There can be no doubt about it the last few years have been an incredibly stressful time for many and with so much looming on the horizon, you may be wondering about how to increase your resilience to stress and anxiety for 2023.

Globally, there has been a pandemic, war, talks of recession, rising energy, fuel and food bills and a general sense of uncertainty, so it is no wonder that many people are starting to feel stress and have anxiety levels rising as we start to approach 2023.

It isn’t just people who suffer from SAD (seasonally adjusted disorder) who suffer from winter blues. For many people, the winter months can prove to be a source of unhappiness and lethargy, that can leave them feeling depressed, unmotivated, and unhealthy. With shorter days, less natural light, and colder weather it can mean that even the most positive person can have days where they feel a bit blah!!

We all know the scenario, you wake up and before you even check your clock, you know that it’s going to be 3.00 am and that you will then spend the next hour or so, tossing and turning, trying to get back to sleep, all the while your brain will be ruminating on all of the things that you really don’t want to be thinking about. Everyone will have been in this situation at some time or another but why does it happen? And what can we do to stop it from becoming a regular pattern?

We all know the benefits of a good diet and exercise for the well-being of our physical health but they are also fundamentally important for our mental health as well. Following good holistic practice in life is one way that will keep you mentally fit and healthy. More and more people are seeing the benefits of following a holistic lifestyle when dealing with conditions such as anxiety, stress, and depression as a way to deal with their symptoms.

We can all feel lonely from time to time it is a normal human emotion and there are many reasons for it. One person’s experience of being lonely may be different from another, each experience will be personal to the individual. Many people choose to be alone, they prefer living alone and they are happy to be away from busy social situations. For many though, loneliness is not a lifestyle choice, the ONS in the UK has found that 45% of adults feel lonely from time to time which equates to roughly 25 million people.

Loss is an inevitable part of living, we can’t go through life without experiencing loss of some sort or another and grief is the natural process that we will go through to help us to heal from it. There is no quick fix to dealing with grief and no one-size-fits-all either. Whether it is the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, moving home, the loss of a beloved pet, loss of physical ability, or loss of financial security. Whatever the circumstances the feelings of grief and loss will be present and knowing how to deal with them and how to get through the period is crucial.

As we move into the Autumn months, the changes are far greater this year than just the leaves falling from the trees or the crispness in the air first thing the morning. This Autumn is bringing with it many changes in the new post covid world. Nobody could have imagined as we saw at the start of a new decade in January, that it would be such a tumultuous year. The way we work, socialize, travel, eat and interact with each other has changed beyond recognition.

Have you ever wondered if life is really meant to be perfect? We see perfection everywhere these days, on Facebook and Instagram, in films and magazines. We are constantly bombarded with celebrities who seem to live perfect lives and with friends and family on social media posts also seeming to live in some sort of perfect reality. There is so much reinforcement everywhere that it can often make our own lives seem mundane, hard, and anything other than perfect.

One of the most important aspects of Life Coaching, or indeed any coaching. is instructing clients on challenging their brain when it is giving them misplaced information. This is often very obvious in Goal Setting and when someone is trying to achieve something that is outside of their comfort zone.

Sometimes life throws situations at us that we have absolutely no control over and what has happened in 2020 has been one of those times. When the WHO declared the Covid 19 outbreak a global pandemic, peoples' lives changed overnight. Nobody has been able to escape the fallout of this year and yet so many people have tried to take control of what has been happening in their lives and have suffered as a result. Or they have gone to pieces and felt that they could do nothing and again have experienced stress and anxiety

We have all had that feeling at some point or other in our lives…..a feeling of worry, fear, nerves, apprehension. It's a normal human experience and part of who we are and where we have evolved from. Anxiety... it’s something that everyone will experience at some point in their lives, irrespective of who they are and what they do, it can strike anyone regardless of sex, age, or background.

Fear is an emotion that we all have at various times in our lives. It is a normal part of being human and is also essential as a way of keeping us safe. The feeling of fear helps us notice when something could harm us, it is, therefore, a necessary component of human life. For many people though, the fears that they have done more harm than good. Instead of being there to keep them safe, they can end up destroying their lives or placing a stranglehold on them.