Anxiety

Perimenopausal mental health: My Journey

Perimenopausal mental health: My Journey

I am so delighted to be able share another guest post blog as our first post of the New Year! Lesley Salem launched Over The Bloody Moon to provide help and support to women who, like Lesley, are struggling with perimenopausal symptoms like anxiety and depression. Read on to find out more about her journey and how she might be able to help you too. You can follow Lesley on Instagram at @overthebloodymoon!

How to manage 'what if' worries

How to manage 'what if' worries

I’ve recently been trying a new daily practice to help me manage my worries called a thought download. The basic idea of this is spending fifteen minutes, every day if possible, literally downloading all of my thoughts onto a piece of paper until my mind is empty. It’s early days, but I do find this process empties my mind of all the clutter, and then depending on how much time I have I will pick one or two of the thoughts and work them through in WorryTree.

One thing I’ve noticed since I began practicing this technique is that a large number of my downloaded thoughts tend to begin with ‘what if’.

Here's how I've learnt to cope with uncertainty this year

Here's how I've learnt to cope with uncertainty this year

It's been quite a year hasn't it so far? I'm writing this today hours before we hear what the latest set of restrictions are going to be in the UK. Thankfully the schools are back and businesses are open, but the virus is spreading again here and it feels like it's going to be a challenging winter.

These are uncertain times and for many of us, especially those of us with a tendency to worry, uncertainty brings fear and anxiety. I for one am not a fan of uncertainty, and yet everything about our lives is uncertain.

How scheduling worry time can help with anxiety

How scheduling worry time can help with anxiety

Have you come across ‘worry time’ before? It’s a technique that many people use to help them manage their worries and anxiety.

The principle is this - rather than worrying and feeling anxious throughout the day, you make a note somewhere of your worries and then you schedule a specific time each day when you work through your worried thoughts.

Five things helping me right now

Five things helping me right now

I’ve been wondering for a while whether I should write a post about Covid-19 and worry. These are certainly anxiety provoking times.

I think partly I’ve been avoiding writing here about it because I feel anxious myself, so how can I address that for other people in this blog, when I haven’t fully worked it through yet myself.

I also feel as if everyone is talking about it and there’s a huge breadth of content out there already. I lost count of the number of emails I had in the first week or so of lockdown in the UK, from all of my very favourite mailing lists, addressing coronavirus from their perspective. All of them were helpful. All of them were thought provoking.

Five great podcasts for worry and anxiety

Five great podcasts for worry and anxiety

We LOVE a good podcast at WorryTree HQ! Short, bite-sized radio-style programmes, they are perfect for the commute or to keep you company while walking the dog. And there’s so many out there, something for absolutely everyone on every kind of specialism that you could imagine!

But there are so many mental health podcasts out there that it can be a bit of a minefield looking for something that suits you.

So we thought today we'd share with you a round-up of our five favourite podcasts that we're listening to at the moment. We'd love to hear your thoughts on these or if you can recommend a new podcast to us!

How do you know when you're worrying?

How do you know when you're worrying?

This might seem like an odd question, I mean, you’re worrying right? You’re experiencing worried thoughts so you must be aware of them.

That’s not really my personal experience.

It’s only in recent years that I truly realised that worry was an issue for me. I pretty much hadn’t noticed. There had been periods in my life when I had worried a lot, but those had been during times of the Big Life Stresses - heartbreak, divorce, illness, moving house and so on. It’s completely normal to feel stress and anxiety during those times.