Burnout

Social Media Detox: Why having a break is so good for your Mental Health

Social Media Detox: Why having a break is so good for your Mental Health

At the end of January, I noticed I was feeling very worried and anxious. The world has been a strange and unsettling place in the last year. Yes, I do have a very heavy job and it can get personally draining at times.

As I preach to my clients, self-care is crucial in life and I apply that to myself everyday. However, I realised the excess of information and the general collective anxiety was taking its toll on me.

So I decided to delete all my social media apps from my phone. It was meant to be just for that weekend. But I felt such a positive difference, that I decided to continue my ‘experiment’. Six weeks later, I’m still off the apps and I’m truly loving it.

Are you ‘Working From Home’ or ‘Living At Work’?

Are you ‘Working From Home’ or ‘Living At Work’?

Most people are finding difficult to switch off from work and separate their personal and professional lives. On one hand we are saving time from commuting, moving around between meetings and travelling. On the other hand, that time seems to be transferred and fully dedicated to work duties, without much change or respite.

Suddenly, life is becoming an endless list of obligations and demands, without the release that comes from social activities and other distractions, from meeting different people and being in different environments.

How is all this affecting our mental health and our emotions? How can I then separate my personal and professional life? How can I switch off from work?

How am I going to go through Christmas and New Year in 2020?

How am I going to go through Christmas and New Year in 2020?

Everybody is talking about it. Everywhere. There’s a lot of anxiety around us at the moment. ‘How am I going to cope with Christmas this year?’, ‘It’ll be so bad’, ‘I’m dreading the Holidays’,It’ll be so strange this year’, ‘I always do ‘this’ or ‘that’ over Christmas’ and the comments go on and on.

There’s a lot of uncertainty right now. The rules and guidelines are constantly changing and it’s difficult to make plans or have a clear view of what’s to come and what we are going to do, and how we are going to feel.

But there are things we can do and change in ourselves, there are ways to think and focus that can be very helpful in these last weeks of the year. And hopefully, for other times too, ‘not only for Christmas’:

Why we will need to start all over again after lockdown. And how to make that transition as painless and beneficial as possible

Why we will need to start all over again after lockdown. And how to make that transition as painless and beneficial as possible

While we had to readjust and find new ways of living during lockdown, we will need to rethink our lives and habits when this is all over.

While many people used the lockdown as an opportunity to rethink their lifestyle, become healthier and slow down their pace. Many others reached a much higher level of anxiety and insecurities, or threw themselves into unhealthy habits such as much more alcohol and excess eating, less motivation for physical activities and less interest in social interactions.

Is it possible to get rid of our suffering? Can we make our pain disappear?

Is it possible to get rid of our suffering? Can we make our pain disappear?

So many people ask me what they need to do to ‘get rid of’ their suffering. How to stop feeling the pain, stop feeling sad or even how to stop thinking about the issues that are causing their suffering. As if there were techniques to learn or a magic button that would make it all disappear in an instant.

And the answer is simple: we don’t ‘get rid’ of our suffering, we can’t just make it disappear. It takes time. It takes healing. And, surprisingly, it takes our care and attention for that to happen.

Why do I feel so sad and in a low mood for no reason?

Why do I feel so sad and in a low mood for no reason?

We all have ups and downs. Life isn’t a linear state and if your mood changes from one moment to another, it means that you are alive and open to your feelings. However, sometimes it feels that the low mood is taking over. From the moment you wake up, there’s that darkness and inexplicable sadness in your heart. You feel heavy and your mind seems filled with negative thoughts. What’s going on? What’s wrong with me?

Everybody is talking about Self-Care. But what is it all about?

Everybody is talking about Self-Care. But what is it all about?

We live in a fast world. Being busy is the rule and ‘doing’ is the norm. We feel guilty if we are not producing, achieving, showing results. There’s a pressure to be constantly in action. Either at work or during our time off. Even socially, it feels as if we have to be always doing something: meeting people, going to places, keeping up with events. But where is all that pressure coming from? Who is actually asking you to live your life like this?