Counselling

Revenge Bedtime Procrastination? That’s a problem for another day…

wandalunLeave a comment

The other day I went onto my website for the first time in a few weeks to have a ‘quick look around’ and lo and behold, I discover it wasn’t working! I don’t think it has been working since December- but I don’t spend a lot of time ‘looking’ at my website, so I didn’t notice. After much faffing about, I finally figured out what was wrong (yay!) and managed to reconnect domain to provider and all is well… for the moment. I am sure a lot of you can recognise that sometimes, things aren’t as easy, or maybe enjoyable, as we think they are going to be and that they can take more time than we envisaged… which kind of ties into this blog post!

When writing my posts, I usually wait until I see an article, or study, that grabs my attention, but there have been quite a few lately; too many to choose from!  However, I’ve been reading a lot about Revenge Bed-time Procrastination (which I am going to shorten to RBP for ease) lately, and the effects it has on us. Ever heard of it? Maybe if I explain it, you may recognise it happening in your life. I know I have been guilty of it at times!

The idea behind RBP is that we are deliberately putting off sleep in favour of our own leisure activities; do you recognise scrolling through social media instead of sleeping, or just watching one more episode (or even season!) of your current favourite Netflix/Amazon/Disney/Hulu show?

By buying into RBP what we are effectively doing is giving ourselves some short-term enjoyment, but at the cost of our long-term life benefits (sleep, mood, but I will go into this later). RBP is especially likely when we have lots of daily responsibilities and busy schedules which prevent our enjoyment of what I like to call “me time” during the daytime. By delaying sleep for our gratification of entertainment and leisure, we are exacting “revenge” on all of life’s jobs, duties, accountabilities, and responsibilities.

Our sensibilities and logic tell us that this is an unhealthy habit to have, yet we persist with our RBPbehaviours, which can lead to guilt and shame for engaging in the RBP behaviour, health difficulties, low mood, a decrease in our overall productivity and poor sleep that can lead to exhaustion, grumpiness, and difficulties in our relationships.

So, if it isn’t depression, and it isn’t pressure or burnout, what else is it?  We’re not thriving or flourishing, we just seem to be flagging, stagnant but without a sense of hopelessness. The term RBP seems to have been made common knowledge around the 28th of June 2020, actual Tweet below, (while the original mention seems to come from a Chinese social media site in November 2018 with the Chinese word for RBP being ‘bàofùxìng áoyè’1)- slap bang in the middle of the pandemic (yes, we’re still talking about that, the effects of which will be affecting us all for many years to come) via a ‘simple tweet’

and as you can see from the comment below @daphnekylee’s tweet, but which I am not going to go into, there are an array of ‘revenge’ tactics we would appear to be doing since the pandemic began.

So, if we are now able to read about this via different platforms, what type of people are experiencing this difficulty? Well, people with busy, stressful lives and/or people who struggle with poor time-management. Interesting, the main demographic of people who experience RBP seems to be women. Why is this, you may ask? Well, it can be seen from studies2 that, as a demographic group, women lost significantly more personal time during the pandemic than men, as women took on a greater share of parenting and housework in comparison to men.

How unfair, I hear 50% of you cry! I agree, the division of labour is something that still needs to be addressed; as it remains societal norm that the mother is more likely to pick up sick kids from school, take time off to look after them, book appointments, work out what is for dinner and other domestic responsibilities.

Even if you are lucky within your relationship, and the division of labour in the home is 50/50, when it comes to work flexibility the impact of the expectations of line managers needs to be considered. The decision as to who will be the one to take time off is influenced by what is considered reasonable by the respective employers, and for many the old prejudices still hold.

We also must acknowledge the difficulties that the pandemic has also brought us, issues we were not expecting to happen, and certainly not in as much detail or focus as we are having to deal with them. There is a difficulty, for example, with the work-family balance, as I’ve mentioned briefly above. Mandatory working from home has possibly been the greatest social experiment in quite some time, and with that has come many difficulties, some of which we may have predicted. 

There can be a lack of boundaries, where we must work in our own homes, which can also impact us and increase the likelihood that we will engage in RBP. Sometimes it can feel like we are overwhelmed, and none more so than during the last two years. Some people are good at managing their time and ensuring that work does not bleed into family and home life. However, for many people, this isn’t something that is easy to do, be it because our office is in the kitchen or front room, or there are children being home schooled. By the time we have got through all of this, we’re probably quite tired and not really expecting to do anything enjoyable for ourselves.

Trying to reclaim our free time then marches on into the late evening and before we know it, we are engaging in the constant social media scroll or binging that TV series, RBP being too irresistible for us to avoid. Here3 there are some good tips on how to balance your work-family life, to help enable you to ensure you don’t get overwhelmed and have some firm boundaries in place.

As I mentioned earlier, there are some difficult, and quite serious, side-effects from experiencing poor and inadequate sleeping patterns. All these difficulties can have a serious impact on you and in your life. Just some of these difficulties we can experience with RBP are:

We can also experience an increase in depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders, which can then become debilitating for people who already experience anxiety, depression, or a mood disorder. A study4 conducted during the early months of lockdown in 2020 shows that to be busy is not necessarily sufficient to support an improvement in mood, but that the activity should also be meaningful. 

Meaningful activities help to regulate our psychological homeostasis- keeping our physiological and psychological need and drives in balance, creating a more harmonious environment. So, instead of doing a lot of busy activities, because that will make us feel good (which the study shows don’t necessarily happen!), engaging in some daily activities that we enjoy and give us a sense of meaning and purpose, can help to create, and maintain, a good mood for ourselves.

We can experience both a dysregulated metabolism and a weakened immune system which both impact on our overall physical health, and of course this can also impact are emotional health. We can also experience an increase in our mortality- having read a few studies, a meta-analysis5 that I found, which compared 16 studies and 27 independent cohort samples, found that not only is there a greater increase in the risk of death for people who have short durations to sleep, but longer duration’s of sleep were also associated with a greater risk of death. I think that second part is another blog post waiting to happen!

All of this sounds quite distressing, and RBP can spiral out of control, creating some very difficult situations in our life. So how do we fight RBP and what can we do to help ourselves get out of such a destructive pattern?

The good news is I that there are some practical things you can do to help mitigate the difficulties of RBP. As with most things to do with mental health and therapeutic models, there is no magic wand and so we must practice and put in place good bedtime practices. It also helps if we can try to reclaim some of our daytime hours for ourselves.

1).        If you find that you spent a lot of time ruminating, or focusing on your worries and difficulties, it can be very useful to write and sound in the journal or consider using a ‘worry book’ to support and help you stop to rumination. I have written a little bit about a worry book here which you can read or alternatively, you can look this up online, or you can send me an email and I can point you in the right direction.

2).        Trying to claw back some of those daytime hours that we have given away to other activities, schedules, work, chores, or people can also be a way to avoid the dreaded RBP. Prioritising yourself throughout the day, I’m putting yourself first, can help with those feelings of losing your free time. 

Quite often we put others first before ourselves which means that we deplete ourselves of energy throughout the day. By the time we get to the evening, we may be too tired to do any enjoyable activities; suddenly, it is time for bed, and we realise at this point, that we feel like we haven’t had any time to ourselves, and this is when the RBP kicks in.

Exercise can also help improve our general health and our quality of sleep. Therefore, it can be helpful to make sure you plan activities during the day that you enjoy and try to prioritise them, if you’ve done enjoyable things throughout the daytime, particularly activities that may be tiring, RBP is going to be a less attractive option than sleep.

3). Our sleep hygiene is more importance than we give credit to or realise. For those of you who are parents, and those of you who remember your own childhood, can you remember how important a bedtime routine was? As we got older our bedtime routines went out the window, particularly at the weekends when we wanted to stay up and have fun. 

A bedtime routine can help with good sleep hygiene, which is imperative to getting a good night’s sleep, so try to avoid those cosy naps during the daytime! Our body produces a chemical called Adenosine that is linked to sleepiness and the amount we have decreases as we sleep, yet whilst we are awake, the amount produced increases. So if we have that cosy afternoon nap, we are decreasing the amount of Adenosine in our body and possibly making it harder for us to go to sleep at night.

Good sleep hygiene can also include practising mindfulness, practising Breathwork, listening to an audiobook you’ve already heard and know the story of (this will help you to be less involved in the story and be able to switch off easier), and avoiding tv’s, mobiles, laptops, kindles etc. Yes, I know that they have the ‘night-time’ setting with the yellow light, not the blue light, but this also stimulates our brain, telling us it’s time to get up and do something.

A common myth is that our body clock, our circadian rhythm, is set by the time we go to sleep at night. Although the light and dark do control our circadian rhythms, sunlight helps to inform the body that it’s time to wake up. When it is dark, our body produces melatonin, which helps to make us sleepy. So, it can be helpful to set a regular getting up time and sticking to it, even on holidays and weekends! Missing just one day can affect our sleep, and this rhythm is something that we need to work on daily. I must add, it is ok to miss a day, a week of the same getting up time- holidays and lie-in’s can be soothing for the soul!

RBP seems to have gained in occurrence, or maybe just in reporting, over the pandemic and for many people, doesn’t appear to be easily dealt with. Above are some ideas to help with that, but even if you don’t want to try those ideas and are happy with your new hobby of RBP (is it new, or has it just got worse/been acknowledged, I wonder?), at least this post lets you know that you’re not the only one out there who is experiencing this. Good luck and sleep tight!

  1. https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/50163285?utm_source=wechat_session&utm_medium=social&s_r=0accessed 02 February 2022
  2. Waddell N, Overall NC, Chang VT, Hammond MD. Gendered division of labor during a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown: Implications for relationship problems and satisfaction. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. 2021;38(6):1759-1781. doi:10.1177/0265407521996476 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0265407521996476
  3. https://www.siop.org/Research-Publications/Items-of-Interest/ArtMID/19366/ArticleID/3454/Work-Family-Balance-Struggles-in-the-Time-of-COVID-19 accessed 1st February 2022
  4. Cohen DB, Luck M, Hormozaki A, Saling LL (2020) Increased meaningful activity while social distancing dampens affectivity; mere busyness heightens it: Implications for well-being during COVID-19. PLoS ONE 15(12): e0244631. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244631 accessed 28th January 2022
  5. Francesco P. Cappuccio, MD, FRCP, Lanfranco D’Elia, MD, Pasquale Strazzullo, MD, Michelle A. Miller, PhD, Sleep Duration and All-Cause Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies, Sleep, Volume 33, Issue 5, May 2010, Pages 585–592, https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/33.5.585

Mental Health Awareness Week 2020

wandalunLeave a comment

Like all of you, I have been working from home, trying to educate the kids whilst working with clients, admin and writing my progression for my thesis- COVID-19 has kindly set me back a bit, like I am sure it has many of you! So, this blog is going to be short and concise… unless I end up waffling!

This week marks an incredibly unusual Mental Health Awareness week for us all, with everyone coping in the best ways that they can. The theme for this year is ‘Kindness’, but I would ask you “what do you think about when I say ‘kindness’?” I am sure most of you will think about being kind to others. However, particularly during these stressful times, what about showing kindness to yourself? Have you thought about that?

Most of us have an abundance of compassion for our friends, family and even strangers, but what about compassion for ourselves? When do we think about being compassionate towards ourselves? When are we actually compassionate towards ourselves? What do you think being compassionate towards yourself is? What should it consist of?

Being compassionate towards yourself is difficult- our brains are hard-wired to assess for danger at all times, and goodness knows we are in a dangerous situation right now, with COVID-19 causing concerns globally. Jobs, health, schooling and friendships feel like they are all at risk, and some may well be. Now is a really good time to start to be more compassionate towards yourself.

Being kind can consist of many things- volunteering, helping a friend, a random act of kindness or making a cup of tea for yourself because you have had a hard day. I guess I am thinking about the home-schooling parents here- wow, what a term, eh?? Congratulations for getting through it- it has been tough!

Helping others gives us an amazing sense of satisfaction and happiness, but it can be difficult to volunteer or help out whilst this current pandemic is happening. We do, however, have the internet to help! We can virtually check-in with people and see how our friends and family are. We could skill-share online- I could teach you yoga if you teach me knitting? Given that most of us are actually stuck home and cannot get out to help others, it feels to me that right now is a really good time to practice your kindness towards yourself.

When something goes wrong, or doesn’t turn out as you would have liked or expected, what happens next? What words go through your head? Are they kind words? Are they words you would use to a friend in the same situation? 

We use our Internal defensive behaviours to keep the self from experiencing difficult internal situations or emotions and can include dissociation, substance misuse, harming oneself, and constantly reminding oneself of one’s faults, flaws, and weaknesses.

External defensive behaviours are intended to help the individual avoid harm from others, and include blaming the self, silencing the self, being submissive and non-assertive, distrusting others, and keeping others at a distance (Gilbert & Procter, 2006)

So, If my friend failed their driving test, am I going to commiserate with them and support them or am I going to tell them that it isn’t surprising as they fail at everything and are totally useless? NO!!! So, if I failed my driving test, why do I have those thoughts about myself? This is what I mean about being compassionate towards yourself- ok, I failed the test, but it isn’t the end of the world. I can take the test again; I can take more lessons and I can get better. Everyone fails something at some point in their lives. 

Part of compassion is about being realistic- who are you comparing yourself to? There isn’t really much point in me comparing myself to Taylor Swift, is there? I am not under 30, a pop star or a millionaire, so the comparison isn’t fair to me. Even if my brain thinks it is!

Kindness starts with being kind to yourself, so it is just as import to recognise when you have given enough of yourself- feeling tired, overwhelmed or frustrated are really good signs that it’s time to be kind to yourself. Don’t overdo things- so many people in this pandemic situation have decided to learn things or bake things. If you don’t feel like learning something, just because others have, doesn’t mean you have to. Back to comparing again, aren’t we? Their situation will be different to yours, so maybe they have more time and energy to actually do new and different things. It is ok to have not learnt French, the guitar or how to make the perfect sourdough bread before we all go back to work, you know.

For support:

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk

https://youngminds.org.uk

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/

https://www.compassionatemind.co.uk

Reference:

Gilbert, P., & Procter, S. (2006). Compassionate Mind Training for People with High Shame and Self-Criticism: Overview and Pilot Study of a Group Therapy Approach. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 13, 353–379.

Peace in Your Time.

wandalunLeave a comment

Hello Everyone, I hope you are keeping yourselves as safe and well as possible in these difficult times. As you all know, we are living through unprecedented times which can be scary and anxiety-provoking for everyone.

According to The Economist (unfortunately, a subscription is needed for this article), one-fifth of the world is currently under quarantine or lockdown. We are all in the same position, regardless of who we are and where we live. However, for some of us, this scenario has a lot more riding on it than for others. After all, the wealthy can afford to self-isolate without worrying about buying food or losing their homes and jobs.

In the USA, 6.6 million people filed for unemployment benefits for the week ending 28th March ALONE, which is double the week before, according to the BBC. This is a horrendous situation to be in and very frightening for people who are already struggling. In the UK, we are incredibly lucky to have a (reasonably) easily accessible benefits system and the NHS to support us- things we often take for granted.

There are some parallels between living in quarantine and living in a war zone; we live with a palpable sense of danger, even just going to the shop, and we have essentially lost our freedom, albeit for an excellent reason. There are also some suggestions within psychology that the impact of quarantine can lead to PTSD symptoms for some people. So, we need to acknowledge our mental health because we are ALL susceptible to struggle.

We know that at least 1 in 4 people will suffer from a mental health difficulty in their life-time, I wonder if the COVID-19 pandemic may well increase this. Our fantastic vital key workers and all frontline staff are striving and risking their lives daily; I can only imagine how scary this can be.

Due to our circumstances, we will be in quarantine until at least June 16th. Having been stuck in a 6×6 ft room in Great Ormond Street during our sons Bone Marrow Transplant (shout out to all the staff on the BMT wards there, especially Robin ward- thank you for working so hard and supporting everyone during what is a scary and unknown time!), we have ‘done’ quarantine before, so have some experience. The difference this time is that we are not the only ones who are quarantined- I don’t know if that makes this easier or not?

Some of the things that we did during our quarantine were dance, yes, dance! Just getting up and moving and having a giggle can break the tension and give you a reprieve from your current situation. I am not a good dancer, but that is half the point! To have some fun, do something different and to not be so serious. With what is going on around us, we need to have a break sometimes!

We watched movies- Sharknado was out at the time, and my word, did we laugh! Cleaning- even in our little room, with our one-year-old son, we turned cleaning into a game! Who could finish first, the floor is lava when mopping… just trying to be a little creative? Keeping in touch with our friends and family via Facetime/Skype/Whatsapp- I cannot stress how much this saved us! I missed my other kids and mum and dad at home, so seeing their faces every day, listening to their days and hearing their problems gave me a break from our own. We were even given paints by the Rainbow Trust charity, which brightened up our day no end.

We are now at home for this quarantine, and luckily, we have access to more things to keep us occupied! I’m not going to pretend the last three weeks have been easy for us as a family- I am working online with clients, the entire family is home and, we are all trying to share laptops and broadband bandwidth- it’s not easy when two of us are trying to Skype! Yesterday I also finished my taught element of my Professional Doctorate in Counselling Psychology (just the thesis left now), and the relief is unreal- one less thing to worry about in some quite dark times.

It is so important to practice your self-care still- what makes you happy? Do you have any strengths you can on which you could focus? We all have strengths, but do you know what yours are? Here is a website (if you like surveys and don’t mind registering!) that can help you find yours. By focusing on your strengths, and practising them daily, we start to get a better sense of wellbeing. Why? Well, if we are focusing on the things we do well, and we enjoy, we get positive feedback from this, which can make us do more positive things. Can you see the pattern? The thing is, we have to practice these strengths, which is something we often forget to do. When I took the test and found out my strengths, they were pretty obvious, but I would not have thought about them otherwise; our positives seem to be something we just take for granted, while we focus, and sometimes hyper-focus, on our negative areas!

So, if one of my strengths is to be kind, if I make my family a cake, I am going to get a sense of happiness and wellbeing from their positive reactions. I cannot stress how much we need to practice these! Some things we do, like breathing, we don’t think about and are just second nature, negative thought popping into our heads and things we don’t practice, but they still happen- why? Because our brains are developed to look for danger, so we keep a firm hold of those negatives and bring them out whenever we feel threatened.

Now, I am going to demonstrate an exercise so you can see what I am talking about and learn, if you want to, how to relax and calm yourself and feel just a little bit better. Imagine focusing on your positives. Get comfortable, sitting or lying down, preferably somewhere quiet, possibly tricky if your entire family are home! However, you can do this with your kids and partners- breathing and focusing can be beneficial for everyone.

Close your eyes, take some deep breaths in and out, relax your body. Feel your body touching the chair or bed, feel the rise of your chest and belly as you breath. You will have thoughts going through your mind, that is absolutely fine and will happen, even if you try not to! Picture yourself doing an affirmative act- just because we are in quarantine, doesn’t mean you have to limit your imagination to quarantine and your own home!

Maybe picture yourself helping your friends, doing a good deed for another, getting your work done and being praised, driving your car on a sunny day- yes, driving is one of your strengths (if you can drive), your strengths are what you make them and want them to be! Focus on what it feels like, the positive glow that surrounds you. What is your face like? Is it soft and smiling? What does that feel like? What about your voice? Soft, quiet and calming or irritated and loud? What is it like around you? Are there people? If you have done a positive deed, what do they look like and how are they talking to you? Smiling and happy? Stay with this and focus on the smiles, warmth and positivity surrounding you.

Now. When you are ready, open your eyes.

How do you feel? A little better? A little calmer? Ok, this might not last forever; you know, when your boss calls 10 minutes later or your toddler starts crying because you gave them the apple they asked for. But! We can always do it again- as many times as we like. We can practise this during the day, especially when we are feeling positive. Be compassionate and kind to yourself; if you are struggling with thinking of your strengths, go smaller! Positives can be things like making a cup of tea for your partner or cooking dinner for your family; these are choices we have, and when we make them, we are showing our compassionate side and how we care for others, and how others care for us. On our bad days, I tell my clients that even getting out of bed, having a cup of tea or brushing your teeth is actually an amazing achievement! Acknowledge that- times are tough, and we need to be gentle with ourselves.

What about if we get our brain stuck in a rut and just can’t get away from those negative thoughts or worry and panic? 

  • Firstly, the thing you are worried about- how likely is it to happen? What is the reality of your worry?
  • Secondly, what is the best-case scenario around your worry? What is the worst-case scenario? Generally, our expectations are not met with reality; it usually isn’t the worst or best case, but somewhere in the middle. Make a plan- best case scenario plan and worst-case scenario. Either way, you now have a plan and are prepared for whatever comes your way.
  • Finally- remember, you are a capable, smart person; you have got this far in life, so you have a lot of strengths and skills that you can utilise. Remember that a lot of these worries may just be that. Worries. Worries and thoughts can’t actually hurt you! 

Another thing you can do is to create a safe space for yourself: Make sure you are comfortable and close your eyes. Breath in and out comfortably and relax. In your mind, picture somewhere that is calm and peaceful, or somewhere you feel safe. Imagine what it feels like to be there. Is it warm or cold? Bright or dark? Busy or quiet? Are you on your own and if not, who are you with? Explore where you would like your safe place to be and when you need to relax or calm yourself (before a test? Job interview?) you can close your eyes and take yourself off, coming back peaceful and relaxed. 

I share this with clients all the time, but my safe space is a beach or a pool in a sunny climate. Laying by the pool, feeling the sun on your skin is incredibly relaxing, especially when you can also hear the gentle lapping of the waves in the pool or the sea. So, I take myself to this place when I want to be calm; I can do it for as long or as little as I like, and when I open my eyes, I always feel more grounded and peaceful.

Now, you may be thinking “But, my worry is a big problem!” Is it? What tells you that? Do you know the difference between a worry and a problem? Worry tends to be something that has happened in the past or something we think may occur in the future. Worry doesn’t have a fix to it, which makes it different from a problem. A problem can be resolved and has a solution to it. We may not be able to solve our problem at this moment in time but knowing that there is a solution can be very helpful and stop us worrying!

These are challenging times for everyone involved, try not to put pressure on yourself to do that new hobby or get that extra work done; yes, it can help us to feel better, but if we are trying to achieve the impossible, how is that going to make us feel? Pretty negative! We often compare ourselves to people- that’s natural, I guess, we are only human after all! But! Do you compare like for like? Or are you comparing yourself to someone who has more money, a bigger house, fewer pressures than you? Social media shows us the differences between our lives, and we can quite often be left feeling inadequate because of what our friends/family/celebrities post. Remember! People only post the good and the bad- it’s not considered ‘newsworthy’ if your day was just a normal one. But the reality is that we all have dull days and ‘normal’ days; in fact, we have more of them that we have amazing ones or hideous ones. Try to remember this.

Goodness, that’s a lot to remember to do, isn’t it? Looking after your mental health takes utilising some skills, time and effort; who would have thought that? Do you go to the gym? Exercise classes? Go for a run? Swim? Play hockey? All of this takes time and effort, doesn’t it, to keep your body in shape, so why do we think of our brain and mental health being any different?

If you were asked to run a marathon right now, you would try (maybe?!), and you would be out of breath, achy and sore; you would then take time out and rest, wouldn’t you? Well, we are in the middle of a pandemic, which is scary; surely, we need to take that time out to rest and look after our mental health too?

I hope you all keep yourselves safe and well- practice social distancing, stay in if you don’t need to go out. Remember, you may be ok if you get COVID-19, but there are some extremely vulnerable people out there who will not be if they contract the virus.

Not Only Is Big Brother Watching, But He Is Whispering In Your Ear.

wandalunLeave a comment

So, we’re nearing the end of 2019 and finishing it off with a bang, here in the UK we will have a General Election. This election isn’t about Brexit, despite what the media would like us to think, this is about our future, our children’s future and the future of public services such as the NHS and Education. These issues are hotly contested, and because of this, the coming election is a storm of emotions, sublimation, ‘fake news’ (thanks to Donald for that one) and mud-slinging from all corners. Your average election then, right?

The difficulty is that the media has so much power now; whatever is presented in the press via, video or audio, is immediately deemed the truth. We have all heard about how the Conservatives changed one of their CCHQ Twitter accounts during the recent Politically televised debates, calling itself ‘Fact Checking’ account, falsely debunking statements of truth. I am reasonably confident that if I were to behave in the same way, and someone made a complaint, I would no longer be able to practice!

This phenomenon, of hearing a ‘fact’ often enough that we start to believe that it is true, is called the “Illusory Truth Effect”. This phenomenon affects people in different ways, irrespective of your cognitive profile– how ‘smart’ you think you are, score, or come across. The more we hear a piece of information, the more we believe it; this is why precisely what we hear/see/read in the media is so important, if it is repeated often enough, we believe it. The response by Dominic Raab, the Conservative Party Foreign Secretary, on the BBC Breakfast TV Show was “no one gives a toss about the social media cut and thrust”. We know this is wrong, though, don’t we? How many of you get your news from Social Media now? That quick thumb scroll through Twitter while you’re picking the kids up from school, or on the way to your next meeting, or while having a cup of coffee- we all do it, and we all pick up information from it, to say that we don’t is deflective and obtuse.

I wonder if you have heard of the Cambridge Analytica Scandal? A story broke in December 2015 by a journalist called Harry Davies for The Guardian. The story gave detailed information of how the Cambridge Analytica company gained knowledge from (what, at the time, was believed to be) over 50 million Facebook US profiles, without their consent. Cambridge then used this data to enable them to advertise politically and to build a software program that has the power to influence and predict voting choices. All without Voter’s knowledge. The story finally broke in March 2018 when an ex-Cambridge Analytica employee turned whistle-blower, Christopher Wylie, who had been an anonymous source for an article in 2017 in The Observer by Carole Cadwalladr, headlined “The Great British Brexit Robbery”, went public.

So, did you know about this? Follow the links to learn more about the story as I don’t have time or space to write up here. You may ask why is this relevant to me? Well, the app created was called “This is your digital life” and gained consent (permission) from a couple of hundred thousand Facebook users to collect the answers to the data questions asked. All well and good, right? Yes, but what Facebook didn’t inform their users was that they also used the data and profiles for their Facebook friends in their online social circles. 87 MILLION of these profiles used without the owner’s consent. This meant that the data wasn’t just limited to users in the US, but all over the world, too. At this point, our story becomes more pertinent and of more interest to those of us in the UK.

Cambridge Analytica had links to another company, AggregateIQ (AIQ), who played a pivotal part in the 2016 Brexit Vote Leave campaign. AIQ accounted for 40% of the campaign budget for the Vote Leave campaign. Can you see where I am heading here? All of this happened, without your knowledge and even may have influenced how you voted at the time.

Coming back to the illusory effect, had you accessed your Facebook in 2016, or even your Twitter in 2019, you would have seen the information that you would have deemed to be tru, By the sheer fact that you had read it, and perhaps understood it published elsewhere, once, twice, three times.. how many times before you even stop questioning the data, never mind the source? I know, I know, life is too busy, it’s not relevant to you… so many reasons why this shouldn’t be an issue, but it is.

When do we stop questioning and start following? This journal article explains how even when we know a ‘fact’ is untrue, we still need reinforcement of the truth to enable us to ensure that we do not automatically accept the original ‘fact’ as the truth. That sounds quite complex, however if, for example, you have been told, or learnt, that a Goldfish has a three-second memory, Now, you hold that ‘fact’ as the ‘truth’ because you have heard it or been told it many times before. However, the truth is that goldfish have a memory span of about three months.. the Great Wall of China is NOT visible from space, despite what we were told as children; nowhere in the Bible does it say there were three Wiseman (just Wisemen!) and although 41% of US adults believe we coexisted with Dinosaurs, we actually missed them by 64 million years; all great examples of how the Illusory effect works! So, to mediate for these ‘facts’ we hold as the truth, we need to reinforce the true facts for us to override the incorrect facts. Simples…

My point throughout all of this, is who’s truth do we believe? Where do we get our information from? This isn’t just about politics, this is about how you live your life. It is about your narrative. Are people on benefits, for example, all lazy or cheats? No, it’s what you’ve read and heard over and over again in the media. The truth is that we all have difficulties in life, and we would hope that when we need help, it will be there for us. That help will only be there, if we look at what we are being taught and told and challenge it. It is easy to let sleeping dogs lie and go along with the Illusory effect; however, at the end of the day, is it helping you? Have you made the right decisions? Are they your decisions and not the decisions that the media/politicians/parents/work colleagues/friends want us to have?

We can only affect real change if we are informed about the decisions we are making and the choices we take; can you say that you are informed? Are these your beliefs, or the ones you have grown up on? Whichever it is, vote with your heart and your conscience; the Illusory Effect can be challenged, but only if you are open to it! As a strong proponent for Social Change, and an advocate for justice and equality, and maybe perhaps a little bit of the researcher in me, I am voting with my rational mind and with the policies in mind. I am voting for what is going to make my family, my children, my friends and my communities future lives better!

If you’re interested in finding out what my stance is, from a Counselling Psychologist in Training point of view, follows this link to a great organisation called ‘Psychologists for Change’. This organisation is a group of likeminded psychologists, psychology graduates, academics, applied psychologists and more who believe in applying psychology to policy and political action; trying to make all our lives better.

References:

T’is the Season To Be Jolly.. Or Else?

wandalun

So, I returned from an appointment the other week (back in November, actually!), to discover that my neighbours had already started decorating for Christmas 😐 this is something that does not make me happy; in fact, I had been hoping to hold off on the ‘Christmas Blog’ for a few more weeks yet. But, when another neighbour decorated with lights outside their house (in a bizarre pattern!) last week, I felt that I could not contain this blog anymore; batten down the hatches, Christmas is coming (not said in a Game of Thrones style, I promise).

So, when DO we start getting ready for Christmas and how does all this affect us? I am a bit of a traditionalist; to me, Christmas decorations and trees should not appear before the 15th December, as the earliest! However, there has been a growing pattern of people starting the festivities earlier and earlier; the first year we moved in here, four years ago, the decorations came out the first week of December and they have crept earlier and earlier every year since!

This made me think- am I being ‘Bah humbug’ or are other people feeling the same as me? I found a study by (Werner, Peterson-Lewis and Brown, 1989) that suggests that neighbours who decorate their houses, and perhaps do not have many friends in their street, are doing so to show their openness and cohesiveness in their local community. So, does that mean I don’t want to get involved with my neighbours? Well, yes, to a certain extent, but this doesn’t explain WHY people decorate so early? Maybe it is to welcome the neighbours to the coming festivities?

What about those people whose decorations are ridiculous to the extremes? And I am thinking this;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20669944

Now, perhaps this level of decoration could actually alienate the neighbours? Who wants to live next door to lights of that extreme, or that many visitors during December? The only positive thing I can think of, is that I think your house would be fairly safe from burglars throughout the whole of December?

So, if lights can either make you more (or less) tolerant and accepting of your neighbours, what does give you the ‘Christmas Spirit’? Well, a popular study I have found, cited by all the Christmas Naysayers, is from a couple of scientists in the Journal of Happiness Studies. (Kasser and Sheldon, 2002) asked 117 people, ranging in age from 18-80. They asked them to answer questions about their satisfaction, stress, and emotional state during the Christmas season, as well as questions about their experiences, use of money, and consumption behaviors during the festive period!

Now, I don’t know if this was what you were expecting, but peoples satisfaction was actually greater for the festive period, when it was based around family and religious experiences, rather than spending loads of money and giving/receiving gifts. Was that what you were expecting? I don’t know if I was; I know that, for me, I am very lucky and have a wonderful family, so Christmas is all about being with them. I don’t really mind present giving and receiving, or maybe that is because I am far too old, and bah humbug!

I find it hard to get too exited about Christmas until late December because, for me, it can’t start without my family. So until I am doing those activities like the Christmas food shop, or the kids start the school holidays it really is not Christmas time.

The Christmas period starting in late November, or early December is more about retail. Shops have to be able to sell goods and toys for two paydays before the 25th to give people a chance to buy things. For many people this leads to Christmas fatigue before Christmas arrives, and this is why I choose to ignore the holiday season for as long as possible.

So, I guess this brings us to the crux of the issue; what if it isn’t about spending, money and presents. What if it is about spending time with loved ones. And, lets just say, you are alone and don’t have any loved ones to spend it with. What then? What if you are left alone for Christmas, and I don’t mean in a cutesy ‘Home Alone’ movie style? What happens then?

It can be very hard to be alone for Christmas, but conversely, some people love being alone at this time! So, what can you do to keep yourself from being lonely at Christmas?

Scouring the Internet, the ideas are all the same;

  • Volunteer- helping others always makes us feel good about ourselves, and lets be honest, Christmas is probably the best time to volunteer!
  • Say YES to everything you are invited to- even if you are not feeling up to it, say YES! You can always leave early and go home; you never know what you might be missing out on, if you don’t even try
  • Work, Work, Work- if you enjoy working, then work! We are all different and different things make us happy. If it isn’t interrupting your life, perhaps you can get a jump-start on next quarters budgets!
  • Indulge yourself- comfort food, stay in your pajamas all day, dancing around the front room, watch your favourite movies all day long, whatever it is, DO IT!
  • Don’t wallow in your loneliness; find some support, internet, friends, chat rooms, whatever- just don’t feel like you are on your own!
  • Planning your time in advance is a good way of staving off the loneliness; if you have planned your time in advance, you know that you are not going to get bored and lonely, as you have a full itinery of things to do. Sounds like a plan to me J
  • Random acts of kindness and having faith can be quite important; I don’t mean an all encompassing faith that demands your presence at church 24/7, but perhaps some Mindfulness meditation, some relaxation or just getting in touch with your spiritual side and your ideas of what life is all about. Whatever it is that can make you happy.

So, there you have it, you’ve got some ideas to get you going. But what if none of those things appeal to you, and you don’t have anyone special to spend the holidays with? Well I would say that you do… You are special, buy yourself a present and enjoy it, you deserve it!

Kasser, T. and Sheldon, K. (2002) ‘What Makes for a Merry Christmas?’, Journal of Happiness Studies, vol. 3, no. 4, December, pp. 313-329.

Werner, C., Peterson-Lewis, S. and Brown, B. (1989) ‘Inferences about homeowners’ sociability: Impact of christmas decorations and other cues’, Journal of Environmetal Psychology, vol. 9, no. 4, December, pp. 279-296.

 

 

Still Waiting For That Email?

wandalun

So, having been sick from work for a while, I am slowly getting back in to the swing of things. As I run my own private practice, this includes responding to emails, a task which is usually reasonably quick for me!

However, I am having difficulties with my ISP (internet service Provider) at the moment (they shall remain nameless!) and some of my emails are not being sent, going missing, I am not able to pick up some emails and, perhaps the most frustrating of all, some emails I am being sent are bouncing back to clients, so I am not even getting them!

Whilst I am trying to find fixes for these (oh-so frustrating) issues, I came across this article which was from the Conference Steering Committee for the World Wide Web in Florence, Italy this year, which explains quite a lot as to the difference in responses with some of my clients and colleagues!

Have you ever been frustrated at how slowly (or quickly!) some people reply to your emails? I am one of those people who respond as soon as I am in a position to, as quickly as possible! So, when I have to wait for a response, from a friend, client or colleague, I can become quite eager to see that little red circle with a number in it appear on my email app!

I began to wonder, what is the difference in the speed of replies for emailing people? Is it based on IT skills- would a younger generation respond more quickly, being that email/messaging has been around for most of their lives, or because it plays such an important part in their lives? Or would the older generation be quicker? Seeing it as a politeness issue; non-response would be like ignoring someone? Or maybe every age group felt exactly the same?

The study ‘Evolution of Email Conversations in the Age of Email Overload’ by (Kooti et al., 2015) found a variety of answers to some questions, namely;

  • More than half of the responses contain fewer than 43 words.
  • If people are going to respond to an email, 90 percent will do it within a few days.
  • Responses on the weekends are the shortest.
  • Teens reply the fastest, shooting back a response in 13 minutes, on average.
  • It takes people, ages 35-50, about 24 minutes to reply.
  • People age 51 and older take a whopping 47 minutes to reply to their emails, on average.
  • Women take about four minutes longer than men to send a reply.
  • Only 30 percent of emails exceed 100 words.
  • People aged 20-35 are almost as speedy, sending a reply in 16 minutes, on average.
  • Half fire off a response in under an hour.
  • Want a lengthy reply? Make sure your email arrives in the morning.
  • The most common responses contain five words.

So, what did I learn from that? Well, I learned that people deal with email information (over) load in very different ways! Younger people are quicker at responding, but respond with fewer words- could this be down to the urgency of life when you are younger, or just that fewer words are needed to get your point across? What it didn’t explain, for me, was why some people respond and others don’t? No one likes to be ignored, and not receiving a reply to an email is a way of being ignored. The study also did not stress the importance that we place on emails and responses, only that we do try to respond.

As we get busier and busier, and our working lives’ get more stressful, this study shows that we do still try to answer our emails, but that we answer fewer emails and with fewer words. The main take-away from this, is that if you have an email that you really need a reply to, ensure it is there, bright and early for the recipient to read, when they arrive at work!

But how does this affect us? Does it just mean that when we arrive at work, instead of 10 emails, we are going to arrive to 100? Does it mean that we need to change the way in which we work?

What this boils down to is how much work we have on and how willing we are to prioritize our work- are you good at prioritizing you work? Do you know what is the most important work to get done?

Do you procrastinate and go to the easy to answer emails first? Leaving the harder ones to deal with as the day wears on, and indeed, you wear on? What the study found was that social importance was of higher importance than the actual importance of the content of the emails; so for example, if the email was from a friend at work, we would be more likely to reply to that, than to an email from our boss asking if our work was done. But, does this then add more pressure on us? Are we making our working lives harder?

These are all questions that need to answered by further studies, but I wonder how many of you can empathise with what the study found? Do you feel under more pressure to reply to more and more emails? Do you find that you need to answer emails out of working hours? And, if so, when does that stop?

The pressure can be different for people who run their own business, as for people who ‘traditional’ employees- I know from my own experience, working for myself means that I am never ‘off’ work. So, what can we do to limit the stress?

Well, to start with, we can learn to switch our mobile devices off when we get home from work! I have been doing this for a while now- on days off, evenings and weekends, I will not answer calls/texts/emails from my clients. I am not being rude, I just need to have boundaries that mean I get some time off too! Perhaps that could be a good starting point for you?

Do you give yourself a lunch break? It is really important, during your working day to give yourself a complete break from work; to let your mind rest and recover, to give you the energy to get through the day. It is really easy to just grab a quick sandwich, at your desk, replying to emails or answering phone calls, but are you getting a rest and do you feel like you are getting a break? If you feel that your work is encroaching into your lunch break, make a ‘lunch date’ with friends, try going out for a walk (yes, even in this grotty weather!), or what about sitting in your car for 15 minutes? Something that will mean you are taking your mind off of your work and on to other things!

What about practicing so mindfulness or relaxation at your desk? You could do this in the morning for 10 minutes, or the afternoon, or both! You could even invest in a cheap pair of ear buds, to block out the noise! Anything that relaxes you a little and helps you get through the day is a good thing, wouldn’t you say?

Some colleagues I work with go for a power walk, or yoga session at lunch time; maybe you don’t have the time for that, but at least getting up and having a walk around the office can get you moving and break that habit of sitting there all day!

Finally, what about being kind to yourself? If you get 50+ emails in one day, on top of your daily work, being honest and accepting that you cant possibly answer all of those emails. Yes, I know, it feels rubbish to do that, its like accepting defeat, but is it realistic to expect you to do all of this extra work? If it can’t fit in to your normal working day, perhaps a chat with your boss about your work expectations and the level of work you are getting is needed?

We always expect more of ourselves, but this has to be within sensible limits, doesn’t it? Life isn’t all about work, or at least, I don’t believe it should be, do you? If you are worried about your work/life balance, perhaps it is time to take a look at it. Maybe you can’t reply to all those emails in one day, maybe you shouldn’t have to? But the study above does show us that we need some better management tools to manage our emails, so perhaps it is time we invested in ourselves, our own ‘management tool’ for our working lives?

That said, it is Friday night and time for me to enjoy my weekend! I hope you all have a great weekend; step away from the phone and stop answering your emails! Monday will be here before you know it- surely they can wait until then?

Kooti, F., Aiello, L.M., Grbovic, M., Lerman, K. and Mantrach, A. (2015) ‘Evolution of Conversations in the Age of Email Overload’, Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on World Wide Web, Florence, 603-613.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes, Life just happens!

wandalun

Hello everyone!

I really hope you are all well, and for those of you in the UK, are enjoying our strangely inclement weather!

I am so sorry for my silence over the past few weeks and months; as I am sure you are all aware, sometimes,  life just gets in the way. I have been very poorly with Pneumonia, and am well on the way to recovery now- thankfully!

My illness has made me incredibly grateful for my family and my very close friends- being sick is never fun, but when you are trying to balance all the stresses and strains of modern life, things can really get to you!

I have been practicing my Mindfulness and Relaxation (have you?) to get me through some particularly rough patches. With Christmas coming, it’s quite common for us to get stressed and irritated with the prospect of so much do organise and do. How about giving a bit of basic Relaxation a try? There are a lot of apps on the App Store and Android Store (even on Youtube) that you could find to help you 🙂

Anyway, this is just a very short post to reconnect and say ‘Hi!’ to you all! I am getting back to working condition, slowly and surely, and will be planning some stress-busting blog tips for the run-up to Christmas!

Have a wonderful weekend, and keep wrapped up!

Wanda

Social Media; Friend or Foe?

wandalun

So, hello everyone! I have been out of the loop on social media lately- work, family, study and other commitments have kind of got in the way; and for that, I apologise.

Hang on, why am I apologising? Surely it is up to me what I post, when I post, how often I post, what I am exposed to and how it affects me? Right? Well, maybe that’s not necessarily the case- particularly if you have a large ‘friend’ base on social media!

I thought this might be quite a relevant topic with which to re-enter my social ‘sphere’. The thing about Facebook, Instagram and other forms of social media, is the control (or lack of it) that we perceive we have.

A recent study by Sarah Buglass from the School of Social Sciences at Nottingham Trent university, in the UK, suggests that ‘as our network size increases, the ability to remember who, or in the case of misclassified profiles, what you are connecting to, becomes increasingly more difficult, and the management of these networks more complex’ (Buglass et al., 2016).

The researchers studied 177 UK based Facebook users, of these 89% had their settings set to ‘friends only’, but just 22% used additional filtering option to improve their online safety. People who had smaller networks (less than 150 friends) were found to be more able to manage the information that they were posting and who they were posting to, as they were more aware of whom they share their posts with.

People with large networks (150+ friends) were more likely to be exposed to unsuitable material, which could cause them Psychological harm. These people are leaving themselves vulnerable to who is able to see their information, which can lead to a risk of damage to their own reputations and that of others, harassment from disgruntled parties, but also the fact that these people were more likely to fall victim to potential data misuse.

Personally, due to the nature of my work, I do keep my private social media accounts, private, but I still do see posts from ‘friends’ that I don’t want to see- be that because I don’t agree with their content or that it is just not that relevant to me.

I know how to change my privacy settings to stop seeing these images and posts, but do you? Have you stopped to think about just who is seeing your personal data? Have you thought about how those ‘shocking’ posts are affecting you?

Having more Facebook friends doesn’t mean you are popular, it means that you collecting people on a list, some of whom will share your ideologies, some of whom will be remarkably different from your own.

Perhaps a friend has let you down? Perhaps you have become distant from your close friend, for whatever reason? Well, seeing them on a daily basis, on your Facebook feed could actually be damaging your psychological welfare- do you really want to be reminded that someone has hurt you deeply, or that you are no longer seeing your friends, whilst they are off having fun with new friends?

Whatever the reason, we need to take care of ourselves on social media- not only for data reasons, but our own psychological reasons. Everyone’s life is different; we don’t need to be measuring ourselves on the virtual achievements of others!

In the mean time, I am going back to my privacy settings and just checking for sure, that you can’t see how old I am!

 

Buglass, S., Binder, J.F., Betts, L.R. and Underwood, J.D.M. (2016) ‘When ‘friends’ collide: Social heterogeneity and user vulnerability on social network sites’, Computers in Human Behaviour, vol. 54, January, pp. 62-72.

 

 

One Year On and Has There Been Any Real Change?

wandalun1 Comment

One year ago today, the world was rocked by the unexpected death of Robin Williams. He had been suffering from severe depression and, sadly, took his own life. What caused him to do this is unknown, and sadly, suicide remains very prevalent in our modern society.

According to The Samaritans 2015 report, Suicide Statistics 2015,

  • In 2013, 6,233 suicides were registered in the UK. This corresponds to a rate of 11.9 per 100,000 (19.0 per 100,000 for men and 5.1 per 100,000 for women).
  • The male suicide rate is the highest since 2001. The suicide rate among men aged 45-59, 25.1 per 100,000, is the highest for this group since 1981.

SuicideChart

 

Screen Shot 2015-08-11 at 18.10.11

So, why is this happening and what is going on? The rates of suicide are increasing- but aren’t we more aware of our mental health now, more than ever? The Mental Health Foundation estimates that;

  • One in four people will experience a mental health problem at some point in their lives.
  • Around one in ten children experience mental health problems.
  • Depression affects around one in 12 of the whole population.
  • Rates of self-harm in the UK are the highest in Europe at 400 per 100,000.
  • 450 million people worldwide have a mental health problem.

So, mental health issues are pretty common place- so why are the suicide rates increasing? One reason that is consistently studied is the idea of stigma that is attached to admitting that one is suffering from a mental health difficulty. Different forms of stigma include personal stigma (negative attitudes towards others), perceived stigma (perceived attitudes of others) and self-stigma (self-attribution of others’ negative attitudes), so we can see the possible effects of ‘owning up’ to a mental health difficulty.

A study published this year asked 350 members of the public and university students to complete an online survey assessing their knowledge and contact with depression and anxiety, perceived stigma and self-stigma for both anxiety and depression (Grant, Bruce and Batterham, 2015). They found that (surprise, surprise!) the more contact you have with anxiety and depression- be it yourself or a friend or colleague- the less stigma you perceived from other people.

Men reported that they felt more personal stigma around depression and anxiety than women and the more the participant had personal experience of anxiety and depression, the higher their levels of self-stigma were towards mental health illnesses. So, really, there were no surprises. The more you experience mental health difficulties, the more you think other people will judge you negatively. So, now are we getting to the crux of why suicide’s are rising year on year? Despite the fact that we all think we are tolerant towards mental health illnesses, there is still a huge amount of perceived stigma, particularly from people who are suffering.

If you are feeling bad, who is going to want to risk telling people, who may then judge them and make them feel worse? Or just the idea that we have a mental health difficulty can be enough to stop you even acknowledging it, and certainly stop you getting help for it. What this study found was that we need to increase interventions aimed at increasing help-seeking behavior- we need to make it easier and less traumatic and worrying to get help.

We still assume that we are going to be penalized, personally, financially and professionally if we admit to having difficulties; but, and here is the crazy part, ONE IN FOUR PEOPLE will experience mental health problems at some point in their life. It could be you, your mum, dad, partner, children, best friends or colleagues from work. How would you feel if your loved one was feeling depressed, or, heaven forbid, suicidal, but didn’t want to tell anyone for fear of shame?

We really like to think of ourselves as sophisticated and non-judgmental, but, if this were the case, more people would seek help for their health, and surely, suicide rates would decrease? Mental health difficulties don’t discriminate; the old, young, rich, poor, male, female, cultural differences- it doesn’t matter. So, if mental health illnesses don’t discriminate, why should we?

What Robin Williams sad death highlighted for our society was the fact that no matter how rich or successful you are, if you are feeling low, depressed or anxious, money and fame and success won’t fix it- it’s time we were more open about mental health. Life is hard, sometimes, and we all need help from time to time; why should we have shame and stigma attached to that?

I wrote a blog piece earlier in the year on teenage depression, but, you know what? A lot of the symptoms are the same! The other point about this piece I am writing, is that even if you are not suffering from depression or anxiety, it’s really helpful to know what the symptoms are, so we can help and support our friends and family! Also, what’s the harm in spreading information and destigmatizing the issue of mental health? Anyway, back to the point of this particular paragraph; when it comes to mental health illnesses, please seek some help if you are experiencing three or more of these;

  • Do you feel a sense of hopelessness or sadness? It can be for no reason at all.
  • Do you have thoughts of death or suicide? ‘Everyone would be better off if I wasn’t here’ can sometimes be a common thought.
  • Do you suffer from a lack of energy? Are you fatigued more than normal?
  • Are there any changes in your eating habits? Eating more, or less?
  • Are there any changes in your sleeping habits? Sleeping more, sleeping less, night waking and being unable to return to sleep, waking up early?
  • Have you withdrawn from family and friends? Does work seem harder than usual, for no particular reason?
  • Are you tearful? Do you cry easily? Are you crying frequently?
  • Have you lost interest in your usual activities? Is there a sense of apathy that wasn’t there before?
  • Are you agitated? Restless? Unable to sit still?
  • Are you suffering from feelings of worthlessness and guilt?
  • Have you developed difficulties in concentrating?
  • Have you lost your usual enthusiasm? Have you developed a lack of motivation?
  • Are you feeling irritable? Angry? Hostile?
  • Have you any increased feelings of anxiety?
  • Have you become extremely sensitive to criticism?
  • Do you have unexplained aches and pains? Headaches or stomach aches, for example?

Please do go and see a Doctor. Seek out some help. Everybody goes through a rough patch at some point or another and sometimes things are just really difficult to deal with.

There are lots of different ways to tackle depression- medication is not the only thing available! I work in the NHS with clients who are referred from their Doctors surgeries. Sometimes, just talking to someone can help. Knowing that you are not the only one who feels that way can help to normalise what is going on for you. The NHS offers CBT therapy and courses to help deal with depression, anxiety and other issues. Please believe me when I say that you are not alone, many, many others feel this way too.

It might sounds ridiculous, when you are feeling so rough that you don’t want to get out of bed, but try and see your friends and family- research shows that getting out there and talking to people really does make you feel better. It is hard work, I know, but the more you see your friends and family, the easier it gets to go out and see them and the less you isolate yourself from the people who care.

Get some exercise! Go for a walk, run, swim- whatever it is that makes you feel better! Exercise releases endorphins, which are the feel good hormones in our body, so after we exercise, we get a hit of endorphins that makes us feel good. Even If it is just a walk- it will still do the same!

Concentrate on ‘me’ time- whether that’s a face pack, a bath, and meeting friends, going to the cinema. Whatever it is that will relax you. I know, I know, there are far too many things that need to be done before you can have some relaxation. But, the dishes will still be there when you have spent some ‘me’ time, and you know what? Doing those dishes might not be such a big deal when you have had time to relax.

As adults, especially if we have families to look after, we don’t feel like we deserve to have ‘me’ time, but realistically, having some ‘me’ time can help you so much more than you think it will! Spending a small amount of time de-stressing yourself will make all those things you need to deal with easier. Go on, try it- what have you got to lose?

Are you worrying too much? Do you find yourself spending all your time worrying? One thing that can really help is to have a ‘worry book’ on hand. Every time you have a worry, write it in your worry book. Then allocate yourself a period of time during the day to acknowledge your worries- make sure its not bedtime though, as those thoughts will just swim around your head! Take 30 minutes (no more- it’s worry time, not worry hours!), perhaps after dinner, or when you’ve put the kids to bed, and get your worry book out. Have a look at your worries. Can you do something about it? If so, it’s a problem, not a worry- and problems we can do something about!

If it is something in the past, or something that we physically cant do anything about, it is a worry. Write it in your worry book, acknowledge it in your worry time, and whenever it pops back in to your head during the day, say to yourself ‘Yep, that’s a worry for me- but, it’s in my worry book/I’ll put it in my worry book, and I will look at it later in worry time!’ distinguishing between what is a worry and what is a problem can be very helpful and give us some perspective about things we can do and things we cant.

Finally, seek out help- if you are feeling low, call a friend, call the Samaritans, CALM or SANE to talk to someone. Don’t suffer alone! If you don’t feel like your GP is taking you seriously, talk to another one. Just like some people specialise in holiday insurance and others in pet insurance, GP’s have specialisms too! Some are just better dealing with mental health difficulties than others!

If you do decide to go for counselling, it is really important that you find a counsellor who fits with the way you think and feel. If you don’t feel safe and listened to by one counsellor, go to another- as counsellors, we really want you to feel confortable with us; we wont take offense if you don’t! You cant like everyone in this life!

So, don’t let your mental health get to the point that you feel there is no hope. There is help out there, if only you can find it. And, you know what? People are a lot less judgemental than you think, and that stigma you perceived from your colleague? Well, maybe they just don’t really know what to say, but they do want to help!

 

Grant, J.B., Bruce,  .P. and Batterham, P.J. (2015) ‘Predictors of personal, perceived and self-stigma towards anxiety and depression’, Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, vol. 1, August, pp. 1-8.

Samaritans 08457 90 90 90

SANE 0845 767 8000

CALM 0800 58 58 58 or by text on 07537 404717

 

 

 

Stuck For Something To Do?

wandalun

So, in honour of our (not so) wonderful British summer, I thought that this week’s blog post should be aimed at all those parents out there- Just how do you survive the holidays with you children at home?

I happen to be one of those strange parents- the holidays for me are a joyous time! Yes, they are filled with shouting, crying, laughing and lots of rain, but it also means no school run, lie-ins and some real quality time with the family! Summer holidays are different for everyone- some people love them and some people loathe them, but, whichever one you are (a lover or a loather), we still have to get through them!

 

♯1 RELAX!!!

Unless you have an appointment or somewhere to be, why rush? Enjoy the fact that there is no school to rush about for and no clubs to ferry the kids to! Your kids have been working really hard for the last academic year- they deserve to have some time off!

One thing you could do is to get the kids involved in some meditation! No, not the kind of meditation you are thinking of, but a guided meditation. Using a progressive muscle relaxation can be a really useful life skill, believe it or not! By teaching your kids to relax and take a minute for themselves, you are arming them with weapons of defence for future stressful times, and lets face it, school, with all its testing and social pressures, can be a really stressful time!

There are plenty of free apps or websites available to get progressive muscle relaxation scripts- I quite like this one, which is available free (always a bonus!) https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Progressive_Muscle_Relaxation.pdf

You could also teach your kids to find a special place that is calming and relaxing- these techniques are great for pre-exam butterflies! Why not give it a try?

 

♯2 SLEEP!!!!

Remember when your little one’s were babies, and you thought you would never get a good nights sleep or a lie-in again? Well, now you can- legitimately!!! Again, your kids have had a hectic busy year- so have you! What else are the holidays for, but to kick back, relax and have a sneaky lie-in? So what if you didn’t get the washing done- there’s always tomorrow! Sometimes it is good to take things at a slower pace, recharge your batteries and get your head back in to a good space!

 

♯3 Switch off the electrics!!!

I don’t mean X-boxes or PlayStations- after all, research has found that (limited!) access to gaming teaches kids a lot about coordination, socialising, sharing, story telling and creativity! Have you ever played Minecraft with your kids? The stories and characters they create can be totally fascinating! But what I mean, is Social Media- we can spend all too long flicking through Facebook, Tweeting on Twitter or posting photo’s to Instagram. When we are doing this, and our kids see it, it becomes normalised. That’s what you do when you go out with people; you play on your phone.

Tear yourself away from it for a few hours- instead of taking a million photos in the play park, go ON the play park with your kids. Release your inner child!!! Now, wasn’t that fun?

 

♯4 Divide and Conquer!

What? Well, this one is for the parents who have multiple siblings to look after. I am sure that you will have the experience of having a 10 year old not want to do what your 3 year old wants to do; so, what do you do with that?

Well, contrary to popular opinion, children thrive on boundaries and timetables- they like to know what is happening and when it is happening and for how long it is going to happen! Why not spend Sunday night planning the week ahead? So that when your three year old wants to go to Peppa Pig world, and your ten year old complains, you can show them that you have space for them to choose something later in the week. This way, they can learn responsibilities and that dreaded word, sharing!

 

♯5 Don’t Compare!

This one ties in with number 3- don’t compare your activities to those of your online friends! There life is different to yours, and yes, they may have gone to Euro Disney for a ‘quick’ weekend with the kids, but that doesn’t mean a camping holiday is inferior! Your time is what you make of it, so be CHILL! Engage with your kids and stop worrying about the Jones’s, because I can promise you, they’re trying to keep up with you, as much as you’re trying to keep up with them!

 

♯6 Let your kids get BORED!

You do not have to produce activities for them every single day! It’s part of childhood to get bored and then to experiment with trying to entertain yourself! Get them to create games, art projects, have a story telling competition- there is nothing wrong with suggesting activities to them, but they will never learn to entertain themselves if we don’t leave them to it!

 

♯7 SPORT!

Sport can be a fantastic activity- cycling, playing in the park, football or even just a yomp through the local forest or park! Whatever you do gets them out of the house, expending energy and, guess what? When you expend energy, you get tired! So, a nice early night for the kids can give you just that little bit longer to relax by yourself, or with your partner, in the evenings. Now, what is so bad about that?

 

♯8 RELATIVES!

Do you have relatives that the kids could go and visit? Maybe for a morning or an afternoon, or, if you are really lucky, an overnight sleepover with Grandma and Grandpa! The kids will love it, you will love it and it gives your relatives time with the kids, unpressured, which might not happen the rest of the year!

 

♯9 Got a tent?

Have a sleepover in the garden! Did you ever do that as a child? Remember how exciting it was to sleep in your back garden in a tent?? You could have a little midnight feast, burin some marshmallows on the bbq or the kids might just be old enough to sleep in the tent alone. Whatever happens, there will be a buzz of activity in your house, and we know what releasing adrenaline produces, don’t we? Sleepy times!

 

♯10 Plan as a family

Finally, you are a family- so; if the kids are old enough, plan the holidays with them. Give them options- it doesn’t have to cost a fortune! Get them involved with running the house- baking kids (the cakes are their own rewards here!) doing the dishes or hanging out the washing. You can choose to give them pocket money for tasks, with a special visit to the sweet shop at the end of the week, or just teaching them that running a household means everyone needs to pitch in. The choice is yours- it is your family, after all!

Anyway, there are some ideas for dealing with the holidays. Yes, they’re not perfect and yes, they may not all suit you, but anything is worth a try, isn’t it? As you all know, your children are only young and wanting to hang out with you for a very small amount of time, and that time flies by even quicker. Making the most of the holidays can actually be really fun, it depends on which perspective you take!

Remember, you can always try some relaxation techniques, if the excitement gets too much!