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.
How to boost mental wellbeing with this activity
At a time where the focus is very much about maintaining our mental wellbeing, it’s important to reflect on what you find helpful.
The latest reports indicate that many of us are finding it hard to deal with the ongoing challenge of continuing uncertainty, stress and anxiety brought about by the pandemic.
Sure, being sufficiently active, trying to eat healthily, getting enough sleep and looking for ways to stay connected are all great, but there’s something else that sometimes gets forgotten.
Making the time to have some fun.
What do you know? How to better manage uncertainty
Uncertainty. Love it or loathe it there’s plenty to go round at present. The one thing the pandemic has given us in bucketloads is the ongoing uncertainty around how long these unusual times will continue for and what the road ahead holds for us.
The reason uncertainty is such a challenge is because your brain craves certainty. When things are familiar, when you recognise the pattern of events as they unfold you know everything will be alright. It’s safe, and safety is your brain’s primary organising principle.
Uncertainty means the outcome is unpredictable. There’s every possibility you may not be safe. The stress response is triggered, and you experience the discomfort of worry and the ‘what ifs?’
Are You Living The Good Life?
One of my favourite comedy sitcoms from the seventies (oops, showing my age here) was ‘The Good Life’. It was based on the story of how Tom Good (Richard Briers) on his 40th birthday decides he’s had enough of the rat race, quits his job and determines that he and his...
What makes for a good life?
It’s not an unreasonable hope that we’ll stay fit and well enough to continue to enjoy a full and fulfilling life as we age. What the data from the study revealed was that the strongest predictor to who would be a happy healthy 80-year old at age fifty, wasn’t their cholesterol level.
It was the degree of satisfaction in their relationships.
Blah-de-Blah-de-Woof-Woof. Will someone please turn off all that noise!
I don’t know about you, but all this noise is driving me stir-crazy!
Which noise?
The incessant noise from the media.
While it’s important to remain informed about world and local events, the ‘news’ as it used to be called has increasingly become a channel for opinion and journalistic commentary. With so much anxiety and uncertainty around courtesy of the pandemic this relentless 24-hour merry-go-round of rehashed information has the potential to perpetuate conspiracy theories and accentuate the worst possible outcomes, which is unhelpful at best.
Enough of all this blah-de-blah-de-woof-woof!
It’s one thing to be appraised of our reality. It’s something else to become fearful and depressed as a consequence. Our mental wellbeing is being put to the test and those already vulnerable to anxiety and depression are the ones who will suffer the most.
Are you a worry wart? How to stem the rising tide of anxiety
When working as a GP some of my patients were those I called “the worried well.” Typically, they were well educated, health conscious folk concerned about some aspect of their health. Allaying their fears and concerns could take time but was always worth the investment to prevent unnecessary worry turning into something else.
But today there is a growing number in our society doing it tough; the worried unwell. One outcome of the pandemic has been the deluge of uncertainty and heightened stress. Some of my friends and clients have confessed to living with an undercurrent of constant tension that bubbles up to the surface in those times when their day or week didn’t go well, leaving them feeling like sh*t and wondering how long before any of us feel ‘normal’ again.
Even the most resilient are experiencing some days they wish they could forget.