Psychology

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

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:

Something is a miss..

wandalunLeave a comment

Hi Everyone! I hope 2019 is faring well for you all! I have been remiss in my job of late- I have not updated my blog since the New Year. There has been a very good reason for this; last year, I had a loss in my family that was incredibly profound. It wasn’t my first loss, but it was my first loss as an ‘adult’, and it did hit me hard. Since then, as anyone who has experienced loss, I have been trying to figure things out and make sense of my, now changed, world. That’s not been an easy thing for me to do.

My first experience of loss was as a 7-year-old at school, my favourite teacher died of an asthma attack. I remember being so sad, but not understanding how something as simple as an asthma attack could kill someone. Being a young child, I quickly got over that loss and carried on with my life, back in my safe cocoon of knowledge that people don’t really die, unless for a ‘special’ reason. I carried on quite well for a few years and then experienced my first loss of someone who was personally important to me, as a young teenager- my Grandmother died (being that I am half Polish, she was my Babcia) and my whole world was shaken. Everything I thought I knew had been capsized.

A few years after, I lost my Grandad (Dziadek) and I think I was much better equipped to deal with that loss, as I had already experienced a loss that felt so huge, it would crush me. I can now see, with my Psychological training, that what I was experiencing was perfectly healthy! Had I not responded in the way I did, perhaps then there would have been something ‘wrong’, but we dealt with it as a family and we carried on. There is no ‘right’ way to grieve or process your loss. Psychologists and Psychiatrists have spent a lot of time trying to work out how our grieving processes work- Swiss-American Psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was frustrated by the lack of education that medical schools gave, in terms of the response to death and dying, so she started a series of interviews with patients, conducting her own research into the work that was already available, with regards death and dying.

1969 came and Kübler-Ross published her book, ‘On Death and Dying’  which published her idea that we go through stages of grieving, which she called the ‘Stages of the Grief Cycle’. Kübler-Ross initially assumed the stages to be linear, that is that one follows another, follows another, in order. However, later in life, she realised that the process was not linear, and that as individuals, we go through the process in differing stages, going back and forth as our own personal grief is processed. This kind of makes sense to me- I mean, we are all fundamentally human, so it would be sensible if we all reacted within some boundaries of a cycle, wouldn’t it? Or does that not account for our individual differences?

Kübler-Ross’ model does have criticism levied towards it, however. There are many reasons why the model might not be applicable; life is very different since KKübler-Ross created the model There is no definitive evidence that we actually pass through these stages; I use the model with clients to show that we all experience different reactions to loss, but that all of these reactions are part of a natural process. George Bonanno, a Clinical Psychologist at Columbia University in America has reviewed a number of peer-reviewed studies and journals and has come to the conclusion that we adapt and cope with trauma and loss through Psychological Resilience and some resilient people show no grief at all- but this doesnt mean they haven’t experienced the loss profoundly- this brings to mind an article I read about hypersensitivity, which would make an excellent blog post in the future. (Follow the links to read more about Psychological Resilience- it really is interesting!)

Whatever the theory behind grief and loss, we all experience it in our own way. For me, I felt the need to slow down my pace of work and to focus on the present more deeply. By doing this, it helped me to appreciate the here and now, rather than the what is going to happen in two weeks time, or the rumination on the past! Mindfulness, as always, has been a huge support for me. I guess this is my own personal resilience kicking in, acknowledging that there has been change in my life, and for me, change needs to be adapted to and worked with. Some changes happen quicker than others, I guess, and there are no rules as to how your own personal psychological resilience will kick in and work for you.

  1. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Dying-Elisabeth-Kübler-Ross/dp/0415463998
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kübler-Ross_model
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bonanno
  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_resilience

It’s been a Mental (Health Awareness) Week!

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May is Mental Health Awareness month and this week, 10-17th May, is Mental Health Awareness week. I wonder if you know this, and I wonder if you care? Mental health is still a stigmatised subject to discuss; we’re getting better at talking about it, but we’re not getting better at dealing with it.

Antidepressant use has sky-rocketed since 1992- prescriptions for antidepressants have increased 100% since 2015, or 500% since 1992 and 1.1 million people are, unfortunately, on benefits because of their mental health difficulties. Mmmh. I wonder what this is telling us? I wonder what the trend is that is making antidepressant use increase, year upon year? Don’t get me wrong; I am not against medication for mental health difficulties; I know in some cases the medication taken can be life-changing for some people. I am more interested in the deeper causes than that. What is going on in our society, and why are we getting sadder and less fulfilled, as a nation?

I have been studying for my (final ever!!!) exam in Professional Issues in Counselling Psychology, and, given that this is Doctoral level, I did a LOT of reading for this. In fact, I ordered several books, too 🙂 But seriously, I was engrossed in what is a mix of theory, lived experience, political discussion and the psychology of the changes that we are being forced through. These changes are being pushed on to us from so many different areas; by the society around us, work, school, government, media, social media and peers- you name it, we’re getting pressure from every direction, so just how does it affect us?

I’m really not going to go into masses of theory, so don’t worry there; but hang in there, it’s worth it, I promise! Do you know we have a Minister for Loneliness in Parliament in the UK? Yes, yes we do. She’s called Tracey Crouch, and she is here to cure our loneliness. Or is she? How is she going to make us feel better and less isolated? Is it flinging money at more therapists in what is an already hugely overstretched NHS? Or is it at a more fundamental grassroots level?

Have you been into a GP surgery recently? A health centre or hospital? Have you ever noticed the signs on the walls? What are they telling you? Are they telling you to lose weight? Are they telling you to stop smoking? Join a gym? Practice some yoga or Mindfulness? Those are all great suggestions, sure, but what is at the root of all of this? Why are people unhappy?

Think about your life, what makes you unhappy? Is it your job? Your house? The fact that you are struggling to get from pay day to pay day- or even just through the first week of the month would be good! What do you see when you look in the paper, or on social media? Are these concepts/material goods/lifestyles attainable for us, in this economic climate? The answers you come up with are probably not very positive answers. Things need to change. People need to start getting involved in their lives, and the lives of the community around them- it’s the only way we can affect social change, and as I am about to show, no matter who you are, social interaction is massively significant for us all.

As a (terrible) beauty advert states- here comes the science bit! As homo sapiens, we live for groups. Really, quite literally live because of them, and for them. We’ve talked about the whole caveman thing already on this blog- we wouldn’t have survived alone- so what makes this any different now? We need to feel like we belong. We need to feel needed. Social connection is so vital for our mental health- I’ll start at the beginning and make it as quick and painless as possible, I promise!

Back in the late 1970’s a Polish Social Psychologist, Henri Tajfel, after experiments in the lab, proposed a new theory relating to the way we function as humans; Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). What Social Identity theory tells us, is that we favour the groups of people we are with and feel comfortable with- your rugby club? That’s what we would call your ‘ingroup’ and the opposing team, well, they would be… yes, you guessed it, the ‘outgroup’. So, whose side do we take in a situation like this? Well, the people we are in the same group as, of course. Why is that, I hear you ask? Well, how does being a part of that group make you feel? Accepted? Happy? Fulfilled? Yes, we all feel that way when we are accepted, welcomed, supported and helped in a group. We all feel the need for that acceptance. ALL of us. And when we have groups that we are happy with, it makes our lives better. We have something to look forward to and enjoy, and in turn, this increases our mental health and wellbeing.

Taking care of your mental well-being is just as important as taking care of your physical well-being and is something that you can take an active part in- taking an interest in your own life and community! Getting involved in your community will not only make you feel included, but it will give you a sense of purpose and happiness. Yes, I really do know, and understand, that it’s so hard to get out and about when you’re feeling unwell and low, but if you can get yourself out, you really will benefit from it.

Any group works- reading club, gardening club, pole dancing classes, swimming, boules, poker (no betting here!), cooking club, art, debating, ecological, photography, football, rugby, ballet, environmental, tap… the list goes on, but the more involved you get, the better you will feel. Don’t trust me, trust these fantastic psychologists who have performed research into this fascinating, and helpful area; a group of Psychologists who used Social Theory intervention to create social groups, Groups 4 Health, for people with mental health difficulties; the result was improved psychological health and well-being (Haslam, Haslam, & Cruwys, Groups 4 Health, 2016). One group of scientists worked out that even belonging to a group of people who feel stigmatised, such as a support group, your mental well-being increases (McNamara, Stevenson, & Muldoon, 2013). There are also some scientists who believe that social identity and feeling part of a group and being included is so important that they even wrote a book about it (Haslam, Jetten, Cruwys, Dingle, & Haslam, 2018). Connection is key!

Sadly, there are other elements that we need to keep us happy- enough money, safe and affordable housing, jobs, jobs that are well paid, jobs that are not zero contract and what about social spaces that we can all use safely? A psychological theory doesn’t cover these, I am afraid, but Politics does. And it’s up to us to influence and create change in these things, if we want to feel better. The tragic school shooting’s in the USA have awoken the frustration and anger in school children across America (even across the world), who can see precisely how unfair their lives are; subject to the rules and regulations of people who do not understand the complexities of their lived experiences- as a parent, I cannot even imagine how scary it is to send your children to school every day, unsure if that is the day that a tragedy may happen at your school.

Politics aside, don’t we want to take a little bit more interest in our lives? Improve our situations- for those we love, those around us, our (future) children and families, and even just for the health and well-being of all? What do you think?

References:

Haslam, C., Haslam, S., & Cruwys, T. (2016). Groups 4 Health. Journal of Affective Disorders, 188 – 195.

Haslam, C., Jetten, J., Cruwys, T., Dingle, G., & Haslam, S. A. (2018). In The New Psychology of Health: Unlocking the Social Cure.Abingdon: Routledge.

McNamara, N., Stevenson, C., & Muldoon, O. T. (2013). Community Identity as Resource and Context. European Journal of Social Psychology, 393 – 403.

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin, & S. Worchel, The social psychology of intergroup relations(pp. 33 -47). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

 

 

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.

 

 

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

Reality Check for Experts!

wandalun

In our therapeutic work, we are trained to ensure that we understand and respect the fact that we are ‘not the expert’- the client (you!) is! It’s your life and your emotions and expectations; how can I possibly be an expert in your life? You, your thoughts and how you make sense of them lead me. Yes, we can offer suggestions, challenge unhelpful thought patterns, offer another way of looking at things, but, ultimately, this is your life, your choice. I can never be the expert in that!

So, I was rather tickled to find a study this week that suggested the more ‘expert’ we are in our field, the more likely we are to fall for made up facts! The study, from Cornell University in the USA (Atir, Rosenzweig and Dunning, 2015), took 100 subjects, who were asked to rate their knowledge of personal finances, with 15 specific finance terms; however, 3 of the 15 terms were actually made up! What they found was that the more the subjects knew about personal finance, the more they were likely to over claim their knowledge of financial terms, and in this particular case, fictitious terms!

What was really interesting was that the same pattern of over claiming emerged for other areas, namely biology, philosophy, geography and literature. Even if the subjects were pre-warned that there would be fake terms in the questions, they still made the same patterns of over claiming. To cement these findings, they further split the subjects in to 3 groups; one group took an easy geography tests (thus boosting their confidence in geography), one group took a difficult test (thus convincing them that they were not experts in geography) and the third group took no test.

When the hypothesis was then tested, the group who took the easy quiz were more likely to claim that they had specific knowledge of non-existent towns in the US.

What the researchers actually want us to take away from this study is the fact that many of us may actually stop learning about a subject when we start to consider ourselves experts. Hmm. So, where does that leave us?

Well, as I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, is that we are experts in ourselves, but we often decide to stop learning. We decide to stop learning about ourselves and how we work and what we want from life, but the thing is, although we are experts, life changes. It changes in ways that we are not expecting, and sometimes, it changes in ways that we did not want.

Just because we are an expert in ourselves, doesn’t mean that we should ever stop learning about ourselves. If you were feeling low or demoralised, wouldn’t it be great to explore those feelings and learn why we are feeling like this? How it has affected us and how we can learn and grow from this?

Quite often, we are too scared to learn any more- after all, if things have gone so badly wrong for us at this point in our lives, what is the point? Life is a journey, it is not a destination (I am sure you will have heard that in a lecture somewhere, or even on a Christmas cracker!), and we are free to choose how we complete our journey and what we do along the way. By learning how to make ourselves feel fulfilled, we are not ‘faking it’. We are not professing to know the meaning of life! As a Counselling Psychologist, I do not know everything about life. I still make mistakes, I am no expert, but one thing I do want to do, is I want to carry on learning and growing. Each client I have teaches me something about life, psychology, my practice and the world. I wouldn’t want to stop learning for anything- would you?

 

Atir, S., Rosenzweig, E. and Dunning, D. (2015) ‘When Knowledge Knows No Bounds Self-Perceived Expertise Predicts Claims of Impossible Knowledge’, Psychological Science, July.

 

 

Being Mindful of Mindfulness!

wandalun

I was on a Mindfulness course last week- Mindfulness is a really hot topic with Mental Health workers at the moment. I have been working with Mindfulness for around 4 years, so I thought I would scrub up on my techniques and ideas and get back into my Mindful practice for myself!

Did you know that in 2012 there were 40 new papers on mindfulness published every month according to Google Scholar? Guardian journalist Barney Ronay noted that 37 new books had been released that week alone! I think that this demonstrates just how popular mindfulness has become.

Mindfulness, the act of paying attention, in a non-judgmental way, to ones own experiences of the here and now. So, what exactly does that mean? Well, exactly what it says- paying attention to what is happening to you, around you, in the moment that you notice them.

Whenever anyone is going on a mindfulness course, the first thing people who are experienced in mindfulness will say to him or her is “Wait until you do the raisin exercise!” What? What on earth is that? Well, a good way to explain mindfulness is to take a raisin. Don’t eat it- you are jumping the gun there! Hold it in your hand. Have you ever really looked at a raisin? Have you noticed the colours? Have you held it up to the light and looked at the brown and amber hues that are in front of you? Have you ever looked at the creases, the ridges, and the folds? The size of the raisin or the shape of it? Have you felt it between your fingers? Is it squishy? Hard? Smooth? Textured?

No? I am sure you haven’t. Not really. Not closely.

Well, let’s not stop there! Pick up the raisin. Put it to your ear. Do you hear anything? No, of course you don’t, but then roll the raisin between your fingers. Can you hear the squeakiness of the raisin now? The slight grinding as you roll the raisin between your fingers?

Take the raisin and hold it up to your nose. Take a deep breathe in- can you smell it? What does it remind you of? Christmas cake? Cinnamon rolls? Is it a slight smell, or pungent?

Now, put the raisin in your mouth- but don’t chew it or swallow it! Roll it around in your mouth and really feel it. Put it between your teeth, give it a little squeeze. Can you feel the textures and the taste starting to spread? Gently chew the raisin, experience the flavour. Is it sweet? Bitter? Finally, swallow.

Now. I bet you haven’t experienced a raisin like that before, have you? You could do the same with making a cup of tea or brushing your teeth- any activity that you do during the day, that you can break down and really pay attention too!

So, what on earth has fiddling with a raisin for the last 10 minutes done for you, eh? Well, by exercising all of your five senses, your cortisol level has decreased (stress hormone) and you will feel calmer than you did before you started. By looking at things from a visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, gustatory and olfactory sense (see, hear, touch, taste, smell!) you have brought yourself into the present moment. You are not thinking of that annoying colleague today at work and you are not thinking of all the work you need to do tonight to prepare for tomorrow. You are in the moment, and that moment is peaceful and calm.

So, by practising this every day (for those of you in the know, it is VAKGO. Yep, snazzy, eh?) we can just stop what is happening, take a few minutes out of life to relax and calm down, before we go on to the next busy period of the day.

So, how exactly does being mindful, which can actually be a personality trait anyway, actually be beneficial? A study in 2011 suggests that

“Evidence suggests that mindfulness practice is associated with neuroplastic changes in the anterior cingulate cortex, insula, temporo-parietal junction, fronto-limbic network, and default mode network structures” (Hölzel et al., 2011)

Say, what?! Well, what this means is that by practicing mindfulness, area’s of the brain, associated with neuroplastic changes (referring to changes in neural pathways and synapses that occur due to changes in behavior, environment, neural processes, thinking, and emotions – as well as to changes resulting from bodily injury) in areas of the brain that are responsible for attention, focus and regulation. Simply put, by utilizing mindfulness you can actually change the structure of your brain (the area’s that are ‘plastic’) for your benefit; to increase your sense of personal perspective awareness, your attention and focus, your emotional regulation and your body awareness.

Nah, that’s not real. Once your born, your brain doesn’t change. Well, actually it does- as we grow so does our brain. Our neural pathways and synapses develop and change, according to our environment, what we learn, what we don’t learn and genetics. So, if we train our brain to be present in the moment, really present, we can grow the area that we use to focus and pay attention. What magic is this, I hear you ask? Well, it is simply the wonder of the human mind- although science has come along way over the last 100 years, we still do not really know how the brain functions; we are learning more every week.

So, if mindfulness is so magic, why isn’t everyone doing it? Well, I cannot answer that one, I am afraid! What I can say is that mindfulness is NOT a cure all. It is a technique you can use to develop and enhance your day-to-day life. In fact, there are studies available that say certain people should not practice mindfulness; a study in 2012 concluded that there was not enough data available to fully analyse who should or should not partake in mindfulness meditation or therapy, but that people for whom there are deep-seated mental health difficulties or long term psychological affects, mindfulness meditation may not be appropriate (Dobkin, Irving and Amar, 2012).

The reason that mindfulness may not be appropriate for some people is that the act of mindfulness takes us deep in to meditation- by doing so, we are relaxing and allowing ourselves to be in the moment. If you have any traumatic experiences that you perhaps haven’t dealt with, or that still trouble you, the by going in to the mindful state can reduce your inhibitions, and the safety mechanisms, the defence mechanisms you have in place, to protect you from your difficult thoughts, are suddenly lowered, which can leave you in a very troubled place.

So, this blog then becomes a cautionary tale! Mindfulness, to some, seems like it is a waste of time, however, this is not what we are seeing from the studies that are coming out. Mindfulness has been shown to reduce anxiety and depression and to help with many other issues people have. However, it is not a one size fits all therapeutic achievement. In fact, if you are not in the right place in your life, in the right state of mind, mindfulness could in fact be quite dangerous for you- raising traumatic memories that you have repressed, hidden deep down or simply memories that you actually don’t want to, or can’t, deal with. Mindfulness is not the be all and end all that we originally thought it to be, the studies are showing this, but. That said, it could really work for some people.

So, if you are having difficulty sleeping, or are feeling stressed from your busy life, why not take 10 minutes out of your busy day to practice some mindfulness meditation (as long as you are not in the group of people discussed above, for whom mindfulness is contradictive!)? It doesn’t have to be the raisin, although, why not? Perhaps you are just going to use the VAKGO to notice what is going on around you, or you are just going to close your eyes and concentrate on your breath. In and out, slowly, clearly, purposefully. You never know. After 10 minutes of it, you may feel like a whole new person!

 

Dobkin, P.L., Irving, J.A. and Amar, S. (2012) ‘For Whom May Participation in a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program be Contraindicated?’, Mindfulness, vol. 3, no. 1, March, pp. 44-50.

Hölzel, B.K., Lazar, S.W., Gard, T., Zev, S.O., Vago, D.R. and Ott, U. (2011) ‘How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective’, Perspectives on Psychological Science, vol. 6, no. 6, November, pp. 537-559.

 

 

Procrastination- What Are You Waiting For?

wandalun

Procrastination. We all do it at some time or another. I know I have- if there is a deadline for an assignment, you will always find me playing a game, or anything to avoid the inevitable! But, I always start with just enough time to get it done. For some people, procrastination is far more stressful- it really affects their lives and can change things for the worse.

So, why do we procrastinate? And does it do us any harm? I read a study posted in the Association of Psychological Science last month, the study stated that procrastination, or rather Trait Procrastination– the tendency to delay important tasks despite the negative consequences- was significantly associated with hypertension and cardiovascular disease (Sirois, 2015). So, although this study highlighted that procrastination was associated with hypertension and cardiovascular disease, it did not provide a causal link- phew, all you procrastinators out there, we can breathe a sigh of relief. For the moment.

20% of people identify as chronic procrastinators (Marano, 2003); meaning that procrastination cuts across all aspects of their lives, from paying bills on time to filing tax returns. Luckily for me, my procrastination only seems to affect writing reports and studies (and yes, this blog, too!), but for other people, procrastination can be literally life ruining.

Chronic procrastination is not a problem of time management, believe it or not! Procrastinators are actually more optimistic than other people- they genuinely believe they will get the work/project/bill paid completed in time! We are also not born procrastinators- procrastination is a learned habit, generally from our familial habits, albeit not directly from our families- it is generally our own responses to being raised within an authoritarian lifestyle.

So, for example, having a harshly authoritarian father will keep you from developing an ability to regulate yourself, by internalizing their own intentions and then learning to act on them. Procrastination can also be a form of rebellion- one of the only ways we feel we can act out within our familial situation. Sometimes parental support is not there, so we tend to look to our friends for support. Now, the thing with friends is that they tolerate our BS, don’t they? They don’t call us on it when we say ‘yeah, sorry, my dog ate my homework’. They empathise with us and let it go- thus reinforcing our procrastination techniques and habits.

Situational procrastinators, on the other hand, make delays based on the task at hand. Procrastination becomes a form of self-regulation failure- you know you should do it, but you just can’t bring yourself to do it, for whatever reason it is, you just cannot get around to doing it, till it is either too late, or it has caused you a problem.

What wont come as a surprise, is that procrastinators actively look for distractions! I remember writing my dissertation and finding that the whole house was ‘desperately’ in need of a clean before I started the work! The thing is, procrastinators tell themselves lies- we say ‘I work best under pressure’ or ‘its not important, I have plenty of time to do it if I start tomorrow’. So, what happens is, procrastinators run out of time- the work that is produced is not of a high enough standard, or we missed buying those bargain tickets to the next gig we wanted to go to.

It may also surprise you to know, that there are three different types of basic procrastinators;

  • The first type is the ‘avoiders’- avoiding fear of failure or fear of success. They would rather that people think they lacked effort than ability.
  • The second type is the decisional procrastinators- when you find it difficult to make a decision. You know, when your friends or partner say ‘where would you like to go for dinner?’ and your response is ‘I really don’t mind’.
  • The third type is ‘arousal type’ of procrastinator- the thrill seekers who are waiting for the last minute for the rush of adrenaline they experience.

So, have you identified which type of procrastinator you are? Are you a chronic procrastinator, or just a casual one- procrastinating in one field or area only? But hey, there’s no problem with procrastination, is there? It doesn’t really matter? Well, actually, that is not true. As I said earlier, there is a study that links procrastination to heart problems, but there is also evidence that procrastination harms the immune system- over the course of one academic term, college students who procrastinated suffered more colds, suffered from insomnia, suffered more gastrointestinal issues and more cases of flu.

Procrastinators have higher levels of stress and lower levels of emotional and harmonial wellbeing. Joseph Ferrari, Professor of Psychology at DePaul University in the USA found that ‘everybody may procrastinate, but not everyone is a procrastinator’ (so, there is hope for me after all!). The Professor says ‘telling someone who procrastinates to just do it, is like telling someone with chronic depression to cheer up’ (Ferrari, 2010). So, what can we do then?

Well, the current level of thinking is that what lies behind a procrastinator’s thought patterns are actually based on our Emotional Regulation. If we can regulate our emotions, and deal with them, then we can stay on task. If we are not enjoying the task, we are more lightly to procrastinate. Ok, so, that’s fine, but as humans, we need to do things on a weekly or daily basis that we don’t want to do, or that we don’t enjoy. So, how can we go about changing ourselves, to reduce our stress and make ourselves feel more harmonious, and less likely to get sick?

One thought of how to do this, is to try to make your current mood a positive one- if we handle this situation well, then our ‘future self’ will be better equipped to deal with these issues in the future (Wohl, Pychyl and Bennett, 2010). Sounds simple, but how do we go about doing it?

One-way could be through Counselling- by attending Counselling we can help the client to realise that they are compromising their long-term goals and aims for short term happiness. Perhaps there is a way that we may feel like we are punishing ourselves for past transgressions- until we open up the emotions and reasons why a client procrastinates, then we cant really get to the core of what we can do to stop it, or improve the situation.

Mindfulness therapy can be really helpful with this- by really appreciating the current moment, and not thinking so far in to the future. By learning Mindfulness skills, you can really put yourself in the present moment and appreciate that moment for what it is. Perhaps then, you can possibly see the damage that procrastination is doing to your self, your stress levels and your ability to actually ‘get the job done’.

Secondly, the procrastinator could split their goal down to smaller tasks- this is basic CBT and can be achieved by you or with the help of a Counsellor. Finding and exploring ways in which you can work with your procrastination can be difficult to see or achieve; sometimes it is only when we talk to some one else about what we are doing, that we really see what is going on before our eyes. After all, as I said earlier, our friends kind of let us get away with our procrastination, a Counsellor will not. We wont be mean or cruel, but we will challenge your beliefs and expectations; that’s our job, it’s what we are good at and we do it in a way that is safe and guided by you.

You could also start by imposing your own personal goals and deadlines- if your bill is due to be paid on the 30th of the month, start splitting the task down at the beginning of the month. Start small; with achievable steps that you can tick off when they’re done- nothing encourages us to carry on with our goals than when we actually start to see results!

Emotionally, this can be a slightly tougher nut to crack- you’re going to need to find something positive in the task that you are trying to achieve, which could lead us back to breaking the task down to smaller components and allowing ourselves to be proud of our achievements, not matter how small or trivial they may seem. When it comes to our loved ones, perhaps it is a good idea to not let their procrastination go- challenge them, did the dog really eat your homework, or could you just not be bothered?

But the key to procrastination could be as simple as self-forgiveness- forgive yourself for procrastinating and acknowledge the fact that you did procrastinate. The next time, maybe you will find yourself actually doing the work a little quicker, and hitting your goals and achievements on time.

 

 

Ferrari, J.R. (2010) Still Procrastinating? The No Regrets Guide to Getting It Done., 1st edition, Hoboken: Wiley.

Marano, H.E (2003) Procrastination Psychology Today; https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200308/procrastination-ten-things-know. Accessed May 2015

Sirois, F.M. (2015) ‘s procrastination a vulnerability factor for hypertension and cardiovascular disease? Testing an extension of the procrastination–health model’, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, vol. 1, no. 12.

Wohl, M.J.A., Pychyl, T.A. and Bennett, S.H. (2010) ‘I forgive myself, now I can study: How self-forgiveness for procrastinating can reduce future procrastination.’, Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 48, pp. 803-808.