Welcome to my blog
There is a lot of information around on the importance of looking after our health, like maintaining a healthy diet and plenty of exercise. This is all well and good if your aim is just to keep your body healthy. But what about your brain?
From chocolate to coffee and sleep, to sharper smarter thinking, join me for an article or three as I share insights, tips and ideas on what it takes to keep your brain operating at full speed, so you can wake up feeling refreshed, happier and healthier every day.
Welcome to my blog
There is a lot of information around on the importance of looking after our health, like maintaining a healthy diet and plenty of exercise. This is all well and good if your aim is just to keep your body healthy. But what about your brain?
From chocolate to coffee and sleep, to sharper smarter thinking, join me for an article or three as I share insights, tips and ideas on what it takes to keep your brain operating at full speed, so you can wake up feeling refreshed, happier and healthier every day.
Five Quick Ways to Reduce High Anxiety
In the BP (before pandemic) era, anxiety was a well-recognised menace to many. According to Beyond Blue, 1:6 Australians are currently experiencing depression or anxiety or both. Seventeen percent of the population or 3.2 million people have experienced anxiety or an affective disorder in the last 12 months.
As a Doctor I have looked after many people who struggle with anxiety in their life where it has affected their ability to function normally, to hold down a job, to make a decision, or even to be able to leave the house.
As a workplace wellness consultant, I have worked with individuals seeking assistance because their anxiety has become so overwhelming it’s impacted their ability to work or to work to the level, they know they are capable of.
As a human I have had first-hand experience of learning to live with anxiety.
Personal Freedom vs. Community Safety: Where do we draw the line during a global pandemic?
Covid-19 is still as much a threat as it always has been in the short time we’ve been exposed to it. We don’t have the answers to fully understand how to effectively restrict transmission as more people demand their freedom. We don’t know how long it will take before an effective vaccine is readily available to keep us safe. We don’t have an effective treatment though many scientists and researchers are working around the clock hoping to find a solution soon.
So much remains unanswered.
Which is why discussions around personal freedom, while pertinent, need to be held against the new backdrop of: ‘what is best for the common good?’
How to Make Good Decisions Even When Feeling Super Stressed
If you’ve ever been in a that tricky position where you had to make a decision quickly despite knowing you didn’t have all the relevant information available or blindly picking something you haven’t got the headspace to think through properly, you’ll know how living in a stressful situation such as the Covid-19 pandemic can push you right outside your comfort zone of knowing the right thing to do.
In this new space, adhering too rigidly to what “you know” may no longer be relevant or correct and if your anxiety and stress are high, the mental bandwidth required to access your logical, analytical, reasoning brain may no longer be available.
Why It’s Hard to Pay Attention When WFH
While it’s fabulous to have the technology that allows us to connect at a time when we’re required to physically distance and self-isolate, it’s been a challenge to deal with the downside of when it starts to have a detrimental effect on our focus and productivity.
In a recent blog I addressed the reason for our brain fry – the emotional exhaustion of having to deal with the countless changes we’ve had to adapt to rapidly plus the new way of virtual communication. The technology itself isn’t new, what’s changed is how much we are using it, because it comes with a cognitive cost.
What we can learn from the ANZACS
When thinking about the ANZACS the qualities that come to mind include mateship and sacrifice along with courage, endurance and humour. These are the qualities that define us as a people. These are the qualities that will serve you well to successfully navigate through these difficult and uncertain times.
If overwhelm, anxiety or loneliness have been getting you down, there are a number of ways to draw from the spirit of the ANZACS, to reconnect to your sense of purpose, rekindle your determination to find a path forward and experience hope and realistic optimism.
Is your brain feeling fried?
What’s the reason for our extreme fatigue?
Stress. Pure and simple.
Perhaps you can relate. Over the last few weeks my business has been turned on its head, I’ve been experiencing a lot of anxiety about my 88-year old Mum in her care home and the wellbeing of our young adult children, and have been connected to seemingly back-to-back zoom meetings, that I was either listening to or presenting in. I have been frantically creating on-line content, rewriting presentations, reading books, journals, holding online book clubs and virtual social catch ups.
Despite not “working” I’ve been working harder than I have ever done and spending far more time in front of a screen.
No wonder my brain is fried.