21 Blues Busters

Many of my clients tell me that their mood lifts in Spring. It’s as though the sense of renewal and new life combined with more light and longer days is nature’s anti-depressant. Help nature help you by remembering a few things you can do to lift your mood on demand. Here’s a few of my favourite ways to beat the blues:

1. Phone a friend – have a catch up, or better still arrange a meet-up. Spending time with good friends is very good for you.
2. Just dance! In the bedroom, in the kitchen, wherever. Put on some music and move.
3. Touch someone – a hug, cuddle or even a held hand is calming and comforting.
4. Do a favour – helping someone else, or supporting a good cause makes you feel good too.
5. Eat (a little) chocolate – the N-acyclethanoloamines in chocolate stimulate the brain to release endorphins.
6. Try therapy – increased self-awareness and insight help you to take action and make the right changes.
7. Laugh out loud – the old saying laughter is the best medicine is still true today. Your prescription? A DVD box set of the TV series that makes you howl.
8. Add some scents – indulge all your senses with your favourite fragrances – on your self, in your home and in your life.
9. Take a walk – under some trees, over a field, up a hill, beside a brook. Nature’s little healers are good for the soul.
10. Get a smile back – smile at a random (pleasant-looking) stranger today and wait for the reaction.
11. Sing your heart out – in the shower or in a choir. Look what it did for the military wives.
12. Create something special – whether you bake, sew, draw, paint or write, making something new and unique is therapeutic.
13. Say it with flowers – add a splash of colour, a hint of scent and a touch of nature in your home with a few fresh blooms.
14. Pamper yourself – have a spa experience at home, preferably with a good friend. Put on a face mask, shape your eyebrows, paint your nails and slather yourself in smellies.
15. Take regular exercise – 20 minutes, three times a week is good for mind and spirit, as well as the body.
16. Bathe – a good old soak in a bubbly bath is a great way to cleanse, wind down and relax.
17. Count your blessings – before you go to sleep, count up all the good things about the day just gone.
18. Make some me-time – give yourself an hour, two or three times a week to do exactly what you want. Put it in the diary to make sure it happens.
19. Have a clearout – whether you just sort your sock drawer or re-do a whole room, you’ll feel much better for being a bit more sorted.
20. Prioritise yourself sometimes – if you don’t, no-one else will.
21. Smile! Did you know that if you put on a smile by moving your lips into a wide smile shape, it makes you feel happy by getting the neural pathways firing? Go on, try it now…

Anxiety – what causes it and can you cure it?
Do you worry all the time, or feel unsafe and vulnerable? Are you scared of flying, taking the lift or going down into the tube? Or perhaps you suffer from full blown panic attacks, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) or agoraphobia? If so,  you are one of the growing army of people suffering from an anxiety-related condition.

Where did your anxiety come from? After all, you can’t catch it or inherit it, so how did it get there? Sadly, you may have unwittingly caused it yourself by not challenging some of your irrational thoughts about life or yourself, until they have become firmly held beliefs, albeit at an unconscious level. Or perhaps a recent stressful event, eg an attack or accident  remains unresolved. Or often it’s an issue from earlier in your life that is still popping up and causing distress in the here and now. Sometimes, too,  we have been influenced by anxious parents and their way of coping (or not).

Most anxieties start with fear or stress. Our own (often groundless) thoughts and beliefs lie at the root of anxiety and cause the symptoms and behaviour which we experience. Thoughts like: ‘this plane is unsafe, I’m afraid I’ll die’; ‘I am vulnerable on this road, I could get hurt’; ‘I’m scared I’m going to fail this test’, or ‘people will see me struggling and laugh at me’ trigger and perpetuate that horrible panicky feeling. So unless the underlying issues are identified and addressed, they will continue to cause anxiety, and consequently cause your anxiety to persist and return again and again throughout your life.

Therapy can help you identify the all-important reasons behind your anxiety condition. Once the root causes have been unearthed, we can start working on resolving the issues, putting new beliefs in place and reducing the symptoms – breaking the vicious circle of anxiety for good.