We all have tinted lenses. We see the world through these lenses. These lenses influence our decisions every day. Every day we all need to make decisions about our health. We need to base these decisions on something. Decisions like what to eat, how much exercise to do, how much work to do, how much sleep is good, how much alcohol is healthy or at least non-detrimental? To answer such questions, we often find that the most attractive solutions are the ones that align with what we value. If we value our health then we look for ways that we...
To help understand modern medicine and medical thinking today, it can be insightful to consider medicine’s history. Summarising a long and complex history into one blog isn’t really possible, but can we look at a few important historical factors that are influential in today’s modern medical understanding. We can start around the renaissance period. This period marked the resurgence of Greek and Roman philosophy and thinking. Religious beliefs were in decline and growth occurred in the interest in observation, logic and measurement. Everything around us could be categorised, analysed and explained. This move led to great advances in the understanding...
Toughness: Being tough, fighting and battling for the team are often central parts of sporting cultures. But what does it really entail and why is it considered important? People often label footballers as ‘soft’ for rolling around on the floor, or screaming after impact in a match. Although it is fairly clear that the footballers are behaving in this way with the aim of manipulating the referring team rather than due to the amount of pain they have. Such behaviour has become socially acceptable in football and it is part of the tactics of the game. However, such behaviour wouldn’t...
The New Year is here, at the start of 2019 the days are already getting longer, we can look to the future again. Not uncommonly, after Christmas and New Year binges, we can look forward with the aim of improving our health. It is renowned that New Year’s resolutions fail. But why is it often so hard to make changes stick? It is tempting to think we are responsible for all our decisions, for every nuance of our health. It is tempting to think the same of others. But why, in an era of universal education where almost everyone knows...
Why is it that an individual would chose to partake in sport, in full knowledge that the process could lead to injuries that could have serious consequences for their wellbeing, or at worst give them lifelong issues such as brain damage or persistent pain? Can culture hold the key? When put like that it seems strange that so many people do partake in sports that contain high risks, and the same people return to such sports frequently after significant injuries. We have discussed before the lack of perspective that many athletes may need to have in order to pursue their...
Ahhh, the old Premier League manager merry-go round, struggling to keep track of who works where when the same old faces show up in new places? You may not be alone. The Premier League is once again in full swing and just as interesting as the results, it would seem, is the speculation around which manager will lose their job first. Before the poor fellow is even out of a job people are already excitedly debating who should replace them. It can’t have escaped the attention of anyone that Premier League football clubs replace their managers at an alarmingly high,...
How is it that some human beings can enter and run ultra-marathon races that last 6 whole days, where they run the majority of that time and some human beings suffer such ultra-intense back pain that they feel unable to move from the house or a chair for days perhaps weeks on end? The body’s physical tolerance has an enormous spectrum, using the example above we can see that some people believe their body capable tolerating great stress and some that it can tolerate very little. How can our bodies be accustomed to such a wide array of demands? Of...
“The media”, newspapers, radio, TV pundits, even bloggers are well known for analysing and often criticising sports teams and athletes. It is a cliché answer that sportspeople say they ignore the media, “just focus on what we do”. But is that really true? With social media abundant among sportspeople messages must get through. The question may therefore actually be how does it affect them- motivation or inhibition? The Italian football team, possibly missing out on the World cup finals for the first time in nearly 60 years have suffered a metaphorical battering from their media. They haven’t actually lost their...
Sporting heroes, people to be marked and remembered. Sometimes the athletes and sports people who are revered seem almost super human. It is likely that they are. The individuals who achieve the highest levels in sport clearly require certain characteristics, often extreme ones. One such essential characteristic is likely an intense inward focus, which may at times approach self-absorption. Two recent interviews provide a good example of the necessity of this characteristic. The England and Surrey cricketer Zafar Ansari recently retired from all cricket aged 25. Chris Froome just won his his 4th Tour De France. Their interviews give insight...
The illusion of meritocracy is all around, “work hard and you will achieve”, ”it doesn’t matter your background you can reach your goals”. This of course is partially true, but within most business, governments, and organisations there remains a dominance of white males. If the aim is the best results and meritocracy, surely the aim is to have the best people regardless of background. Sport may be ahead of the rest of society here. In sport the result really does count the most, for all of those involved. The sports club is orientated towards the result and its failure and...
