When we are faced with something new or unfamiliar our threat or fight/flight response kicks in. We have evolved to respond in this way, it’s a survival strategy, if we aren’t sure what awaits us, nature believes it is best to expect and prepare for the worst: In the days when we might have found ourselves foraging for food, if a nearby bush rustled it was best to assume there was a predator lying in wait and run, if we were wrong all that was lost was some foraging time. […]...
How to Beat the Winter Blues It’s that time of year again: the clocks are changing back, the days get shorter and many of us can begin to notice a dip in mood. Whether you simply suffer from a touch of autumnal apathy or veer towards Seasonal Affective Disorder, it’s good to plan ahead in order to beat the winter blues. What is Seasonal Affective Disorder? Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, is a form of depression which starts during the autumn period, worsens during the winter months, particularly between December […]...
Self-Esteem is the cornerstone of mental health. Low self-esteem underlies most mental health problems, is very common and most of us could do with a boost in this area. So here are 5 tips to help you to do that: 1. Low Self-Esteem is maintained by a self-critical voice, sometimes known as the internal critic. If you can identify yours and begin to monitor it, over time you will create some distance between yourself and it which will reveal alternative ways of looking at things. 2. There is an opposite […]...
Having trouble sleeping, either struggling to fall asleep, staying asleep and/or waking up early is very common and is usually a symptom of another problem e.g. stress, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem. So, if you want to sleep better over the longer term you will need to work out why you can’t sleep, maybe by speaking to your doctor or a psychologist. However, in meantime the tips in this blog will help you to improve the length and quality of the sleep that you get. Tip 1 – Wake Up Getting […]...