Young boys who participate in sports before they even start school are less likely to experience mental health issues such as symptoms of depression and anxiety, or ’emotional distress’, as they grow up, and specifically between the ages of five and 12. Research also suggest that boys who experience less distress as they grow up […]

Childhood abandonment, trauma and emotional neglect will reveal itself in adulthood in one form or another. This article examines the effect of all three and offers some solutions. Abandonment in childhood can affect adult relationships. Abandonment behaviours are a form of anxiety, occurring occurs when an individual has a strong fear of losing loved ones. […]

Anxiety is a seriously debilitating condition which affects one in six adults. Anxiety is usually connected to feelings of constant fear and a never-ending sense of dread. Both can be almost impossible to manage. Anxiety affects work, social lives and relationships.  Anxiety is more than just an inconvenient human emotion; it evolved to help us respond […]

The placebo effect has long been a successful add-on to all kinds of medical treatment — even a fake treatment can have a huge effect if you believe in it, and there’s a growing body of research suggesting there can be a similar effect when it comes to exercise. A study by scientists at the […]

Ticcing — fast, repetitive muscle movements resulting in sudden and seemingly difficult-tocontrol body jolts or involuntary sounds. Common examples include blinking, grimacing, sudden jerks, repetitive sounds or phrases, such as repeating particular words such as ‘beans’. Normally, tics first appear at around the age of 5 but lessen over time and most eventually disappear. The […]

Wellness… it started as a fad that’s grown into a money-making business of industrial proportions. But the pursuit of wellness could be damaging your health. Looking after our physical and mental health is a good thing, but people are beginning to question if the self-improvement really is making them any happier, because the pursuit of […]

Scientists at Stanford University say that getting between seven to eight hours sleep each night in old age is the ideal way of keeping your brain healthy. People who regularly got fewer than six hours had worse cognitive function and higher levels of a dangerous plaque in the brain linked to dementia. People who slept […]

Just two minutes of scrolling through stories on social media — known as ‘doomscrolling’ — on Twitter, or viewing them on YouTube, is enough to cause a person’s positive mood to plummet. Several scientific studies have found that levels of anxiety and depression have increased over the pandemic — particularly when reading covid–related news every […]

The language people use has a huge effect, so it’s important to use the right words at the right time! First rule: Never assume anything! When people fall seriously ill, we often say things like ‘you can fight this‘ or ‘you can beat this’ or ‘You’ll be fine…’ But you can’t say that because you […]

Burnout is the modern term we use to describe physical and emotional exhaustion. We all get overworked and tired every so often, but burnout is more than just tiredness. Burnout is worse, and it occurs when stress reaches chronic proportions and has a detrimental effect on other areas of your life.  Among the signs of […]

Trying to spot when someone is lying is not easy. For a start, the common belief that liars avert their gaze when they’re telling fibs is not true. Most of the time, they’ll be looking straight at you. A much more reliable way of detecting someone is telling you a lie is to concentrate on […]

Panic attacks can appear suddenly, starting without warning, and often resulting in intense feelings of overwhelming fear. Symptoms include a racing heart, shortness of breath and nausea. They often have no obvious cause and can happen to anyone. Regular panic attacks may be a sign of panic disorder — a condition characterised by sudden and […]