- 30 Days of Healthy Living, Lifestyle Medicine, Living Lifestyle Medicine, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Stress Reduction
25th January – Do something you enjoy
Do something you enjoy. Just because. De-stressing, relaxing, chilling out… it sounds like it should be so easy, doesn’t it? Just do… well, nothing, right? But ‘just relaxing’ is not as easy as it sounds for some people. I am definitely not very good at doing nothing. And, ironically, the more stressed you are (and therefore more in need of relaxing) the harder it is to settle and turn off. This is because when we are stressed our brains are busy churning out lots of stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline for example. These stress hormones put our bodies into “fight or flight” mode so we are revved up, jittery,…
- 30 Days of Healthy Living, Lifestyle Medicine, Living Lifestyle Medicine, Mental Health, Relationships & Connectedness, Stress Reduction
15th January – self-compassion
Practice having self-compassion At the moment we are all dealing with so many different pressures and sources of stress. I am hearing every day from my patients about the challenges they are facing: changes to work, working from home, being furloughed, being out-of-work, key-workers being overworked and busier than ever to meet the demands of the pandemic, parents trying to juggle the demands of homeschooling and working at home, people who have been unwell, people with unwell relatives, the list just goes on and on and on… One thing which almost all of my patients say to me when they tell me how difficult they are finding things is “I…
2nd January – A mindful moment
A moment of mindfulness. Find a moment of mindfulness somewhere during the course of your day. This is not doing a formal mindfulness practice or a whole session, instead finding opportunities to be mindful throughout the course of the day. It can be something incredibly simple and everyday, such as waiting for the kettle to boil and listening to the sounds it makes, watching the leaves on the trees move, or noticing how your feet feel when you walk. ❄️❄️❄️❄️For me, this morning I was lucky enough to be stood in a snow shower, and whilst waiting for my car to defrost enough to be able to drive to work…
