It’s day four of Women’s Wellness Week.  Here is today’s #bekindtoyou tip:

Tip 4: Connect

In order to do this one, you need to unplug and disconnect first.  Switch off the TV, unplug the games console, take out your earphones, close your laptop, put your smartphone on silent and hide it in a drawer, and tidy away the noisy electronic toys.

Now… reconnect.  Reconnect to someone in your life that you haven’t connected to for a while and just sit and talk together.

Talk about your hopes and dreams, your worries and fears, what you’ve got going on in your life right now.

And ask questions!

Ask whoever you are talking with about their hopes and dreams, their worries and fears, what they’ve got going on in their lives right now.

It doesn’t matter who you are talking to – your partner, a parent, your best friend, a work colleague, your children… just have a conversation, about anything.

Couples: Hands up who is guilty of sitting at opposite ends of the sofa every night, one watching the TV, one on the computer?  Parents: Hands up who doesn’t hear a single word their son or daughter says about the day they’ve had at school because they’re either scrolling through emails/Facebook/Twitter on their phone or scrolling through their mental to-do list?

One of my favourite questions to ask my girls at the moment is: “What has been the best thing about your day so far?”  Their answers always astonish me and remind me just how amazingly individual they all are.  It also leads me to learn more about them that I would otherwise probably never know.

Connecting with people (properly, face to face, no distractions) makes us feel better.  It helps make us feel part of something bigger than just ourselves.  It helps us take time out of our busy lives for a while and focus on other people, and sometimes that’s exactly what we all need.

#bekindtoyou

A little connection goes a long way.