Anxiety is a positive energy that requires leadership. The ultimate purpose of your anxiety pathway is to enhance your chances for survival in any threatening situation. However, if the stressor persists for too long, healthy anxiety can deplete its adaptive energy and become toxic, thereby micromanaging your mind and emotions with elevated stress hormones. A resultant effect of this could be exaggerated anxiety symptoms. Now, what is worth mentioning here is that your unbearable symptoms of anxiety are still an attempt of your stress response to restore internal order and homeostasis. Therefore, a specific cooperative action is required on your Continue reading
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Depression is a neuro-biochemical condition that has been found to affect key neurotransmitters and regions of the brain involved in emotions, cognition, pleasure and motivation. It is therefore unfair to blame your depression on the weakness of your character or lack of willpower. Here is why in 60 sec. Continue reading
The hallmark of wellness is knowing how and when to turn off your stress response. Humans are wired for survival. Whenever you feel threatened, the survival network in your brain and body mobilises its adaptive energy to increase your chances of survival. This adaptive energy, originally designed for short-term stress responses, becomes toxic if left turned on for too long or if faced with a prolonged stressor. When you find yourself overwhelmed with negative thoughts, memories or feelings, you can manually turn off your own stress responses and gradually override the survival brain, using all your senses - sight, touch, Continue reading
Stress is a natural bodily response to a perceived threat. There are three types of stress; beneficial, tolerable and toxic. A reasonable amount of acute stress (mild and brief) can be beneficial and promote greater cognitive and immune system functions. However, toxic stress (traumatic and prolonged) are the biggest risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Depending on the severity of your negative life experiences, it is possible to leave your stress response in the 'ON' position for too long. When the nervous system starts to have trouble turning off your stress hormones, cardiovascular disease, among others, may become inevitable. Elevated levels Continue reading
Gratitude practice has been found to be a protective factor against stress and anxiety. Studies have shown that gratitude reduces the cortisol levels (your stress hormone) and increases synaptic serotonin levels (your happiness hormone). Gratitude is energy for rejuvenation. Depending on the intensity of your adversity, there comes a time, when you are faced with a crucial question; 'how can I get myself back up and running?' This is where gratitude comes in. By gradually shifting your focus and starting to pay attention to little things in your environment that you can be thankful for, you start to re-build your Continue reading
The myth of perfectionism: perfectionism is a mirage and illusion of the mind that is neither required nor necessary in the equation of happiness and success. A relentless pursuit of perfection is proof of a battered mind that longs to escape past traumatic experiences caused by just being IMPERFECT human. To be human is to be perfectly imperfect without self-shaming, self-hating or self-rejecting. To fulfil our ultimate potentials in life, we must embrace our imperfection and celebrate little progresses along the way, while seeing inevitable setbacks and adversities as stepping stones to more incremental progresses. In this 60-second clip, I Continue reading
Motivation is a function of focus and courage. In other words, what you focus on most of the time determines your courage or your discouragement, your motivation or your demotivation. In difficult times, you can use the power of focus to increase your motivational energy by redirecting your attention to something positive, encouraging and uplifting, notwithstanding your ongoing negative life experiences . Interestingly, the key neurotransmitters for your motivation and happiness, dopamine and serotonin, can be up-regulated through your tenacity to focus your mind towards sources of inspiration and compassion in the midst of adversity. In this 60-second clip, I Continue reading
In this session, I answered our online participants' questions on PTSD, mental health relapses, ADHD, bereavement, complex Trauma, HPA axis in stress response and more... Continue reading
The gut is not just a vital organ for digestion, it is also your second brain, or even your first brain depending on the theory that you base your argument on. However, what is less controversial about the gut, thanks to decades of scientific evidence, is that it has its own nervous system that is different from the central and periphery nervous system. This means that your gut thinks, feels, talks and even generate its own complex movements (obviously). Over 80% of the communication between the cranial brain (head brain) and the gut brain is bottom-up (from the gut to Continue reading
One of the best gifts that you can give to your brain is persistent goal-setting and goal-oriented actions.The human brain is goal-driven. Without a compelling goal for the brain to gravitate towards, its versatility and genius gradually become redundant. Goals are to the brain what good food is to the body. The longevity of your brain neurones depends on their effective usage. In this 60 seconds clip, I share how you can strengthen your brain by becoming a passionate goal--setter and goal-achiever. Continue reading