Last week I gave some of the reasons commonly given why we fail when we take our yearly resolutions (see here). So now that we have a few ideas why we fail, here are some tips and tricks we can use to improve our chances of succeeding and actually reaching our goals and resolutions. The important thing to remember here is that often we overload ourselves and have difficulty judging how long things actually take. […]
Category Archives: Mental Health
Discussions and topics to help manage issues and creativity
Taking the time for ourselves
Mental health is important. I’ve found over the weeks I’ve worked on this blog a lot of very interesting topics and a lot of techniques that will help if we put in the time and effort it takes to do them. Our brain may come up with excuses; however, for not doing them. Why we don’t take the time… It excels at finding excuses that keep us safe in our rut. Trying new things is […]
How to become more self-aware, the right way?
After understanding what self-awareness actually is and isn’t and being aware of the possible pitfalls we can fall into, it is important to improve our self-awareness the right way. Start small. Start with your thoughts. Noticing them, naming them, and then letting them go. This is not easy to do and the only way to do that is by keeping an open and non-judgmental mind. Judgement is the enemy of self-awareness whether we are talking […]
What is Self-Awareness?
A lot of the tips and tricks I’ve given require to first be aware of our thought patterns and behaviours. That advice is talking about self-awareness. A sort of “knowing is half the battle” kind of advice, but when most thoughts and habits are subconscious, understanding what it is and how to be able to do it will help since, as I’ve discovered these last few weeks, it is the first step to change habits […]
How to overcome overthinking? – Part 4
The last few weeks I gave an overview of what is overthinking (see here), why it isn’t helpful (see here) and what usually causes it (see here). It’s important to understand a problem and what triggers it in order to best find a solution. It’s also important not to fall into the trap of overthinking about overthinking, however. In this article I will show a few strategies. Try at least one, or more, if you […]
What causes Overthinking? – Part 3
This can be a very frustrating situation because you wonder: “Why do I do this to myself?” But it is important to keep a few things in mind about this process: Last week I also gave reasons why this thought process had a negative impact on us and why it is a habit we should break (See here if you missed it). Understanding the reason why we develop this habit can help in directing our […]
Why is overthinking not helpful? – Part 2
In the first part of this series (see here), I looked at what overthinking was and signs that it is affecting us in a problematic way. You would think that given this is an automatic defense mechanism that it would be useful and helpful to do. Looking at a problem from different angles and thoroughly can be beneficial. And even the right thing to do for big life-changing decision but thinking (or problem-solving) is not […]
What is overthinking? – Part 1
Have you ever been told you’re overthinking things? The brain has the capacity for deep and complex thoughts, but overthinking usually means your thoughts are stuck in a loop with no apparent resolution. This means that usually these thoughts are unproductive, unhelpful and in extreme case can have a negative impact on health. It seems to also be called “rumination” if the thoughts deal with past or present events or situations. It also seems to […]
How to reconstruct stress and increase resilience?
After learning to understand what stress is and how to deconstruct it (see here if you missed last week’s post) using the stressors N.U.T.S (Novelty, Uncertainty, Threat to the ego, Sense of loss of control). Now comes the time to reconstruct it in a way that we don’t avoid stress but manage it constructively. Research has shown that the opposite of stress is not actually relaxation, but rather resilience. Resilience is the healthy ability to […]
What is stress and pressure?
As mentioned last week, to change our perceptions of pressure we first need to lower our stress response that is usually triggered by this pressure (see here if you missed it). This is very difficult to do because we essentially must learn to re-program our brains. To understand why we react to certain pressures and not others we have to understand what causes us to stress. Pressure is just another word for stress, and we […]