Life Updates

On the train to London on Wednesday was when my publisher called me and broke the news that

my book had hit the No 1 on The Sunday Times Bestsellers list.

That was my year already made. 2024 off to a great start!

So I’m off to Davos for the World Economic Forum next week and I have barely any “proper” winter clothes. Winter in the UK is all year round but it’s never Scandinavian levels of winter so looks like I’m going shopping for some snow-proof clothing this week…

Hustle Culture

I have a hard time savouring and enjoying victories and achievements.

It’s tempting with hustle culture to keep grinding out the next project, hit the next deadline, churn out the next milestone

but I’ll tell you from hard-earned experience that there is never any end to what you can achieve.

If you don’t enjoy one victory… the next 10 or even 100 will still feel like just another tick box and notch on your log.

I’ve gotten better at this over the years and now aim to sit down, let it all sink in.

Enjoying the process and progress is sometimes as sweet as the victory because the journey lasts longer than your stay at the destination.

What You Should Watch

“For All Mankind” – Apple TV

Now I don’t usually subscribe to Apple TV but I recently bought a new laptop and got a 3 month free trial and I stumbled upon this TV show and damn, am I hooked!

The premise revolves around an alternate timeline where in 1969 instead of Neil Armstrong and the Americans being the first to land on the moon.. it’s the Russian cosmonauts.

This twist in the timeline triggers a space race between the Russians and Americans which further technology and space travel at a rapid rate with the aim of reaching Mars. It’s in part drama, in part history and part sci-fi – the visual are stunning . Give it a watch!

How A Foetus Can Save Its Mother!

Fetal cell microchimerism.

This is a fancy way of explaining the presence of fetal stem cells being found in various places in the mother’s body often decades after pregnancy.

So in a strange sense, mothers still literally carry pieces of all their children inside them for all their lives.

These stem cells can help mothers heal from injuries.

Let me give you an example – in some rare cases a pregnant woman’s heart can start to fail in the peri-partum period (peripartum cardiomyopathy)…

but 50% of women recover from this spontaneously thanks to fetal stem cells that head on over to the mother’s heart and trigger a regeneration process.

Language Shapes Your Brain…

Before You Are Born!

The language that you heard in the womb had an impact on your linguistic ability before you were even born…

We already know that babies could hear by 24 to 28 weeks of gestation and it’s mainly the melody and rhythm of speech that are preserved,

and we know that by the time the baby is born the newborn prefers the sound of their mother's voice to other female voices.

Neuroscientists wanted to investigate how that baby picks up language so they got 33 newborns who were all between one and five days old, born to mothers who are native French speakers and they experimented by playing recordings of the Goldilocks and The Three Bears story which would have included languages they never heard in the womb and the French version.

The babies listening to the French version of the story had increased long range temporal correlation - this is associated with speech perception and processing.

They also found this strengthened the area of the brain associated with syllable levels speech units and the neural response was greatest when the babies heard French compared to when they heard other languages.

So, this tell us language experience and exposure shapes babies brains before they’re even born.

How I’m Going To Improve My Health This Year

I’m going to start making my own sourdough products. I’ve been dabbling with baking during the pandemic – bread, banana cake, apple pies but as someone who takes their gut health seriously..

I’d be remiss if I didn’t try to hone in on my sourdough bread making skills.

Sourdough bread is fermented and rich in fibre, keeping you full longer and is easier to digest as it’s lower in phytic acid.

Often store bought sourdough isn’t true sourdough..

Plus, anything homemade always tastes great

(most times)