Articles About Mindfulness

At the end of the first session, I often offer some "First Aid"; this is a small collection of coping skills that I have found most useful as immediate relief from stress, worry and anxiety. Here is a selection of my "First Aid" tips - some or all might apply to you. The 4 P's – Patience - Persistence - Positivity - Perpsective You will need to have pat...

GIVE BAD HABITS A BREAK How many bad habits did your last New Year’s Resolutions involve? Smoking? Nail biting? Overeating? Drinking too much? Are you serious about something about them for good? Why not decide its time to chuck those bad habits and introduce a new, more "blingy" you for modern times. "Hah – easy for you!" – I hear you say. "No...

Happy 'Mindful Christmas'! Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, everything seems to be busier and noisier at this time of the year and stress levels can rise as a result. So I'd like to wish you a mindful Christmas and New Year and this article – 'A Mindful Christmas' - has some hints on how to make your way into the new year in a less stressful way....

Stress is the enemy of concentration and focus. Since the onset of the pandemic, we have been exposed to constant stress. No surprise that we're having trouble with focus. Working from home has presented issues of distraction as children, pets and online shopping deliveries grab our attention away from whatever we're trying to concentrate on. However, the...

How best to use the #1 essential coping tool People have asked me, if I could only give one coping tool, what would it be? This is an easy one to answer. When you're in a tricky situation and you're starting to react (your stress bucket is rising and you're about to get stressed, anxious, angry or fearful) – my 'go to' coping tool is the 'Deep breath an...

In recent years, mindfulness has become a popular tool for psychologists. It's relaxing and that in itself makes it useful. That's not the actual purpose of it though – I teach that the purpose of Mindfulness is to find the mind (the 'observational self') and help to distinguish it from the brain (which is the organ that thinks). 'But aren't they just th...

Why is boredom so stressful? It 'messes with your head'. These two states present different kinds of ways boredom is stressful. Boredom allows your stress brain free reign to invade your head with worries and fears – boredom and depression go hand in hand – I call this 'agitated boredom' Or it does the opposite and you feel 'brain dead' with no motiv...

Making a snap decision is often easy. The ball is coming at us – we decide in a split second whether to catch it and how. We hardly even have to think about it; it's a reflex action. Sometimes we might drop the ball or fail to catch it but the decision to try is made without us having to even think about it. A little stress (or emotion in general) can he...