John Tanner

I am sharing a simple exercise I heard while listening to Tamara Levitt on the Daily Calm App.

When you feel like you've got too much on your plate, it's easy to fall in to overwhelm and feel a heightened sense of anxiety, often incapable of taking action.

Here is a technique to bring you out of your head and into your body, to find relief. It's a simple practice called 5,4,3,2,1 where we countdown from 5 and tune in to our senses

5 - Acknoledge five things you can see visibly see around you in your environment. (Walls, pictures, pets)

4 - Acknowledge four things you can physically touch in your environment, reach out, and feel their texture. (A table, the clothes you are wearing, a book that's in front of you). Try to feel the fine sensations of a texture

3 - Acknowledge three things you can hear.
(A voice of a car driving by, the hum of a refrigerator).

2 - Acknowledge two things you can smell.
(Even subtle smells count; smells in the air, cooking nearby, your shirt sleeve)

1 - Acknowledge the one thing you can taste in your mouth.
(Food, coffee from earlier in the day).

These five steps explore the five senses, a way to ground yourself from signs of anxiety. Coming to our senses brings us back to a sense of stability.

By going out of your mind you come to your senses. Alan Watts

According to the UK's NHS website; Anxiety is a feeling of stress, panic or fear that can affect your everyday life physically and psychologically.

Here are some statistics about anxiety in 2024:

• Anxiety in the US

  According to the American Psychiatric Association, 43% of adults in the US reported feeling more anxious in 2024 than in the previous year. This is an increase from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022. 

• Anxiety in the UK

  In the UK, more than 1 in 7 adults reported that their mental health was either bad or the worst it's ever been. Young people aged 16–24 were the most affected, with 23.5% describing their mental health as bad or the worst. 

• Anxiety worldwide

  Anxiety affects 284 million people worldwide. 

I've been using Dr Caroline Leaf's NeuroCyle App for over three months now and I'm amazed how brain neuroplasticity makes it possible to retrain and control your thoughts.

Sit upright in a comfortable position.

Breathe in through your nose for a count of 7 and out for a count of 11.

When you breathe in, your brain receptors

• Quicken the heart beat

• Increase the breathing rate

• Increase the production of Adrenalin

When you breathe out, your brain receptors

• Slows our heart beat

• Reduces our breathing rate.

• Decreases the production of Adrenalin

Because this exercise takes a degree of concentration, it helps take our minds off other things, which is perfect for returning the body to pre stress levels and allow clear thinking.

The benefits come from breathing out for longer than you breathe in.

If it's too challenging to breathe in for 7 and out for 11, start with 3 in and 6 breathes out.

When your mind is triggered, your reaction is often the fight-or-flight response: 

• The amygdala, senses danger and releases stress hormones. 

Part of my recovery from a stroke requires controlling how I react to things.
I'm using Dr Caroline Leaf's NeuroCyle App and want to share her really useful advice on dealing with toxic thoughts and self regulating your own brain's thoughts.

Based on my own experiences of being triggered and the way I have reacted and lashed out, I know how easy it is to spiral down into a loop of doom.

For example: You receive a text from someone who essentially tells you you've done something wrong.

• Immediately your brain will retrieve memories, warning signals and the fears you have about that person and situation.

Multiple Perspective Advantage (MPA)

Is about deliberately taking a moment to stand back and observe your own thinking and actions at that moment in time, to create a distance between yourself and the emotional charge from dealing with toxic thoughts and people.

Separate the emotions from the data your brain has triggered of that thought and look at it objectively so that it is easier to deconstruct.

Treat it as if you were speaking to another person, it's always easier to give advice than follow your own words of wisdom.

Imagine your watching a video of yourself in that moment;

• What are you saying?

• What's your body language?

• What is the expression on your face?

• What are you intensions at that moment in time?

This MPA creates an energy flow, making it easier to face the issue and find a solution. Use this in conjunction with the "10 Second Pause" and by deliberately observing yourself, you are less likely to fire back an immediate response that you later regret.

You can't stop thoughts and every one of us has a thought every 10 seconds.

What we think and feel in our mind, affects our behaviours and when a trigger event happens through a conversation, an email or a phone call our thoughts can race. We often become anxious and make snap decisions that often have consequences we regret.

I'm listening to Dr Caroline Leaf's audiobook "Cleaning up your Mental Mess" and using her NeuroCyle App to calm my own mind which since my stroke often races, goes into loops and leaves me feeling exhausted and anxious.

Each day of my NeuroCyle, Dr Leaf suggests a brain preparation exercise to calm and balance the different brain frequencies.

The 10 Second Pause

This is a simple breathing exercise that that you can use if something like a conversation, email or text has pushed your buttons and triggered you. Hopefully this will control how you respond.

Note the physical and environmental warning signals and your own perspective to whatever you're experiencing;

• Breath In for 3 seconds whilst saying to yourself; "Think, Feel",
  try to inhale what you're experiencing as you breath in.
  (This puts you in a controlled conscious state and gets great your neuro chemicals flowing).

• Breath Out for 7 seconds saying the word Chose, extending the word to be "Choooooooose". As you breath out, consciously observe your emotional, physical and mental state. This awareness will give you so much more control over the next moment to improve your decision making.

(Repeat for at leat 3 cycles).

In the time between breathing in and out, your unconscious mind will send out thoughts and the embedded memories that are related to this experience that you're having.

Every 10 seconds your brain and unconscious mind are actively and dynamically self regulating the incoming information, so you're helping to adjust and reorganising your energy levels.

There is an adjustment period of up to 90 seconds and if you're not in the optimal mind and brain state you may react to impulses and say or do things you regret. This 10 second pause will reset your brain state to avoid this from happening.

In Talking Pictures 2.0, I think I’ve found the perfect tool to create short engaging videos with animated characters to use as a teaching tool for Nursery kids.

From a single front facing image, there are over 50 different animations, visual expressions or hand movements that you can add to a photo to create a talking picture.

The process is as follows;

• Create new character

• Upload and select a photographic image.

• Enter specifics for the character through an a.i. prompt box;

  • Change eye colour, hair colour, clothing or the background to whatever you specify in the prompt.

  • Add a "Boka" effect, to blur the background or have the character standing or sitting.

• Add Audio the for the character to speak

  • This could be text to speech, Voice recording live, or a pre-recorded file uploaded to the system.

  • Then choose the language, style of voice (from an array of provided voice options) and the emotion you want when the text is converted into speech along with speed and pitch.

• Then Save as a project and render your video.

What I really like is the functionality to create a 2D/3D characters with the AI, like a rabbit in a tuxedo. Just weird things that young children are more likely to engage with.

Once the character has been generated and saved to a project, it's possible to replace the text and background and then merge clips together into a longer video. This allows for different characters to be created and each scene is then stitched together into a complete video.

Now it's time for me to create some scripts and put what I say into action, I'll provide links to the videos as soon as I've created them.

There is an increased demand for short videos and especially educational content aimed at children.
I'm looking to test this out for some children at my wife's nursery. This will;

• allow me to get familiar with the software and the production techniques needed to create short video stories.

• provide me with a captive audience to get basic feedback.

Advanced text-to-speech (TTS) technology has transformed opportunity to create video stories. I'm going to use the Talking Photos platform by Paul Ponna, to making digital images come alive.

The Impact of Voice in Storytelling

Voice is so critical as it conveys emotions, personality, and tone.
Advanced TTS technology, allows the user to input a story and output realistic voiceovers immediately, without needing a voice actor.

Realistic Voiceovers

Modern TTS systems use AI algorithms to generate speech that mimics human intonation, rhythm, and inflection. Imagine a story featuring a playful rabbit. With TTS, the rabbit can have a high-pitched, cheerful voice that brings its personality to life, while a wise old turtle could have a deep, calm tone.

Customisation and Diversity

TTS allows customised voices according. Creators can choose accents, languages and tones. This helps in multicultural settings, where children benefit from hearing stories with familiar accents.

A well-narrated story will capture attention and guide them through the plot. The narration speed can be adjusted to emphasise key moments, building suspense or excitement at crucial points.
The Talking Pictures software has prompt input boxes which allow you to describe your character for AI to create, in 2D, 3D Disney Pixar style or from an uploaded picture.
Pairing AI generated images with text to speech software and functionality that makes the mouth move in time to the words should allow to ceate short Eduvcational videos for Nursey aged children to test if it improves their comprehension.

Conclusion

I'm looking forward to trialing the software to see if I can create educational material, specifically for nursery children that often don't have English as a first language and will share my findings.

From experience, I know the security vulnerabilities in outdated WordPress versions, plugins, and themes can only advise people not to assume being hacked won’t ever happen to your website.

1. Outdated Software Is a Magnet for Hackers

WordPress and plugin developers release updates, primarily to patch a security vulnerability. When vulnerabilities become public knowledge (after the update), hackers know exactly where to exploit older, unpatched versions. 

2. Updates Aren’t Just for New Features—They’re for Security

Many site owners think updates add new features or tweak the design.
The reality is that security patches make up the majority of updates.
According to WordPress security reports, a staggering 92% of known vulnerabilities are linked to outdated plugins. 

3. Plugins and Themes: Often the Weakest Link

Plugins and themes make WordPress flexible, but open the door to risk.
Don’t let updates pile up.
A security plugin like Jetpack or Sucuri can alert you to updates and help manage potential risks. Just check and run updates as required.

4. Regular Updates Reduce Future Headaches

Whilst inconvenient and another process to implement or delegate it’s less disruptive than the stress and consequences of a hacked site. Restoring a hacked site takes time and resources that can be avoided.

Conclusion: Embrace Updates as Essential Maintenance

WordPress is an amazing platform, but its popularity makes it a target.
Treat updates as non-negotiable maintenance