The temperatures are dropping, and the days are getting shorter and shorter. This is the time many of us start grappling with the winter blues. The change in seasons can have a profound effect on our mental health, leading to feelings of fatigue, low mood, and even seasonal affective disorder (SAD). With the right strategies and mindset however, it's possible to prepare your mental health for winter and emerge from the colder months feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.

Everyone has mental health in the same way that everyone has physical health. Sometimes, our physical health is good. Sometimes, we notice slight aches and pains, a pinched nerve, a small cut, a random bruise. At times, we may have more significant physical issues, following an accident or the diagnoses of an illness. Much of the time we can share our physical issues freely with others,  “My back is killing me this week” “I have no idea where this bruise came from” “I have a splitting headache; do you have any paracetamol?”. 

Why is it then that we can’t talk about our mental health in the same way?

Here at Petersgate Counselling Centre we hear many different excuses for why clients cancel their appointments. “I have to work”, “I can’t afford it”, “I’m on holiday”, “My cat is sick”. Whatever the stated reason, the real underlying message is that the person does not consider counselling to be that important. They shouldn’t then be surprised if they think that their counselling is not that helpful, or they do not notice any difference in their life. The person is also saying that they don’t believe that their own mental well-being is a priority.

Are you feeling irritable or moody, forgetting little things, and feeling overwhelmed and isolated? Don't worry. We've all been there. You're probably just stressed out. Stress isn't always a bad thing. It can be handy for a burst of extra energy and focus, like when you're playing a competitive sport, or must speak in public. But when its continuous, the kind most of us face day in and day out, it begins to change your brain. Chronic stress, like being overworked or having arguments at home, can affect brain size, its structure, and how it functions, right down to the level of your genes.

What is Social Anxiety Disorder and how you can get help

This is because my resolution is NOT to make a New Year’s resolution. 

Here’s my logic. 

After two years of our freedoms being taken away due to the fear of Covid, the main thing we need now is positivity. As the old song goes, we need “to accentuate the positive”. Therefore the last thing I need is to spend the next three months in a doomed enterprise of self-improvement; the sort of failed mission that merely adds a little self-loathing to whatever problem I was vainly trying to solve.

During Covid, it has been so easy to list all the problems with the world. We watch as wealthy nations protect their own populations, ignoring the experts chanting on the sideline: “no one is safe unless everyone is safe.” We watch as as our brittle societal fault lines, underpinning our systems and institutions, further deteriorate. An under-funded health system, especially within mental health. Institutionalized racism. The cruelty of aged care. The dysfunctional labour market. The degradation of the public sector.

When you think of these things, you find yourself falling into a deep well of negativity. This is because most people focus on the things to worry about rather than those that make them happy. That doesn't make us bad or pessimistic people. It just makes us human. Noticing threats quickly was the key to our ancestors' survival. This continues today. The human brain is better at paying attention to what's bad rather than what's good. We therefore shouldn’t blame ourselves. 

That’s why, this year, I plan to always climb towards the sunlight.

Sleep, both its quantity and its quality, can affect your mental health.

Recent surveys have found that more than one-third of New Zealand adults are unable to consistently get a good night’s sleep, with many having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. And Covid-19 has made things worse, even for those who were previously “good” sleepers.

Remote work gave many people more hours in the day for personal use, but at the same time turned the workday into a 24/7 endeavour, with emails, texts, and Zoom calls occurring at odd and often unpredictable times.

Working parents who lacked child care options or had to help young children with online schoolwork during the day have resorted to late-night or early-morning hours to get their own work done with minimal interruptions. They essentially became shift workers with erratic sleep schedules. Others lost sleep pondering whether their jobs were worth the stress and how they might reshape their working lives going forward.

Everyone wants to have high self-esteem — but attaining it can often be very difficult. 

Part of the problem is that our self-esteem is rather unstable to begin with, as it can fluctuate daily, if not hourly. Further complicating matters, our self-esteem comprises both our global feelings about ourselves as well as how we feel about ourselves in specific areas of our lives such as within our family or our work.  

But when our self-esteem is high, we not only feel better about ourselves, we are more resilient as well. Also when our self-esteem is higher we are also less vulnerable to anxiety.

Here are five ways to nourish your self-esteem when it is low:

For many of us, walking doesn't seem like anything special. It's just something we do every day. But walking is one of the best forms of exercise out there.

Thousands of studies have shown that this simple form of movement has a wealth of wide-ranging benefits, including better mental and physical, increased mindfulness, and enhanced communication skills.

Here are several things everyone should know about this simple, yet beneficial, form of exercise. 

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night having a full-blown panic attack?  

You are not alone. Panic attacks are surprisingly common. The latest research has shown that at least one-third of us will experience a panic attack at some point in our lives. 

While symptoms vary from person to person, they can include a pounding heart, shortness of breath, light-headedness, sweating, trembling, nausea, tingling or numbness in the fingers and toes, and an overwhelming sense of impending doom. 

People who come to Petersgate for counselling are often full of sadness and worry and it scares them. Some of them report waking up in the early hours of the morning, the monsters living under their beds filling them with feelings of dread that something horrible is about to happen. That they will then look stupid and be subjected to criticism, ridicule, and rejection. The resulting anxiety, anger, worry, and self-loathing then paralyses them into doing nothing because it’s always easier and safer to avoid the bad than search for the good.

Personal growth is real. I know the term is a bit vague and hard to pin down but for me it means the intangible process that people go through to either survive or thrive, even flourish. It's what happens to people who used to be unhappy in dead-end jobs but then change and are now doing what they love. It's the elusive factor that helps people finally walk away from bad relationships, embrace a new spiritual path or find a new passion. It's something we all want, even if we don't always know what to call it or how to get it.