by David Quinney | May 16, 2023 | News
1 Focus on your breathing. When you’re having anxious thoughts try focusing on your breathing, concentrating on the feeling of your body as you breathe in and out. It can help you control the thought.
4-7-8 breathing technique Close your mouth and quietly breathe in through your nose, counting to four in your head. Hold your breath and count to seven. Breathe out through your mouth, making a whoosh sound while counting to eight. Repeat three more times for a total of four breath cycles. Some people find relaxation exercises work too, while others find mindfulness useful.
2 Get moving. Exercise is a good way of dealing with anxiety, it doesn’t have to be vigorous; try some gentle stretches, yoga, or seated exercises. Or just go for a walk. Going for a run, swimming, or taking part in a fitness class can give you something else to think about. Any amount of exercise will help.
3 Keep a diary or a journal. It’s important that we don’t try to ignore our worries. Taking the time to keep a record of what’s happening in your life and how it’s affecting you can help you understand what is triggering your feelings of anxiety. Knowing this can help you better prepare for and manage situations that may cause anxiety. Sometimes it helps to give yourself a certain time of day to be your ‘worry time’. It could be half an hour first thing in the morning to sit with your worries and write them down in your diary. When that’s out of the way, you can move on with the rest of your day. This can help you take control and stop anxiety from getting in the way of what you want to do.
4 Challenge your thoughts. Anxiety can lead us to think about things repeatedly in our brain. This is called ‘rumination’ and it’s not helpful. When you catch yourself ruminating try to write down the thought and to challenge it. Is what you’re worrying about likely to happen? Are you being realistic? Have you had similar thoughts which have not turned into reality? This can make it easier to challenge your thoughts and stop them from overwhelming you.
5 Get support for money worries. A common cause of anxiety is money. If you’re worried about money, try talking to a member of your family or a trusted friend.
6 Spend time in nature. We know that spending time in nature has a positive impact on our mental health. It can help us feel calmer and less stressed. This can be as simple as tending some flowers in a window box or going for a walk in the woods. Any amount of time doing this is good for us, but to really get the benefit, try to spend a significant period of time – maybe an hour or longer – when you can really connect with nature and immerse yourself.
7 Connect with people and talk about how you feel. Anxiety can feel very lonely. Connecting with other people can help a lot. Spend time with friends or meet other people through activities such as volunteering, sport or social clubs, or peer support groups. If you’re able to talk to people about how you feel, it can help to reduce your anxiety. Sometimes saying what’s worrying you out loud can take away its power over you.
8 Try to get some quality sleep or rest. Resting and having a good night’s sleep is hard when your head is full of worries but there are some things that can help. If anxious thoughts keep you awake, write them down in your diary. If sleep is still not coming, get up and have a drink (nothing with caffeine!) and wait until you’re feeling more tired before going back to bed. Keeping a note in your diary of your sleep patterns, what time you went to bed, what you ate, how often you woke up etc can help you work out a routine that will help you get better quality sleep.
9 Try to eat a healthy diet. For many of us, feeling anxious might cause us to reach for sugary snacks, junk food or alcohol. It’s important that we don’t turn to unhealthy foods or drinks as a way to cope as they will do more damage in the longer term. Similarly, we should avoid smoking or taking recreational drugs. Eating healthy food regularly helps us to regulate our blood sugar and gives us the energy we need to live well. Remember caffeine in coffee, tea, and fizzy drinks can affect your mood and cause sleep problems so it’s best to have these in moderation and not too close to bedtime.
by David Quinney | May 2, 2023 | News
You may see smiling simply as an involuntary response to things that bring you joy or inspire laughter. While this is true, it overlooks an important point: Smiling can be a conscious, intentional choice. What does your own psychology have to say about smiling? Whether your smile is genuine or not, it can positively influence your body and mind in a variety of ways, offering benefits for your health, your mood, and even the moods of your friends and family. Take a look at 10 great reasons to smile every single day:
1 Helps You Live Longer. Perhaps the most compelling reason to smile is that it may lengthen your overall lifespan. One study found that genuine, intense smiling is associated with longer life. Happy people seem to enjoy better health and longevity, but more research is needed to understand why. Research indicates that happiness could increase lifespan by years—suggesting maintaining a happy, positive mood may be an important part of a healthy lifestyle.
2 Relieves Stress. Stress can permeate our entire being, including showing up in your face and expression. Smiling not only helps to prevent us from looking tired, worn down, and overwhelmed, but it can help decrease stress. Believe it or not, smiling can reduce stress even if you don’t feel like smiling or even if you fake it with a smile that isn’t genuine. When you are stressed, try intentionally putting a smile on your face. It may help improve your mood and ability to manage the stress you are experiencing.
3 Smiling is a natural antidepressant. Smiling can also help to elevate your mood. Next time you are feeling down, try putting on a smile. There’s a good chance your mood will change for the better. The physical act of smiling activates pathways in your brain that influence your emotional state—meaning that by adopting a happy facial expression, you can “trick” your mind into entering a state of happiness. This effect works whether your smile is genuine or not. A simple smile can trigger the release of neuropeptides that improve your neural communication. It also causes the release of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin, which can boost your mood.
4 It’s Contagious. How many times have you heard that a smile has the power to light up the room? While it is certainly a beautiful sentiment, it carries a hint of truth. Smiling not only can elevate your mood, but it can also change the moods of others for the better. Research suggests that smiles are contagious. Your brain automatically notices and interprets other people’s facial expressions and sometimes, you may even mimic them. That means you might spot someone else’s smile and unconsciously smile yourself.
5 Boosts the Immune System. Smiling can also boost your overall health by helping your immune system to function more effectively. It is thought that when you smile, immune function improves because you are more relaxed (thanks to the release of certain neurotransmitters). Whether you’re trying to maintain your overall health or strengthen your immune system, smiling may help.
6 May Lower Blood Pressure. Smiling could have a beneficial impact on your blood pressure. Laughter specifically seems to lower blood pressure, after causing an initial increase in heart rate and breathing. While smiling has been shown to lower your heart rate in the face of stress, more research is needed to determine how it reduces blood pressure. If you have a blood pressure monitor at home, you can try testing this idea for yourself. Sit for a few minutes and take a reading. Then smile for a minute and take another reading while still smiling. Do you notice a difference?
7 Reduces Pain. Studies have shown that smiling releases endorphins, other natural painkillers, and serotonin. Together, these brain chemicals make us feel good from head to toe. Not only do they elevate your mood, but they also relax your body and reduce physical pain creating a natural painkiller.
8 Makes You Attractive. We are naturally drawn to people who smile. While more severe or negative facial expressions like frowns, scowls, and grimaces work in the opposite manner, effectively pushing people away, smiling is seen as more attractive—and people may even assume you have more positive personality traits if you’re smiling. Not only can smiling make you more attractive, but it can also make you look more youthful. The muscles we use to smile also lift the face, making a person appear younger. So instead of opting for a facelift, just try smiling your way through the day—you’ll look younger and feel better.
9 Good For Your Relationships. Smiling is a form of nonverbal communication that can transmit positive feelings and intentions toward others. When you smile at someone, you communicate that you like them, appreciate them, and are happy to see them. This positive feedback loop often makes the other person feel good, leading to a stronger relationship.
10 Helps You Stay Positive. Try this test: Smile. Now try to think of something negative without losing the smile. It’s hard, isn’t it?
Smiling can influence your feelings of positivity, even if it feels unnatural or forced. Regardless of whether or not your smile is genuine, it still sends the message that “Life is good!” to your brain and, ultimately, the rest of your body.
by David Quinney | Mar 20, 2023 | News
Responses to the unsettling times can range from “Arghhhhh!” to “it’s all going to be fine”. Right now, as parents, neither response is necessarily very helpful. When there is something unsettling going on, and whatever the eventual outcome for us or our children, there will be some impact. Even if that is just handling everyone talking about something that is difficult and confusing, you are likely to be feeling a lot of stress. There are many causes of stress that may be triggered by changes or things happening in your life. Stress comes from a mismatch between what we see as a problem and how well we perceive we can manage that problem. One example of this might be when difficult things are going on at work, if we feel we have the resources and skills to handle them, then those things won’t feel distressing. It may feel like pressure, it may feel ‘stressful’, but it could also feel like an exciting challenge.
What we need to do is to try to find those parts of it that feel manageable. Try to break down our current situations into smaller bits, rather than get overwhelmed by the sheer size of the problem as a whole. We don’t have to be able to do everything to be able to do something. If we are going to support our children through an unsettling time, learning to control our own anxiety about the situation is a practical place to start. This doesn’t mean we can’t feel anxious. It also doesn’t mean that we must hide that anxiety from our children or teens. It just means that we need to understand our anxiety, not let it overwhelm us, and find ways to contain it enough so it doesn’t overwhelm our children either.
Jar of Joy
One of the ways we can keep a hold of the everyday in the face of a big problem is to physically write down all the little things that bring you a bit of joy or give you a sense of normality. A “Jar of Joy” is a technique that people have been using in various versions for years to do just that. A Jar of Joy is a very simple idea that packs a big punch. Take a jar (or any kind of container you like – a Box of Brilliance, a Margarine Tub of Moments… all are equally valid!) and decorate it. Although not essential, this really helps to give it some importance. Invest time in it, even if it is only five minutes and it will feel much more special. If you get to decorate it your own way, it will also hold some personal value to you. You should never underestimate the power of feeling pride in something you have made, no matter how unskilled you might feel. Put your jar or container somewhere you can see it easily. Any time something happens that brings a little moment of joy, however small, write it down on a scrap of paper and put it in the jar. Challenge yourself and your child to find at least two things every day.
