Stress. That horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach or the reason you’re wide awake at 3am thinking about spread sheets. We all experience it from time to time and some of us are better at dealing with it than others. Knowing what triggers you can be a great help in avoiding anxious situations but sometimes it’s unavoidable.
This last year especially has been one long, difficult slog, from zoom fatigue, family sadness, fear of infection and everything else in between to add to our common and garden worry levels. Self-care has never been more needed whilst at the same time, seemingly unattainable, with restaurants, shops and gyms being closed for so long.
So what can we do?
Self-care can, and must, start at home. There are the easy wins with an extra glass of wine with dinner and a family sized bar of choc in the cupboard, but it’s also a mindset of allowing yourself time to relax and work through your feelings instead of ignoring them. We’ve come up with some top tips to help you unwind and deal with stress in a healthy, effective way.
Share your well being tips. We love hearing about your tips too! Head on over to our social pages and share with our fabulous community.
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Firstly, did you know we used to have eight days a week? A whole extra day in which to get things done, imagine! The ancient Romans had a system called Nundinae, but by the 9th century BC, a new seven day week was created and variously adopted over the coming centuries by the Persian, Hellenistic, Gupta Indian, European and Tang Chinese Empires.
The days of the week in a large proportion of languages, are named after planets which in turn have named deities. The other percentage of names come from numbers, with either Monday or Sunday being considered the first day of the week. There are a few stray exceptions, such as Basque, where Thursday is Neskenegun which means girls day or Meitei where Friday is Eerai and means blood flood (!) but generally the rules on naming are all very similar.
Do you know where our names come from? Have a look below and see if you’re correct.
Monday - This one is nicely obvious and named for the moon. Instead of European languages, where the derivation is from Luna (Lundi, Lunedi, Lunes etc), English days mostly derive from Old Germanic and their goddess of the moon was called Máni, hence Máni’s Day.
Tuesday - Usually attributed with Mars and the god of war, Tuesday is named for Tíw, who in Norse mythology, was associated with single combat and duels.
Wednesday - Have you ever heard of Odin? Well, Wednesday is his day, or as he’s sometimes also known, Woden. His name roughly relates to Mercury in Latin but also Miðviku in Icelandic, which means midweek.
Thursday - Who does this sound like? You’ve guessed it, Thor! Given the recent Marvel films, he may be the most well known of the Norse Gods with his long blond hair and rather large… hammer. Ahem. Thunder also derives from Thor so Thursday could be thought of as Thunderday.
Friday - This is Freya’s day or Frige in Norse. She was the goddess of love, so matches nicely with Venus in the Roman tradition. The Norse name for the planet was ‘Friggjarstjarna’ - Frigg’s star but Venus has turned out to be less of a mouthful!
Saturday - The weekend begins with a return to Latin and Saturn. It also marks where our language converges again with the other British languages of Irish (Diu Saturn), Welsh (dydd Sadwrn) and Scottish (Di-Sàthairne).
Sunday - And back to the obvious, Sunday is the day of the Sun! A lot of languages have kept the association with our solar star, but many European languages changed to a version of Domine, or the Lord’s day.
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Everyone knows about sailing off for adventure on the ‘Seven Seas’ but did you know that there are actually lots of different versions? There’s the Roman Seven Seas, the Persian Seven Seas, the Medieval Seven Seas, lots of other small ones in between and now we have some new ones too!
The original context seems to have been the ancient Roman version, which related to the seven lagoons around Venice and was known as the ‘Septum Maria’ - the seven seas. So far, understandable but not that exciting…
The next mention is from Persian author Ya’qubi in the 9th century, “Whoever wants to go to China must cross seven seas, each one with its own colour and wind and fish and breeze, completely unlike the sea that lies beside it.” These were known as the Seas of Fars, Harkand, Kalah, Kardanj, Larwi, Salahit and Sanji respectively.
Now, these sound like very exciting seas to be sailing on, but they’re only found in the Eastern half of the world. Sailing the ‘Seven Seas’ sounds like an adventure around the globe, no?
That brings us nicely to the medieval version, which encompasses the Aegean, the Adriatic, the Arabian, the Black, the Caspian, the Persian Gulf and the Red, including the famous Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee.
That’s much more like it! We can see Sinbad sailing the Arabian, Jason and the Argonauts traversing the Aegean, pirates walking the plank over the Black and Davy Jones’ Locker at the bottom of the Dead.
The only problem with these swashbuckling seas is none of them include the ones we all know today. After the discovery of America, the ‘Seven Seas’ of the modern age were finally decided as the Arctic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, The Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, The Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the Mediterranean. You’ll notice most of them aren’t technically seas and our poor North and Irish ones didn’t even get a look in!
Whichever ‘Seven Seas’ you prefer, we think you can all agree that it’s still quite an exciting idea to batten down the hatches, hoist the main sail and set off for an adventure and hopefully very soon we all can.
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Once upon a time there was a boom in the candle market and everywhere you looked, there were items to burn your money on - literally! The problem was, no one seemed to be making home fragrance in a moderate price range, that wasn’t petroleum based, or non-toxic in other words. Uh-oh!
Our founder, Verity, has a background in fashion marketing but had taken a step back from her career to become a full time mum. With Tom and Molly now being a little bit older, she felt it was time to dip a toe back into the world of retail and starting her own business seemed like the most logical step.
The world of candle making called and that non-toxic vacuum sparked an idea; maybe she could produce natural, modestly priced candles, which smell incredible? Maybe she could create a whole range of home fragrances that didn’t cost the earth? And just like that, Seven Scents was born!
After doing quite a lot of research (candle lit baths, long romantic dinners…) and experimentation, Verity decided soy wax was the way to go. It’s naturally allergen free and has superior burning times, but most importantly, it’s completely safe when lit and contains nothing harmful to you or the environment.
So! We had a product idea and the materials to make them sorted but that’s just the start of our story. Pop back next month and we’ll explain how we chose our sensational fragrances and our name. Stay tuned!
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