WellBeing

shared adventures in extraordinary places

Abercrombie & Kent’s Small Group Journeys portfolio includes all the eternal luxury travel favourites — sub-Saharan African safari camps, Nile cruises, the European capitals of the Grand Tour, the temples and palace hotels of India, the mysterious ruins of pre-Columbian empires in Latin America, the Northern Lights. It also includes journeys to more challenging, emerging and re-emerging destinations that are fast becoming favourites: Mongolia, Madagascar, Patagonia, the Caucasus, Arabia, Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan. If you’re looking for a shared adventure in true A&K luxury — exquisite accommodation, perfectly-paced itineraries, curated cultural experiences, exclusive access and privileges, expert resident tour directors, and unforgettable encounters with local people and wildlife — start exploring now and find yourself somewhere amazing on an A&K Small Group Journey Talk to your travel agent or call Abercrombie &…

practise

What new hobbies or skills have you been practising lately? Netball? Pottery? Cooking? To practise something is to rehearse a behaviour or activity over and over again to improve, master and perfect it. On a more profound level, practise can transmute into a devotion; something that you dedicate your time, attention and energy to. Perhaps you practise yoga in this way. Each time you roll out your yoga mat, you develop physical strength and flexibility but there’s so much more going on underneath the skin. In your yoga practice, you may gain clarity, stillness of mind, emotional resilience, breath control, self-awareness or spiritual knowing. It’s important to remember, though, that practice doesn’t make you perfect. It makes you more mindful, grateful and confident in your willingness to begin a journey…

from the editor-in-chief

The kindness of strangers is deeply moving. Recently my father passed away. He had suffered for many years with an illness that deprived him of both physical and mental independence. Yet for all that, even people who met him during that time smiled and said how much they loved him, because he was a lovely man. If you can elicit that response from people when all of the embellishments and show that we typically rely on to create an impression are denied you, then you are truly a good person. And my father was that, a good man. So for all that there was some relief when he passed as he was released from his suffering, there was also a deep sadness because a spark of genuine goodness had departed…

from the editor

The alarm sounds at 2.15am. It’s abrasive and piercing and the ring jolts me from a peaceful dream. I hastily hit snooze and snuggle deeper into the bed covers. It’s too early. Am I nuts? I’m getting up to climb a mountain when metaphorically I could just climb it in my dreams. Groaning, I roll out of bed after being rustled by my fiancé who, despite also feeling robbed of sleep, is much better at self-starting than I am. He even wore his hiking gear to bed! It was strange sleeping next to a man wearing Lycra but, as I strip off my pjs and throw on my freezing hiking gear, I see there’s some sense to his madness. I grab my pillow and jump into the car, preparing to snooze…

your say

Did something resonate with you in this issue of WellBeing? Tell us! Write to WellBeing, Locked Bag 154, North Ryde, NSW 1670, email wbletters@umco.com.au, comment on our Facebook page or Instagram account: @WellBeing_Magazine. We reserve the right to edit all letters. After weeks of wandering around in a daze, I found myself in front of a rack of magazines in my local supermarket. I stood there, desperately wanting something to make me forget that the future I had previously envisioned was no more. I saw the image of a woman floating in the water and the title “WellBeing — inspired living”, recognising immediately that it was exactly what I needed. I read the issue from cover to cover and discovered from your article, “The Drama Triangle”, that I follow the role…

recent medical findings for a healthier body

Hearty plant-based food For this study researchers reviewed a database of food intake information from more than 10,000 middle-aged adults who were monitored from 1987 to 2016 and did not have cardiovascular disease at the start of the study. They then classified the subjects’ eating patterns by the proportion of plant-based foods they ate versus animal-based foods. Overall the people who ate the most plant-based foods had a 16 per cent lower risk of having a cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, stroke, heart failure), a 32 per cent lower risk of dying from a cardiovascular disease and a 25 per cent lower risk of dying from any cause compared to those who ate the least amount of plant-based foods. It’s clear that to reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease you should eat…