Promoting resilience and wellbeing

  So how much do you know about your brain? I am guessing probably not a lot and actually none of us knew very much about the teenage brain until about 20 years ago.  We used to think that all of our brain development happened in our early years but now we know this is not the case.  In actual fact your brain goes through some pretty phenomenal changes that start when you begin puberty and actually don’t finish until you get to your mid-twenties.  That’s right your brain is not fully developed until 25 at the earliest, maybe even a little bit later. The first thing to know is that different parts of our brain develop at different speeds.  One of the first parts of your brain to develop is called the limbic system where the amygdala lives.  This is the part of your brain that is responsible for all of your emotional reactions – anger, sadness, excitement and is also the part that is responsible for keeping you safe by activating your flight, flight, free...

  When our children are young, we all understand that their brains are still developing and this knowledge allows us to tolerate and even delight in the amount of support they need to achieve their developmental milestones. Remember the joy you felt when your little person took their first step or managed to say their first word.   When our children reach adolescence, we can suddenly find our privileged position in their lives replaced by their peers and their behaviour can leave us feeling perplexed and confused.    We often attribute these changes to a surge in hormones and while this is definitely one of the things that is happening in adolescence, we now know that it is not the main event.   What we are beginning to understand from the science is that when our young people reach adolescence the brain starts a remodelling project specifically designed to support them to make the transition into adulthood.   This is a process that continues until our ...

  You know those morning when you can’t be bothered getting out of bed and everything, even getting dressed, feels like a massive effort.   This is normal and it’s probably something we have all experienced more over the past year.   It’s something that most of us move in and out of and while it feels pretty miserable at the time, we know it will pass.   For some of us, however, this low mood can hang around for longer and start influencing lots of things like our energy levels, our interest and motivation, how irritable we are and our ability to sleep… to name just a few.   And if that’s not enough, low mood can also start giving us some really bad advice- telling us to stay away from other people and not to bother doing the things that we used to enjoy because there is no point.   When this happens it probably means that we need to start doing some of the things we know will help us to boss the low mood back to a more manageable place.   So how...

  Do you ever get the feeling that we live in a “fix it” world? I do.   If someone is sad, we try to make them happy, if someone is angry, we try and calm them down.   In a world that values relentless positivity we want to fix everything, especially when it comes to emotions that make us feel uncomfortable.   But sometimes it’s important to recognise that worried and uncomfortable is precisely where we need to be. A psychologist called Susan David talks about a concept called emotional agility.   When we are emotionally agile, we are able to experience our thoughts and emotions in a way that doesn’t allow them to hijack our plans.   What this means is that we can experience big feelings like sadness, anger or frustration and we are still able to do the things that are important to us.   There are four key parts to developing emotional agility 1.        Showing up This is about being curious when emotions show up. ...

  Even before the worldwide pandemic we were already witnessing a rise in the number of children and young people who were struggling to manage the challenges they faced.   We are all familiar with the story of young people lacking the grit and resilience of previous generations.   At best this story is not overly helpful at worst it generates feeling of blame and shame in a generation of young people who are actually doing the best they can.   Now in the midst of a global pandemic we know many young people are finding it difficult to manage the high levels of uncertainty and loss that they are continuing to manage on a daily basis.   This is where resilience can create a significant difference. So, what is resilience …   Resilience is our ability to bounce back and continue to move forward in the face of challenging situations.   Resilience is not never being frightened or scared, it is feeling these normal natural emotions and being able to ...

  This appears to be one of the central messages from 2020.   It’s been spotted in tube stations, on buses, in telephone boxes and repeatedly in our twitter feed.   So, what does it actually mean - it’s OK not to feel OK    As young children we were all repeatedly told to cheer up or to calm down.   So much so that many of us have internalised a script about which emotions we can and can’t express.   And although the field of psychology has long championed the benefits of positive emotions on our wellbeing, we can often feel overwhelmed with the unrelenting pressure to be embrace positivity.     Fortunately, what we now know is that we actually need all of our emotions – not just those that make us feel good like gratitude and joy but also the ones that really don’t feel so great like anger and anxiety.         The reason our emotions are so important is because they act as our internal compass and draw our...

  There is no joy without gratitude Brene Brown As we come to the end of an incredibely difficult year it feels really hard to look back with anything remotely close to gratitude.   The losses we all experienced and continue to experience are hard to accept and many of us are currently experiencing fatigue, low mood and significant episodes of anxiety.   When we are in the midst of a global pandemic, that seems to be getting progressively worse rather than better, turning our attention to the things we are grateful for is hard. And yet this is probably one of the most important things we can do in terms of our wellbeing. Dr Robert Emmons who is a leading gratitude researcher says “crisis can make us more grateful and gratitude can also help us to cope with crisis.   Consciously cultivating an attitude of gratitude builds up a sort of psychological immune system that can cushion us when we fall”.   Our brains are wired with something called a negativity b...

Coming to the end of the summer is always difficult, no more long bright evenings, no more sea swimming and no more socialising in the safety of our gardens.  This year we are all going to feel this much more acutely.    The second lockdown feels daunting, it’s no longer a novelty and sadly the darker evening and colder winds make it more difficult to feel optimistic about our ability to manage this second time around.     What many of us normally do in these situations is to reach for what research call quick fixes, eating more of our favourite foods, spending more time indoors on screens and generally hunkering down and going into hibernation mode.   And all of this is understandable, especially given the extraordinary impact COVID 19 has on what we can and can’t do.   However, what we know from the science is that now, perhaps more than ever, we need to be very mindful of keeping our wellbeing topped up.    Here are five simple ideas f...