Archive for year: 2017

I have been aware of Cyberchrondria for many years. I always called it Google-itis. It is when the patient or the client has become so well informed about their condition that they often know more about it than their doctor or therapist. Sometimes, what they think is information can be ‘mis-information’ as the sources of their information maybe dubious and come from any site or chat room on the internet.

According to Laura Donnelly, health editor (UK) Daily Telegraph,

‘Cyberchondria” is fuelling an epidemic of health anxiety, with one in five NHS appointments taken up by hyperchondriacs and those with irrational fears, experts have warned.’

Cyberchrondia is the modern digital equivalent of hyperchondria that is a fear of illness often morbidly so. Usually seen as delusional, often accompanied by the hysterical development of physical symptoms that are dismissed by the doctor or therapist. Sadly I see, on a regular basis, those with genuine symptoms and concerns ignored by their physician, who suspect them of hyperchondria, only to go on and develop full blown and, sometimes, fatal disease.

If the statistics are true and that twenty percent of NHS time is wasted, the money spent looking after people who are not ill we have a problem…. But, just hold on a minute, maybe we have this wrong and we do have a problem, just not the one that we think we have.

What takes these people to the doctor in the first place?
Why would someone invest so much of their time and energy in worrying about being ill? Ok, so maybe they do not have a physical medical issue but they certainly do have a issue. It is called anxiety.

In my discipline of psychotherapy we recognise that around 60% of those visiting a general practitioner/physician have an anxiety issues rather than a physical problem. We also know that when patients do have a genuine physical issue it is often exacerbated through their anxiety and concerns.

This does not mean that these people are wasting NHS time because they do not have a issues, they very much do have an issue it is called ‘Health Anxiety’.

Health Anxiety
All forms of anxiety happen when the consciousness of the individual is projected into their future. They are not living in their present. Fear of flying, is not fear of flying it is fear of crashing, fear of heights is fear of falling and so on.

You need a good imagination
Any anxiety can be defined as the person projecting into the future and imagining things that may never happen and then living those fears in the present as though they are actually happening right now. The better the person imagination the more intense their anxiety. You cannot be anxious without a good imagination. The person with health anxiety is using their imagination to assume and fear the worst and living those fears in the present as if they are true.

Often phobias and anxiety fears run side by side. So that health anxiety can lead to many phobic reactions and changes in behaviour to avoid a supposed or suspected illness or infection. Because of this health anxiety is often accompanied by obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), the obsessive recitation of actions or thoughts. In reality the need to visit and revisit the internet to Google symptoms and diseases is also a form of OCD.

Symptom substitution
The problem for these people is not that it is ‘health anxiety’ it is simply that they have ‘anxiety’ disorder. When someone has learned the habit of anxiety, living a supposed future in the present, the anxiety will attach itself to whatever is the latest focus of their attention. So, now it just happens to be health. If we resolve this obsession with health the anxiety will simply attach itself to something else. So, now we have fear of flying followed by fear of nuclear war, followed by fear of losing a job, followed fear of becoming homeless. The attachments made by anxiety can go anywhere on an endless list of possibilities.

This is a real problem
This is not a fantasy. For the sufferer it is very real. It is not something where you can tell the person to pull themselves together and just stop worrying. From my experience as a therapist, and from what I read, anxiety is a developing and increasing problem. We can see from these statistics from the NHS and from the information form the office of national statistics (ONS) that amount of hours and days lost to sickness absence due to anxiety is a growing problem. So, if we are to solve the problem the question is why is it developing and what can we do about it?

Life style changes
The person that was, just a few generations ago, driving a horse and cart is now flying a jumbo jet. The world has changed, we have not. In the preindustrial, pre-urban society we ate what we could grow, foods that were in season and our expectations were less. With industrialisation and production comes choice and we now know that choice is stressful. Research shows us that if, when we are in the supermarket, we have a choice of one hundred different types of cheese, this in itself creates stress for us. If the choice is limited to less that ten types of cheese the stress is much less. Think of the level of choices that we all have in all parts of our life. More choice, more decision making, more opportunity to get it wrong, the more stress.

From the moment you wake to the moment that you arrive at work or school you will have processed more information than your great grandparents would have processed in several months. Life and news is instantaneous. Most of us are contumely connected. WE cannot escape and simply relax.

Longevity
With improved living standards, nutrition and medication has come a longer life. In the UK we are looking at female death age in the mid nineties and men in the late eighties. In one sense with more time has come more anxiety. Also with longer life has come more disease. Illnesses that a few generations ago people would simply not have lived long enough to get have now become common place. We probably all know someone who has had cancer. We are now told that 50% of us will get cancer. However, we also told that the majority of us will survive it. The message that we focus on will depend on our anxiety. Those with anxiety disorder are likely to hear “50% of us will get cancer”. Those without anxiety disorder are likely to hear “most of us will survive it”. There are other aspect of potential anxiety related to longevity such as pensions, financial support and care homes etc.

Expectation
Along with increased life has come increased expectation. Expectation of wealth and consumerism, an expectation of things, of stuff. Many are no longer prepared to save before they purchase they rely on credit. Just like anxiety, credit gives us a way to experience the potential future in the present. From car loans and mortgages to credit cards and store cards we live the future in the present. It is then that we experience the pressure, the anxiety of having to pay it all off. The average UK household currently has about £12,887.00 of unsecured credit, that is before mortgages and car loans. (ONS)

Media
The development of expectation is fuelled by the media, advertising and marketing. It serves to convince us that we need things that we have never known about before. The new phone that appears every eighteen months, the lasted model of car, fashion, bags, shoes and consumables. For many fashion equals stress as we are convinced of those things that we just must have.

News
Alongside media is the news that is broadcast at us every hour of the day. News rarely or never tells us anything that is good, rather it fires up the fears and anxieties of the listeners. News is never balanced. News is about all that is bad and all the bad that will happen. It feeds our fear and anxiety, it creates anxiety. The news feeds about all the immigrants that would be wrecking Britain if we did not leave Europe, the madness of North Korea and Donald Trump. It really is, pick your fear and the news media will run with it and feed it until it fizzles out. They will be onto the next great fear. I detect a fear change. The fear of Europe appears to be changing slowly into a fear of Brexit. Whatever will be next, perhaps Facebook will tell us?

Internet
That leads us into the internet and Google that does everything from misdiagnosing our symptoms, to making us envious of those wonderful lives that we see on Facebook and Instagram, to wanting products from Amazon and other online markets.

Technology
But, we must not forget our need for the devices that allow us to play with the internet. Phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, smart TVs. I wonder what device you are using to read this on? As I write the news feeds are telling me about the impending iOS 11 and the new iPhone that is rumoured to cost $1000.00.

Strangely the word ‘chondria’ comes from the Greek meaning cartilage. So hyper would infer an over focussing on the inner tissues hence the medical connection. If we take chondria, in a modern sense to mean “what we focus upon” Cyberchondria makes sense.

Take care and be happy and whatever your individual chondria try and make it a positive one.

Sean x

As we slip into autumn and winter approaches, as the seasons change so do our circadian body rhythms and for many that will mean a change in both our eating and sleeping pattern. Just as with jet lag our bodies need to adjust to this seasonal change in light and temperature and the shortened length of light in the day. In some jobs this will mean going into work in the dark and coming out of work into the dark. The lack of sunlight reduces the level of vitamin D in our system that leads to a drop in the level of serotonin, the happy hormone, in our brains. So, now we have the winter blues and SAD syndrome. Many mammals, at this time of year, choose to hibernate, to go to sleep and wait it out until the spring and the increased sunlight. But we, rightly or wrongly, just keep going. At a point where we should probably be doing less, resting more and huddling by the fire we continue those twelve hour shifts. In reality we need more sleep in the dark months, usually much more than we allow ourselves to have. In recent years with the development of neuropsychology we understand more and more the importance of sleep to our emotional and psychological health. So, what can we do to improve the sleep that we do have and minimise the possibility of the blues or depression?

(well worth a read)

Foods that inhibit good sleep

Caffeine, in all it’s forms from fizzy drinks to coffee and even tea, has a half-life of 5 hours: which means that 10 hours after drinking your coffee, 25% left in your system; and 20 hours later 12.5% of the caffeine still remains. And, we wonder why caffeine can be so addictive. So, while an early afternoon coffee as a post-lunch pick-me-up may seem like a good idea, it might be what is keeping you up at night.

1: Reduce your intake of caffeine

Alcohol is Britains favourite relaxant. Many people, at the end of a hard day go home and pop a cork as compensation and when they have had a good day they go home and pop a cork as a point of celebration. Either way it still affects our sleep. It may make us drowsy but the sleep that we do have becomes disturbed and we can wake feeling more tired than when we went to bed.

2: Limit your alcohol intake and when you do drink observe the affect that it has on your sleep and you performance on the next day

Chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, can contain high levels of caffeine and thus needs to be treated similarly to coffee and other caffeinated beverages. How many people believe that a nice hot chocolate before bed will improve their sleep? Well, actually it makes it worse. If you look back to number one you will see that the effects of the chocolate that you consume can be effecting you hours after you have forgotten about it.

3: In general try to avoid chocolate and any kind of sweets in the evening, it will not only improve your sleep but your overall health as well

Spicy Foods: Capsaicin – the molecule which gives your spicy foods that kick – can cause changes in body temperature that can cause a disturbance in your circadian rhythms if consumed late at night. Obviously being hot at night can keep you awake and those effects can be heightened during menstrual cycles and menopause.

4: Avoid hot or spicy foods as an evening meal especially if you have any reflux issues or more general indigestion

High-Refined-Fat-Foods: Ever since I was a child I was told that if I ate cheese at night it would give me nightmares. Well maybe it did not do that but it did disturb my sleep. We all know that certain unhealthy (aka. refined and trans) fats negatively impact our health; but there’s also evidence that they may be keeping you up at night.
Animal studies have shown that high-fat diets are associated with more fragmented sleep, along with excessive daytime sleepiness. Researchers speculate that this may be linked to the neuro-chemical orexin — which plays an integral role in our sleep-wake cycles.

5: Avoid refined fats and that includes fast food, but if you must do it during the day

Foods that promote good sleep

Magnesium and potassium: One of the symptoms of magnesium deficiency is insomnia, so you’ll want to load up on healthy sources of this mineral such as leafy greens, beans and lentils, and bananas. Magnesium and potassium promote muscle relaxation, and thus not only help you feel more comfortable but can help deal with nighttime leg cramps. Other foods in the category include potatoes, squash, yoghurt, fish, avocados and mushrooms.

1: If you want to snack in the evening try eating a banana

Tryptophan is an amino-acid found in both animal and plant proteins. Our bodies use tryptophan to create serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in both mood regulation and sleep.

Many foods are great natural sources of tryptophan, such as milk, bananas, peanut butter and walnuts. Now, I don’t drink dairy milk but nut milks are a fabulous substitute.

2: Milk, milk substitutes and foods containing Tryptophan will enhance your sleep

B vitamins are essential for both the synthesis and release of certain neurotransmitters and hormones in your brain that are part of the sleep-wake cycle: these include serotonin and melatonin.
Supplements are often prescribed to treat conditions such as restless leg syndrome, a nighttime movement disorder which significantly disrupts sleep.

However, if your diet is right there’s no need to take a supplement. You can get your fill from legumes (chick peas), dark green vegetables, whole grains and fish.

3: Review your diet and check that your vitamin B requirements are being met

Theanine is yet another useful amino acid when it comes to treating sleep disorders. Research has shown that administering a theanine supplement improves sleep quality and increases sleep efficiency, while decreasing nighttime awakenings.
There is one superfood packed with theanine: Green tea. However, while green tea has significantly less caffeine than a cup of tea, it is recommended to opt for the decaffeinated kind if your goal is a good night’s sleep.

4: Green tea has many benefits

If you have ever had jet lag it is your melatonin that has gone out of sync. It is naturally produced by your pineal gland under direction of your circadian rhythms and is what makes us feel sleepy as we near bedtime. It usually begins to release around 9 p.m. and remains at a high level for the next 12 hours, throughout the night into the next morning.

While there are certain foods that contain melatonin, you can also purchase this essential sleep-inducing hormone in capsules in the USA at your local pharmacy or health food store and may also be available in the UK. Taken at the right time of day, and in the right dosage, melatonin supplements can help reset your biological clock to optimal levels and is often used as a natural treatment for sleep disorders.
However, you don’t need to take supplements: simply add tart fruits, like cherries and pineapples, to your diet. Oats, walnuts and bananas are likewise great natural sources of melatonin.

5: Adding tart fruits and some nuts to your diet will improve your sleep

Be mindful in what you choose and fingers crossed a good nights sleep and sweet dreams will follow.

Take care

Sean x

In a world where at least 60% of people suffer anxiety, 45% report being stressed and 45 million working days are lost each year to stress and anxiety, we just might consider doing something about it. Beyond taking medication we can all learn to moderate our anxiety and stress in healthy ways.

Live In The Present.
It has to start here because in the now, in the moment, there is no depression, no anxiety and nothing to worry about. Let go of what was and do not worry about what will be. All the suggestions below will enhance your ability to be in the moment not in a depressive past or an anxious future. They are all also ways of increasing the happy endorphins in your brain which also has the effect of keeping you younger for longer.

Use the time that you do have in non-stressful ways.
How long does it take you to get to work? On that journey are you living in the present being relaxed and easy with yourself or are you winding up for a difficult day? How about you use that time to listen to music, and audio book or if you are on public transport, actually read a book.

Mindful meditation.
Just 10 minutes a day of focused mindful quiet time can change your life. It is the practice application of living in the present. The ten minutes begins to seep into the rest of your day calming and relaxing your life.

Relaxing pastimes and hobbies
Painting a picture, cooking a meal, knitting a jumper, the list becomes endless. When you focus on a project, whatever it is, your ability to worry becomes diminished as you focus into the moment.

Doing good things for others
Doing things that make other people happy has the magic effect of making you feel better and increasing the happy endorphins in your brain. It might just be making someone a cup of coffee or helping an older person carry their shopping, a good turn to others is a good turn for yourself.

Leave work at work
In occupational health we talk a lot about work life balance. The evening review, in the mindfulness toolkit, stops the negative issues of work spilling over into home life. End you work day positively and leave the stress of work at work.

Get physical
If you raise your heart rate for as little as twenty minutes, your brain will respond by releasing a wave of happy hormones. It doesn’t need to be in a gym, a short run or a brisk walk will do the trick. It will also keep your musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems in order.

Animal love
Not for everyone but having a pet, usually a cat or a dog is a fabulous way to reduce anxiety and stress. Having another being to look after can create a meaningful sense of purpose. The act of stroking or petting can reduce blood pressure and calm your system and the added need to walk your dog can help with your physical exercise.

Nobody wants anything and nobody needs anything
Taking time out just for you. Sometime that is all about you. What you need and what you want to do. It could be a hobby, it could be a Zumba class or a bath with candles and music. When did you last do something just for you?

Stress is in the eye of the beholder
The psychological concept is that “thoughts become things”, “the things that you think about you bring about” means that what you focus on will get ever bigger in your conscious awareness, “what you feed grows and what you starve dies”. In neuropsychology we know that for most of us the ability to be happy or depressed, stressed or relaxed, anxious or calm, is a choice. We choose what we focus on every moment of everyday. If we feed good thoughts we have good experiences and if we feed bad thoughts we have negative experiences. It is our choice.

Make your choices today, ones of calm relaxed happiness.

Take care

Sean x

We think of time as a set structural thing and yet our experience of time is really emotional. When you are in a meeting or a presentation and the speaker is uninspiring flat and boring time just seems to drag. Every time that you look at your watch it seems that little or no time has passed.

When I began meditation I started doing three minute sessions. Making the jumps to five and ten minute sessions was like climbing a mountain. Yet now I happily sit for an hour and sometimes it feels like I am only just getting into it and the time is up. I have also noticed that when I am going somewhere it always feels longer than when I am going home, strange!

Time is attached to personality or chakra types.

Mulladhara or physical type personalities live with the physical processes of their body. These happen very quickly as nerves fire off and endorphins are pumped into the system. The rods and cones in your eyes, the light sensors, are firing in milliseconds. People that live in this physical world tend to be quick, have problems staying still and want to be continually on the go. They never sit down for long and office jobs or watching the telly can bore them rigid. These people tend to get impatient, want it now and often have a short fuse.

Svadisthana or social, sensual types enjoy the time of anticipation. Were as the physical type can be too impatient to enjoy foreplay or the anticipation of an appetiser, they want the main course right now, the social type enjoys it. The preparation may be more enjoyable than the main course. These social types can be a little ambitious and want the future in the present. We call this credit and for many social types credit is there best friend. In Britain we call this keeping up- with the Jones’s.

Manipura or intellectual types can be curious. They make really good researchers and scientists, writers and reporters. They can have the dogged determination to stick on the trail like a dog with a bone. In this sense time can begin to spread out waiting for the answer or the result. Sometimes these types can suffer early onset boredom and then they will seek stimulation elsewhere. As long as they remain intellectually engaged they will stay on the case.

Anhatta or emotional types have the patience to get what they want. For them time can be very long often in terms of holding on to hurt, they do not forgive easily. They may smile at you but they do not forget. If you have crossed an anhatta they will never forget and will enjoy their revenge at a time of their choosing in the future. It does work the other way as well. If you have looked after an anhatta they will never forget that and they will look after you in return. The negative side is vendetta and mafioso.

Vishuddhi is the passed. The world of tradition and custom is there’s and that goes back as far as can be remembered or was recorded. ‘We have always done it this way’ is their phrase. Change and uncertainty scare them. They need to now where they stand and how long it will take. Because they have long memories they will hold you to your word, your promise and your commitment. Very long memory.

Ajna is the future, the vision the dream. In this world on intuition and universal connectedness time is eternal, there is no beginning, there is no end. The experience of time can be see as so great that may be counted in epics, eras, life times and incarnation. For many Ajnas the issues that we face today may have there roots in several lifetimes ago. Yet always the ajna looks to the future as either a vision or a dream, the world of will be, of what we could do, how we could make it better.

Sahasara is pure imagination. Sahasara are the image makers the creative geniuses and the artists. The images shared by Sahasara can be so vivid and so inspirational that thousands of years after their deaths people still read their words and follow their teachings and revere them as deities. Sahasara time is measured in the memory that is passed from one generation to the next.

For us all, we live in our own time world that is peculiar to us. One thing that we do know is that when we are bored time goes so slowly and when we are enjoying ourselves time flies by.

Perhaps our choice is to have the experience of a long and boring life or a quick and happy one. I’m in for the happy ride.

Take care and observe your experience of time.

Sean x

I love it when people talk about communication, they usually mean communications. Communications refers to media, broadcasting and the transfer of information. Many of us believe that when we have transmitted our message that we have communicated. Say, a boss goes into an office and barks demands, instructions and leaves believing that they have just communicated. How do they know what their staff actually heard, what they meant? This is the point. We believe that because we have said something that the person that we said it to has understood what we mean. This is how miss communication occurs.

I once ran a self development centre called ‘The Centre For Human Communication’. Despite the fact that we ran courses on yoga, meditation and self development people often thought that we were something to do with the telephone service. The difference between communication and communications. The role of coms in business is well known as the person running the publicity and media systems.

The coms operator does not have a clear way of understanding whether or not what they meant to convey in their coms was received by the recipients.

A word is like a train carriage and the people that the word travels to are like stations on the railway line. As the train carriage moves from one station to another people get in and people get out. Sometimes there will be a bicycle or a dog or two in the carriage and, on rare occasions the carriage will be completely empty while other times bursting at the seams. The carriage may look the same on the outside but the contents changes all the time.

Words are just like that. They are mental and emotional railway carriages. As a word moves from you to another person it’s meaning will change. Just like the carriage the word looks the same, it may be written the same but the content, the meaning, is changed. The meaning that is put on the word, it contents, is provided not so much by you the sender but by the person that receives it, that hears it.

The meaning of a word or phrase, it’s contents, maybe cultural, coloquiall, familial, or experiential. Either way it will be peculiar to us. If I say ‘I love you’ what do you hear? What do I mean by love? It might mean anything from I want to marry you, be your friend, take you as a lover, or whatever it means when you say it or you hear it. You might get the idea that communication in the real sense is actually quite difficult.

The meaning of communication

The literal meaning of the word communication is common union or to be at one with, or in the same place. When I say something and you hear what I mean then we have communicated. If I say something and you interpret it into your meaning we have miscommunicated. The art of advertising is this very thing. The coms person has to impart the message in such a way that the customer receives the message.

This takes us to the hub of communication. The majority of what we communicate is not in the word. With different research the percentages vary but it goes something like this. About 52% of the meaning is in our body language, facial expression and stance, about 36% is in the tone of our voice. Around 3% is in the volume and 2% in pheromones. It is only around 7% that is in the literal meaning of the words. This makes texts and the written word the worst forms of communication that we use.

Imagine when you read a book. In your mind, in your imagination you are creating the characters and what they look like. Then someone makes a film of the book and in your mind they completely got it wrong because the meaning that they put on the word in the book is different to yours. As we say, ‘a picture tells a thousand word’.

What do you hear if I say ‘he went nose to nose with me’? Well where I come from that would mean we went face to face or he squared up to me in an act of aggression. Well, in Arabic cultures, when males meet, they do a side on hand shake, pull into each other and tap their noses together twice. To say ‘we went nose to nose’ is either an act of love or an act of aggression depending on where you come from.

The only way that you will ever know what someone means is to ask them, ‘when you said that I heard….., is that what you meant?’ Or ‘when I said …. What did you hear?’

Communication is a tricky business. Miscommunication is probably the root of most problems at an individual and a global scale. Likewise, communication is probably the resolution of most of our problems. The magic is that when we truly communicate, when we are in the same place we begin to see the other person as ourself as though we are one.

When I say, ‘if we all look after each other we will all be okay’, I guess that in part I am saying that if we communicated we would all be ok.

Hey ho, keep talking but do it mindfully and try to communicate.

Take care

Sean x