What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations used in the modern world as a relaxing technique. So basically “Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.” When we meditate, it doesn’t help us to fi

Chronic stress can be detrimental to your mind and body. It can put you at risk of developing health problems such as high blood pressure, IBS, headaches, anxiety, and depression. When you feel stress, your body responds by releasing hormones that increase your blood pressure and raise your heart rate, known as the “stress response”. This so-called "stress response" is a normal reaction to threatening situations, fine-tuned and passed down the generations from our prehistori

Firstly, let’s point out that stress is not necessarily a ‘bad’ thing. Without this innate ability to feel stress, the species would not have survived. Our cavemen ancestors, for example, needed the natural stress response to save them from potential danger, such as a sabre-toothed tiger. Stress is primarily a physical response. When we get stressed, the body thinks it is under attack and reverts to ‘fight, flight or freeze’ mode, releasing a complex mix of hormones and chemi

Has stress become a part of your life? Over a third of my clients come to see me because they are stressed, anxious and suffering from insomnia. So, let’s take a look at what stress is and how we can make simple changes to beat it. What is stress? Firstly, I’d like to point out that stress is not necessarily a ‘bad’ thing. It was intended as a survival mechanism and worked brilliantly for our ancestors in alerting them to danger and giving our bodies the means to stand and fi

April is Stress Awareness Month. Stress is a common word used a lot these days, but do we understand when we are stressed? Emotional symptoms of anxiety are expressed inwardly, which means most people don’t realise what the emotional signs of stress are, and often fail to recognise them. A little stress in small doses can be a good thing, and it can help you to perform under pressure or motivate you to do your best. However, if you are frequently frazzled and overwhelmed, it’

With Christmas fast approaching and a huge list of things to get done, we can often feel like our to do list has a life of its own and our anxiety leaves us doing nothing instead. Do you find yourself barking at the kids, getting road rage more than usual or simply waiting for your head to explode with a never-ending list of things to do? Then you are probably feeling overwhelmed, and you are definitely not alone. I’ll be honest with you, I always dread December just a little

Stress – it’s a common word these days, perhaps a little overused at times, and tossed around without much thought as to what being stressed really means to us and our health, or what we intend to do about managing it. While some people tend to thrive under the short-term buzz of a stressful deadline, or adrenaline junkies who bungee jump or sky dive to get that buzz, for the majority of us, we know it’s not a healthy state to maintain indefinitely, and can affect our long-te

The most common reason clients give for visiting me is stress, and even if it’s not stress, they are suffering with some sort of stress related illness. So, are we all killing ourselves slowly without even realising it, and what can we do to reverse the impact of stress? Modern Day Disease From a corporate background in Finance and a highly stressful job, I have first-hand experience of how much stress can affect you, and now use this knowledge to help other people. We are al

An easy way to reduce the negative effects of stress We all know stress is bad for you - the media scare us with danger stories of what stress can do to us all the time. Are you even stressing about being stressed? If so, here are a few things we can all do to take control, but firstly, what is stress? Understanding stress Stress has been around since we were cavemen, and isn’t all bad. In fact, it was this natural reaction which allowed us to fight off dangerous animals or f