Stress

Stress is showing it's face. We have children who have developed alopecia, hair loss, due to the stress of the earthquakes and seemingly endless aftershocks.

People are 'over it' but the problem is we need to simply accept that this is what is going on,  and we need to keep calm and patient regardless. Easy to say, I know, but tough to achieve. The fact is if the parents panic so do the children. As parents we need to be calm a din control.

We have had quakes, Japan had quakes, USA has just had a reasonable quake...and we should really be asking ourselves what we should be learning from this. Anything? How about we just assume that we should be learning something, and ask what?

How many people have water, canned foods, torches, radios, gas burners, etc in case they need them? How many people have considered what would happen if they lost electricity and water, if all the shops were either demolished or closed, and the roads unpassable? These are questions we should all be asking ourselves.

So ask yourself: are you prepared?

Personally, I also think it's a really good idea to get back to growing some of our own vegetables, so that we have food if something happens. Friends of mine were eating home  grown vegetables after the quakes whilst many other people were down to what had been in their fridges or was thawing in their freezers -- they had no power for almost two weeks!

Our advance into a technological society is al very well, but, what happens in a major disaster? Massive power failure! You could be without power for several hours, several days, or several weeks, in which case all your technology is pretty much useless. Get outside in the garden, get outside on your bicycle, and build a part of your life that does not rely on technology!

Being prepared does, in itself, remove a lot of stress