Gloves up with Hayley Ward

Two-time world champion kick boxer, Hayley Ward, is just eighteen years old and yet she is one of the most intimidating young women in GB’s England boxing team. She tells us the secrets of her routine that keeps her fit in mind and body.

As if her world champion status isn’t enough, Hayley is also a black belt in elite boxer. This inspirational young woman goes to college in the week and holds down two part time jobs in her local town.

Boxing started as a way for her to focus on something other than the typical troubles as a teenage girl, she said: “To picture myself being happy and satisfied with what I have achieved is my main motivation.”

“As a young teenager I was bullied, I had done martial arts and boxing before however I believed by investing more of my time in the sport and taking a more serious approach to it, it would allow me to focus my mind on something else. I also enjoy everything about it and wouldn't want to be doing anything else. It's what I was born to do.”

Her mentality is something to be admired by all. Instead of cracking open the bottle of wine, full of calories and curling up on the sofa, after getting in from a long day at work, you can let out your frustration on the bag and get a good nights sleep.

There are plenty of benefits to boxing at home, and easy ways to do it. She believes the start to a healthy lifestyle is nutrition. “You are what you eat and eating well will make you feel 100 X better. There are loads of things you can do at home, ab workouts, having a punch bag to release stress and stay active and even doing some cleaning gets you doing something!”

Hayley’s fitness and food tips are a great way to get a slimmer and slender figure that looks great in a bikini, as well as finding it easier to run along the sand. All this exercise jabs away the slump sat on your shoulder telling you to do it tomorrow, Hayley credits boxing as it helps her “feel fit and healthy all the time, I am able to socialise and relax and be surrounded by great people. Doing something you love that is enjoyable and keeping you healthy is the greatest thing in the world.”

“Boxing keeps you fit and it keeps you healthy, you learn new skills and your motor skills are kept in tip-top shape.” These lifestyle benefits are impossible to ignore, and with such an amazing young woman embodying them it’s hard not to want to start letting out your jealousy on the bag right now.

What do you want to be when you grow up? A bit of everything

My time at AB has been brilliant. I couldn’t have asked for a warmer welcome or a more thorough insight into the real world of agency communications and publishing.

When you’re younger, everyone badgers, bugs and bothers you with the same question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” My answer now, at the age of 20, is still uncertain because I’m still learning so much. Having the chance to work with the team at AB taught me more about an industry I knew very little about.

I enjoyed the opportunity to read, write and design and loved talking to and meeting new people. The AB team has helped me realise that having varied interests is not necessarily a bad thing. In just one week they’ve showed me all the different processes involved in producing client publications.

Everyone in the team was happy to help. Even though I’d like to think I have a good knowledge in many aspects of journalism, a lot of work experience placements have seen me as little more than a tea maker or letter opener. At AB, I really felt part of the team.

I was given the chance to write articles for different publications. I conducted phone interviews to gather quotes for publications and went out to film and edit a video for one of the team’s online channels. The editorial team showed me how important online content is in order to reach out to its audiences.

Another useful part of my work experience was being shown how schedules are created to keep projects on track, how costs are decided and the planning that goes into arranging print runs.

I saw excellent teamwork at AB. The company offers its reporters the chance to branch out and write for a broad range of different clients, as well as getting involved with proofreading and design suggestions.

PS. I made a new friend Abe…. 

The benefit of thin walls

In confined space where everything is being shared, tension can start to build between housemates. Be prepared for world war fucking three. When you live in a shared house with a group of hormonal girls, things can get a little complicated. When Uni nights in are getting boring just stir up some shit and there’s no need to stick on the Netflix.

Although you may think you can still have alone time when it comes to living with other people, you are wrong. Surrounded by four walls, you can hear everything going on in the room next door and the room above. Sometimes it’s the kinky stuff going down, after a long night on the town (in that case just plug in the headphones and ride it out) other times its get out the popcorn and enjoy.

Personalities can clash and friendships can crash and burn once you are forced to live in each other’s footsteps. For the majority of the time just put on a smile or just shut the fuck up when having petty issues with the so called Hitler you live with, other times preach till you can no longer have a tantrum.

For those lucky enough to have the front row seat just sit back and enjoy the muffled screams from the neighbouring bedroom. It’s all down to the thin walls that provide the entertaining nights in. 

A quick trip to narnia // how to avoid a creeper

There’s always one guy that you just can’t get to leave you alone after a night out. But when you’re just a little too drunk, sometimes body takes over mind and you invite them home, clever clogs! If you are stuck with some lad in your house you have to think quick on your feet to get them out. One 20-year-old female from Canterbury University in Kent knows a little too much about avoiding the creep...

She explains: “I was out at a black tie event at university when I started kissing this guy, we decided to go back to mine in a cab with our friends. When we got out of the cab his friend could hardly walk, so he walked him home saying he would come back to mine after. When I got home I realised I was absolutely smashed, couldn't really keep my eyes open and was so ready to sleep... probably not the best way to have sex!”

This is when it hit her that she was not in the best state to share her bed with some randomer, so it hit her: “I got my friends to tell the guy I had passed out whist I hid in my wardrobe, searching for the safe haven of Narnia.”

Hiding in her wardrobe was not the simplest of places to tuck away in and she ended up breaking her safe haven in the process.

Downstairs at the time of the escapade was 21 year-old house-mate, Lucy Warner who retells her story: “We opened the door and said she had passed out in bed, he looked pretty disappointed and we could all hear them laughing upstairs.” After leaving him stood at the door trying to cover up for her housemate, Lucy acted like nothing had really happened. After all, it was a norm in their house.

“It was worth it!” she exclaimed. Although not the most orthodox ways of trickery, it worked for this young lady. And to this day, the creep left wanting more has no clue that he was included in a quick game of hide and go seek. 

How to dress your body shape in underwear

‘Does my bum look big in this’, ‘do I need to suck it in’ and ‘how’s my cleavage looking’ are all things we ask the girls frequently. The answer to these subconscious body questions is simply to dress yourself in the right undies. Of-course matching sets, so you always have that feel good figure.

Apple: Time to hold up those brilliant bazingas with a supporting balconette bra. This bra shape literally gives you that ‘corset cleavage’ as if you had two hands cupping your boobs from the underneath. This lift gives the illusion of a slimmer waist and puts your body back into proportion looking less top heavy. Big busted and voluptuously curvy is the new way to describe your apple shape and keep telling guys ‘my eyes are up here.’

Banana: If you complain constantly about having a ‘boyish figure’ and that you have no definition of bust, waist or hips. All you have to do is invest in a pair of big pants. We’re not talking frumpy granny pants or period pants. High waisted knickers synch in your waist to give the illusion that you are a curvaceous woman. If you want to go the full hog throw on a longline bra and pull every bit of boob round into a cleavage. No more banana, hello scrumptious.

Pear: All the bottom heavy ladies, we know the struggles of trying to pull up those tight clothes over them big booties. Keep it simple and slip on a thong that’s going to really show off your assets and your man will know exactly where to look. To draw the eyes up to your chest, wear a plunge bra that’s going to pull your bust into the centre and give you a cleavage to die for, now you have bust and bum for everyone to admire.

Hourglass: If you are hourglass you’re one of the lucky ones and can wear any shape and style of underwear, dependant on the look you want to go for that morning, evening, or night. A classic lace bra and panties can be pulled off very well with this figure, which is simplistically beautiful, and a great starting point to build a stunning underwear collection.

New year new me // face your fears

You’re surrounded by shadows in a room with the walls closing in. You can hear mumbles of concerned voices around you, everything becomes blurred and you can’t see anyone. The voices fade and you concentrate on the hiss of your breathing, you can’t control it, it fastens and your body starts to jolt in rhythm with the irregular breath. Your throat becomes sharp and it becomes harder to breath. Now you’re holding yourself, alone, hearing and seeing nothing but emptiness and you start to rock back and forth, shaking and still crying with shock. You’re not alone, you just can’t control yourself or calm yourself down enough to focus on anything else but the one thing that made you collapse into a heap of despair.

This is the debilitating effect of a phobia; although they may all be different they affect everyone in the same way. That feeling of distress, panic and despair can be caused by anything: snakes, water, sick, spiders, wind or perhaps travelling. And even the strangest of fears such as buttons are not unheard of. In fact many ‘normal’ people go through these emotions on a daily basis.

19 year-old Harriet Wollaston knows what it is like to have a phobia, having to lock fear away in the back of her mind, finding it extremely traumatising having to travel to and from work daily via the train. After seeing, first hand, someone attempt suicide when jumping in front of a train almost seven years ago.

“I have to face my fear twice a day, every single day and it never gets any easier.”

Not only is the daunting factor of getting on a train enough for Harriet; the lack of space on a train at rush hour means she also suffers from claustrophobia,

“If I feel like I'm getting too panicked I have to dig my nails into my palms because it's really difficult to avoid the fear, sometimes so hard that they cut and bleed.”

To the average person this may seem out of the ordinary, but Cognitive Behavior Therapist (CBT) Paul Blenkiron states that fears, “cannot be explained or rationalized.” A sufferer of fear or anxiety thinks that there are no solutions and that no one understands, and that’s what they keep telling themselves. But fear is a norm, because “it is a natural human reaction to danger. It helps us to survive.”

For the older generation, what they may fear and the anxiety paired with that may continue into later life, making it harder to manage, even though they have had many years to face it.

Jan Bates still trembles at the thought of slimy and scaly creatures despite living with her phobia for sixty years. She recalls: “as a small child my uncle told me to close my eyes and hold my hand out, I thought it was sweeties that he was presenting to me, but it was a worm. At that stage it was very near to my mouth, and from that moment on I've been petrified.”

Now her fear has grown worse. “I don't cope well at all.  I still check my bed every night for fear of snakes at the bottom of the bed.”

When fear continually interferes with daily life and is not dealt with it can develop into a much rarer case of a ‘complex phobia’, named complex because these are more pervasive and underline lots of other specific phobias. Another problem with not acknowledging your fear is that it could lead to an anticipatory anxiety which involves becoming nervous ahead of time, constantly worrying about coming into contact with or being in the same place or situation with your phobia.

This is why it is “important to face that situation very soon after treatment and get the real live feedback that actually you can face it and deal with it,” according to renowned hypnotherapist Lynda Hudson.

In her line of work, Lynda comes across the most common terrors as well as some unheard of anxieties and molds the recipient’s early thoughts associated with such fear to ‘rewind the movie’.

“You have to find a method to break the original association between the originating object, situation etc. and the fear response.”

For both Dr Blenkiron and L Hudson a fear is recognized by the person affected as being a problem, one that interferes with their daily life and in order for them to overcome such a problem they must firstly address it.

“I don't think people talk about them enough. It’s such an inwards thing.” Jan understands the problem with phobias being so personal, as no one wants to feel insecure about their flaws. She also states “I don't think my fear is normal at all but I think everyone has a fear of something.”

Phobias are the most common type of anxiety disorder, in the UK an estimated 10 million people are affected by their phobias in daily situations. Phobias can affect anyone, regardless of age, sex and social background. There’s no reason to be afraid of addressing your fear especially when over 15% of the UK suffers.

Take it upon yourself to accept your fear it may be a scar but it makes everyone who they are. “I know that my fear is irrational and I wish I didn't have it, but it's a part of me and I have to try to accept that.”

You are not alone.