So we have all had one of those days. You walk out of the front-door feeling optimistic, your game face is on and you’re ready for anything. I know it must sound like I’ve just regurgitated a Weetabix advert but hopefully these feelings are familiar most mornings.  However there are those days where stabs of anxiety slowly creep in.  By the end of the day we’re feeling downtrodden, overburdened and downright stressed.  Perhaps I’m being a touch dramatic but I’ve been thinking, what happens to us from when we step out the front door with a bounce in our step to coming home dragging our heels and feeling deflated.  Are we the root cause of our own stress or is it our environment that causes us to go into meltdown? Is there anything that we can do to help ourselves or are we forever destined to be that wound up jack in the box waiting to burst?  Surely there’s a way to stop that wheel from turning?

Now I didn’t just pick this topic out of the blue, I have been known to be a bit of a stress-head.  However I like to think that I have built up enough resilience cope with situations I find challenging…although this hasn’t always been the case.  In my final year at University my jack in the box not only sprang out but the coil snapped as well..  I wasn’t experiencing any more pressure than my course mates but I allowed the demands of 4^th year get to me far more.   Was the University out to get me? No! Was I the first person to ever go through finals? Definitely not!  Despite this I felt like I was floundering, unable to keep my head above water.  Now before you start getting concerned there is a happy ending to this tale.  I managed to successfully finish my degree, get through the exams unscathed and come out at the other end with a 2:1.  So why the stress?   I know now that the catalyst was my own disorganization and lack of focus, the factors that lead to me to pushing that self-destruct button. I have put measures in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again.  I think there will always be that risk of reverting into my high emotion alias but at least I can recognize the warning signs…most of the time.

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Saturday afternoon was full of tension for me…moments before the start of the grand national I had spotted my three horses (picked out of a hat in an office sweepstake on Friday) and was holding out particular hopes for Treacle; an outsider but still in the mix. My other horses, Weird Al and Viking Blood looked like they might just be making up the numbers as they listlessly approached the starting line. Time to cross my fingers and toes!

However, the beauty of the Grand National is that form and experience go out of the window completely; anyone can win and that is why it is the most popular gambling event in the UK. Unsurprisingly, this proved true once again when Neptune Collognes was first to cross the finishing line in a photo finish.

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Here at Chemistry we just love discovering new and unexpected ways of approaching things. For example, I got stuck in a traffic jam the other day and discovered a new way to work. Simple things and all that

So, imagine our excitement earlier this week when we attended a viewing of the ‘rough cuts’ of four, brand new short films created for Chemistry by the winners of a competition we ran recently for creative students. They were looking for opportunities to develop and show-case their talents in the commercial world. We were looking for new thinking and imagination to bring to some of our case studies. We offered them a cash prize and an opportunity to work with experienced film-makers in a two-week workshop to realise their visions.

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The Chemistry Group just made a behaviour change – we’re all drinking more water. You’ll have heard lots of us talking about the nutrition program and the impact it’s having on our productivity, our pipeline (doubled after just one quarter after changing nutrition habits), and our all round wellbeing-ness. This is the latest in a series of “shifts” in behaviour around how we all eat and drink, so I thought I’d spend some time (over) analysing…

“Drink more water” is one of those things that people tell you is a good thing to do – truth is the majority of us Brits stick to tea, after all it’s pretty much the same thing, just tastes better. Either that or drink juice. Worse fizzy drinks. Even worse Red Bull (doesn’t count as a fizzy drink, you could probably inject it and get a similar buzz).

So what’s happened? Well, a bottle happened.

Bear with me.

You see, for some reason, almost immediately after we’ve started ordering bottles of water, consumption of this mysterious liquid went through the roof. Somehow, having removed the notion of “effort” by having to 1) think about retrieving, and 2) actually go and retrieve water from the water dispenser, drinking water has become natural, habitual. There’s method in the madness.

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