Heard of bibliotherapy? Surprisingly few people have, yet it’s a remarkably effective healing tool, helping to alleviate anxiety and depression. Expressed simply, bibliotherapy is about reading your way to health. Reading is, to the mind, what exercising is to the body; a means of building and maintaining wellbeing. A good book is engrossing, stimulating and satisfying. Moreover, as all subjects have been covered in book form, bibliotherapy can be informative…
We all need to stay active to maintain our health. Sport is a great way to do so, but if you need to boost your energy levels to join in, here are four important tips. Focus on your diet. Many people take the word ‘diet’ to mean starving yourself to attain a desired weight, but crash diets can lead to nutritional deficiencies. A far healthier alternative, and one that is…
This example of addiction may cause a few smiles. Dedicated runners are among the first to laugh at themselves, describing their regular outings as a drug fix. Behind all this joking, though, maybe there’s a basis of truth? The paradox here is that running is supposed to improve our physical condition, making us well and healthy. Once again, it’s doing it repeatedly that can take us over the line. To…
Irritability, stress, feeling jumpy … these are the most obvious consequences of lack of sleep, which everybody has experienced at some time. Sleep deprivation also forms part of the most effective tortures dreamt up by dictatorial regimes. In many ways, sleep is really restorative. “Did you sleep badly? Did you get out of bed on the wrong side?” Popular common sense often reminds us that lack of sleep affects our…
An intense love turns bad, a relationship which could potentially have worked falls apart, your partner decides to leave you …. whatever the reason for your broken heart, it’s never an easy thing. The expression is depressing enough in itself! You think you’re never going to get over it, and you get yourself into all sorts of states – depression, despair, isolation, flight, etc. People react in many different ways,…
Who wouldn’t want to be fit and well? It’s certainly a reasonable desire, but today’s society has made well-being, fitness and health into an obsession reinforced by media such as publicity, television and magazines. The number of people affected by hypochondria is increasing with every passing year, reinforced by new weight-loss programs, new dietary supplements, and new products to make you look younger. This obsession with having a perfectly healthy…
Behind many instances of memory loss lie addictions, whether to psychoactive substances, or to technology, or a food-related addiction. All forms of dependence, whether physical or emotional, have an effect on our mental state. Each addiction has its own effect, and some are lot nastier than others… Addiction to psychoactive substances As we said in our article about psychoactive substances, drug addiction has undesirable effects and is particularly harmful to…
When solitude hurts… It’s well known that “man is by nature a social animal”. This famous maxim is attributed to Aristotle, who seems to have been blind to a huge chunk of reality, because today more and more people complain of loneliness and try to escape it. They have developed defence mechanisms to guarantee that they’re always in company – multiple romances, total submission to a partner, living with their…
Far reaching benefits of a healthy mind in a healthy body We’d all like to live longer, and enjoy good mental and physical health. There is no secret formula when it comes to health and longevity, but I believe that there is some basis in the old adage ‘a healthy mind equals a healthy body’. Taking care of the basics Ensuring that our bodies are fit and healthy and looked…
Put your hand up, everybody who has never been jealous! At one time or another, each of us has felt jealous of a work colleague, a friend, a brother or a sister, but it’s in romantic relationships that jealousy can build up until it’s obsessive. How can we be sure that the woman or man with whom we share the most intimate moments of our existence really loves us, body…