Negative Thinking

Woman in pjamas sitting with head on arms with dark cloud overhead.

Often, I have clients who are plagued by negative thinking.  I define negative thinking as thoughts about yourself, others, or the world in general that are characterized by negative perceptions, expectations, and attributions.  These thoughts can be associated with unpleasant emotions and adverse behavioural, physiological and health outcomes.  Literally you can make yourself sick from […]

What Is In My Control

What is in my control is a good question to ask yourself.  Often, we labour over things we have no control over. We lose sleep and stress ourselves out with things that are not in our control.  I will often work with this in session and is a great conversation to have with yourself and […]

How Does Fear Affect My Body?

I have talked extensively on fear in past blogs. This blog is about the body’s response to fear and how it changes our bodies chemical makeup. There are over 200 chemicals (hormones) that react when we experience a stressful event, perceived as a threat.  In an acute stressful event, there is a cascade of changes […]

Gut Brain Connection

Remember we always say…trust your gut…a gut feeling is inexplicable but so very powerful.  To feel something intensely is to feel it viscerally, literally in the intestines.  The idea that Gut-Brain Axis is a two-way street had some cultural momentum before science caught on, continuing with my thoughts from BLOG #51. What we do know […]

Gut Brain Axis

BLOG 49 discussed Gut Brain Connection and the Canadian experiment where scientists found that there was a correlation between gut bacteria and cognitive development!  What started the thinking was what we already know that there is a link between psychological aspects such as autism or depression, which are correlated with digestive disorders such as irritable […]

The Mindful Body

Understanding how our mind and body work and thinking out way to chronic health is the knowledge we all could benefit from.  But what does mindfulness really mean and how do we find it?  I believe that the mind and body are one single system not two separates as we always discuss.  If we open […]

Choice

Choice is described as an individual’s opportunity to perform an action selected from at least two available options.  The right to make a choice can be difficult when we get too much information, we struggle to make the “right” choice, we overthink and “what if” questions circle our minds.  Albert Einstein once said, “if I […]

Sitting with Fear

I am sure most of us felt the stress of the COVID lock downs and stress from the unknown brought about fears.  Our routines were altered, financial pressures and social isolation.  There was fear from job uncertainty, information overload, rumours, and misinformation that did make our lives feel out of control and make it unclear […]

The Power of Mind Body Intervention

There is much to be said about the power of the mind-body interventions. Activities such as yoga, tai chi, and mindful meditation have an impact on inflammation at the biological level.  Long ago things were pretty calm and simple, tending to the farm organizing the pantry all were stressors but in a different way.  The […]

Tackling Stress

Tackling stress in your everyday life starts with small changes that reduces unwanted chronic inflammation. Some stressors are good and protective.  Too much stress can be toxic and inflammatory.  Stress can be mental, physical and/or environmental. There are two types of stress that you need to distinguish from 1) Eustress which is moderate or normal […]

Functional Approach – Looking Upstream

Looking_Upstream

There are two pillars of mental health that we should be aware of:  Psychological and Medical.  The first one is psychological — it is what we think about and the second one is medical — it is what we do to our body.  Both of these pillars work together which affects our lives.  Mental health […]

What Are The Pillars of Mental Health

2_Pillars

There are two pillars of mental health that we should be aware of:  Psychological and Medical.  The first one is psychological — it is what we think about and the second one is medical — it is what we do to our body.  Both of these pillars work together which affects our lives.  Mental health […]