Typecast

We all know that sleeping well is essential; sleeping affects both your mental and physical health, and in turn affects the quality of your life. Research has shown that  disrupted sleep may be associated with a higher risk of early signs of Alzheimer’s disease .    A good night’s sleep can offer an energetic, productive, and positive day ahead, whereas a bad night’s sleep can have a very opposite effect.  It can also help  Here are some general tips on how you can improve your sleep, leading to a good night’s sleep much more often than not. Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash Stick to a schedule Ensuring that you try and go to sleep and wake up at the same time each day will help in setting your body’s internal clock. Regulating your internal body clock is much more important than you may believe – and yes, this applies at weekends too! The easiest way to start sticking to a schedule is to begin by starting an evening routine.  This will i...

I was writing monthly running updates for a while and have been documenting this year's attempt at 1000k-in-a-year on Instagram but things started to fall apart at the seams and I was struggling to find the words (other than an Instagram caption) to share positive updates. I've recently hit a new low with my arthritic knees but I'm on the way back up again so here's a quick recap and a look forward.  Racing We all know that I use the word "race" loosely but it's what the organisers call it so we go with the flow.  It might be easier if I bullet point the next bit because there's been a few... (click the links to see my Instagram update and extra images) Stanley Park 10k (25th February): a difficult race because I struggled all the way through with my breathing plus it was unusually HOT for February.  Rowena really encouraged me round the course, made me stick with the 65min pacer and I pushed on to the finish line for a PB of 1h4m21s....

It's been a while since I published a Soundtrack To My Life but this is the perfect opportunity for me to introduce you to an author I have just discovered - David Richards. Here's a bit of the backstory... Just before I went on a recent trip abroad, I followed a book recommendation from my running pal, Karen. I duly download three books written by a friend of hers because they were on offer at 99p each to my Kindle and immersed myself in them on holiday. They. Were. Brilliant! So I passed on the recommendation to my followers (an off-the-wall, slightly bonkers, Northern humour style of writing), tagged the author and he was kind enough to send me a copy of his latest book with a very lovely handwritten note on the dedication page.  Fast forward a couple of days and I asked David if he'd like to guest post for me at some point but then I remembered my much-loved Soundtrack To My Life series, blew the dust off the instructions and got David to play along. ...

Sleep... it's a sore subject in this house. The cause? My husband's snoring! One pillow, two pillows, on his back, on his side, using an anti-snore pillow, whatever. And he sleeps so deeply that he has no idea that he's doing it either. He protests by saying that I snore too but I know I don't... I'm too ladylike to snore. Cute little piggy grunts, maybe, but not loud enough to wake someone from their slumber and prevent them from nodding back off again. You would think I would be used surviving with no sleep. When my youngest child was born (and before was diagnosed with ADHD) his sleep pattern was very erratic.  He had already transitioned into a "big boy bed" which was inline with the research conducted on this survey with Happy Beds so keeping him in his own bed was a challenge. This went on for approximately two-and-a-half years. In fact, I was so adept at surviving of little or no sleep that I laughed at the idea of the reality TV Show, ...

When I found out that I had the opportunity to review the Cosori Air Fryer I immediately jumped on Facebook and asked my friends what I should make first.  The 100% response was CHIPS! I've never been able to understand how you can fry food without oil but was quite excited to try it out, especially because I'm following a Slimming World eating plan and I would normally have to "syn" fried foods.  However, (here comes the science bit...) the Cosori Air Fryer works by circulating hot air and a small amount of oil around the food at high speed and a high temperature to initiate the browning reaction achieved by frying.  Therefore, you can cook and brown foods such as the aforementioned chips, chicken, fish, steak, pastries and so much more. The Cosori Air Fryer has a new sleek design which has a quick-touch LED display that includes both preset and manual settings.  There is also a "shake" reminder alarm, a preheat setting and a keep warm se...

Over the past few years Google has updated the way in which it gathers and presents its search results. In short, 'white hat SEO' wins the day and that 'black hat SEO' users will be penalised and going back to basics is the order of the day. The big message is quality over quantity. You must be creating original content and you must create that content for the reader, not the search engine. If you are writing with SEO in mind, there has to be a purpose for the content. Also, related content should be kept to one page and even updated regularly. 'Long Tail SEO' should be a major consideration (people search for phrases or answers rather than keywords and voice search is becoming increasing popular too), Examples of posts that work for long tail SEO are articles that answer questions or 'How To...' posts. If you use Google Analytics to monitor your website activity then you may have noticed that keyword "(not provided)" has accumulated a hi...

When I was a teenager I had a greasy T-zone.  It wasn't too drastic but I think my love of pimple-popping started with the squeezing of the many blackheads that adorned my chin and sat in the crease of my nose. These days, my skin is a lot drier and is losing its elasticity and I'm loath to admit it, but I'm knocking on a bit now.  I'm hurtling towards the big 5-0 (it's only three years away... EEK) and I'm having to change a few steps in my beauty routine. Well, YOU might call it a routine, for me it's one of those "urgh, I've forgotten to take my make-up off properly - do I really have to do it before I go to bed" type things.  Laying A Foundation... I used to be a HUGE fan of mineral foundation and would use Bare Minerals Original Foundation or Magic Minerals by Jerome Alexander but I found that they were just sitting on my skin rather than evening it out it so I switched to the Bare Minerals BarePro liquid foundation  which...