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We all know holidays are good for our happiness levels and mental health, but despite the relaxation of travel and quarantine rules, many people are too uncertain about the future to book them. On the other hand, employers are being encouraged to ask you to take your annual leave, even if you are on lockdown or furlough, to ensure that you don’t lose it or create a staffing problem at the end of the leave year [1]. So how can you have a great holiday at home? How do holidays improve your mental health? Working from home, being furloughed or just hanging around at home is not the same as hav ..read more

If lockdown has made you feel frustrated or stressed, you might expect that expressing those feelings onto an external target – through anger, shouting, or generally aggressive behaviour - will make you feel better. The problem is that taking your bad mood out on your partner can simply cause problems in your relationship as well, and it seems that ‘mood freezing’ can be a better approach. Why do we take out our stress and frustration on other people?This has been called variously catharsis, redirection, and displacement, but the idea that frustration and other negative emotions come out a ..read more

For many of us in lockdown, having a special meal with a loved one (virtual or otherwise) or just putting our feet up with a tasty snack and a tipple can help us unwind and, in fact, there is some evidence to show that this works. How does eating reduce stress? We often talk about ‘comfort eating’, but how does that actually work? In the short term, stress tends to reduce your appetite, but if the stress keeps on coming the opposite happens. The adrenal glands release a hormone called cortisol which increases your appetite. It also tends to increase the stores of fat in the abdomen. St ..read more

A small amount of anxiety or worrying can be useful at times because it makes us pay attention to potential sources of danger or discomfort. However, with much of the world in lockdown and the future uncertain, anxiety can be overwhelming, even for those who don't normally consider themselves to be worriers. There are a lot of ideas on this site about what you can do to reduce stress and anxiety but, in this article, I’m looking at some of the more unusual approaches that you might not have used before. Ideas to deal with anxiety Stop anxiety taking all the fun out of life. When you’re wor ..read more

We’ve probably all heard the one about the swan – calm and serene on the top, paddling like mad down below. But which half are you in a crisis? The Cambridge Dictionary defines calm as ‘peaceful, quiet, and without worry’, and we probably all know people who seem to naturally remain that way no matter what life throws at them.  If you’re not one of them, you may not realise just how useful it can be to keep your cool and manage your emotions. Of course, it’s much easier to stay calm when life is going well, but there are lots of benefits to being that way even in a crisis. We all laugh at Cor ..read more

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), also known as ‘winter depression’ or ‘the winter blues’, is a type of depression that comes and goes in a seasonal pattern. Around six per cent of us are thought to suffer from it, another ten per cent or so have milder seasonal mood swings, and most of us seem to feel more lethargic and less positive during the winter months. One study even showed that heavy rain increases the number of negative posts on Facebook! If you know that your mood drops as the light changes and the colder weather rolls around, you can take action to help prevent it. Start now to f ..read more

It’s a New Year, and a New Decade, so I am sure many of you are making plans to change things around. Not just the traditional resolution kind of thing but also a real wish for things to be better in the long term. The problem is that in order to make those wishes into reality instead of just an item on a (mostly ignored) ‘to do’ list, you need a plan. Try these proven tips to help you achieve your dreams: Know what you want. Having a general idea that you would like to be fitter or more organised is great but how will you know when you get there? So, think about how you will look, feel and ..read more

You might think of social pressure (sometimes called peer pressure) as something that forces teenagers to smoke or get involved with drugs or alcohol. But we can all be pressured into doing, or not doing, things in order to get approval from others at any age. Sometimes it’s those we care about – family or friends– and sometimes those like neighbours or colleagues, who touch our lives much more briefly. We worry about providing the perfect Christmas, about being ‘good enough’, about being judged, and about fitting in. Social pressure can be very powerful and some studies suggest it can actual ..read more

However much you enjoy your job, there will be days where it causes stress. Tight deadlines, difficult clients, too much work or not enough – the causes of workplace stress are many and varied but they happen to just about everyone and it’s best to make sure you have a plan in place to deal with them when they do. Causes of work-related stress Of course, the real cause of occupational stress is not what you actually experience but how you interpret and respond to that experience. If being surrounded by small children is your ideal way to spend the day, then working in a nursery could be yo ..read more