been recommended by the governor and the mayor, and many centres were offering an anticipated 48-hour turnaround. He got one and downloaded the app for results. And waited. And waited. And waited. For 12 days. Coronavirus testing in the United States has been bungled in every way imaginable. The latest fiasco is perhaps the most Kafkaesque: Tests are now widely available in many places, but results are often taking so long to come back that it is more or less pointless to get tested. If it takes up to two weeks to get results, we can’t detect brewing outbreaks and respond with targeted shutdowns. We can’t do meaningful contact tracing. We can’t expect people to stay home from work or school for two weeks while they wait for the result of a screen. We have no way to render early treatment and attention to those who test positive, to try to prevent serious illness. It’s a disaster. Many doctors can do a rapid strep test in half an hour, and the “slow” test takes a day. Imagine if it took 12 days before doctors knew whether to prescribe an antibiotic. You’d end up with more cases of meningitis, pneumonia and rheumatic fever. Strep could spread through families and schools like wildfire. One canon of medical practice is that you order a test only if you can act on the result. And with a turnaround time of a week or two, you cannot. What we have now is often not testing — it’s testing theatre. For months the hue and cry was about testing not being more widely available. Even many sick people couldn’t get one. The first tests proved faulty. Then good ones were not distributed to the hot spots. Then there were not enough swabs, personal protective equipment or ingredients like reagents needed to administer the tests. After all these missteps, the political pressure to provide widespread free testing was enormous. And with little help from the White House, many states turned somersaults and delivered. Voilà! But there was far less pressure to make sure that labs receiving the swabs had the capacity to process all those collected specimens. Now, in cities like New York and Washington and Los Angeles, there are dozens if not hundreds of clinics where anyone who wants a test can walk in and get the famous stick up your nose or some variant. Though the simple tests are by law “free” to patients, the clinics bill insurers (or the government) hefty fees — sometimes hundreds of dollars — for administering them. This gives clinics the incentive to throw open the doors and do as many tests as possible. Some hospitals, clinics and cities that run the specimens themselves or outsource to an array of different labs can deliver results in a timely fashion. State labs in Texas, which is experiencing a major outbreak, say their turnaround time is two to three days. But many results take far longer. LabCorp and Quest, the two biggest commercial labs, have both acknowledged sometimes long delays in processing the vastly increased volume of tests. Governors are furious. Governor Jared Polis of Colorado said that the nine days it sometimes took to get a result from these companies rendered them “almost useless.” A coronavirus test is not really a test if the result is too late to act on. So labs need to ramp up capacity, as they’ve vowed to do. More important, all those centres offering free testing need to take responsibility for delivering results within 48 or, maybe, 72 hours. That means contracting with labs that can guarantee turnaround. “Anyone who wants a test can get one” is a nice-sounding political promise, but it’s not helping anyone. Sick people need to know if they’re sick with the coronavirus. Those who have been seriously exposed need to know if they got it. And others will need tests to be cleared for work, school or a family visit with vulnerable relatives. This is how the coronavirus played out in my family’s vacation: While my son arrived on schedule, his test results did not. So he was consigned to the quarantine cottage. He wore a mask in the house and the car. We ate outdoors and he sat at the far end of a picnic table. We even squirted the ketchup on his burger for him, so that he wouldn’t have to touch the bottle. Each morning we checked the app, hoping for deliverance. It never came. Finally, 12 days after my son’s last potential exposure at the Independence Day picnic, I agreed he could take off the mask. He had no symptoms and at that point he was most likely no longer contagious, either way. We hugged and enjoyed our last two days of vacation. Then he returned to New York. The next morning, I got his text: “Test came back negative!”                                 — Kaiser Health News (KHN)

Hold the position for 30 seconds. Modified press-up: In a kneeling push-up position, make sure you keep head, neck and back in a straight line. Slowly bend elbows until your chest touches the floor. Pause before pushing up to starting position. Do not stick your bum out.