Wellbeing
Winter Unplugging: a time for rest and reflection
Reflecting on the winter months and how the dark, shorter days can impact health and mood, I am reminded of the healing value of our connection with nature, with the wild. In these days of information overload, overstimulation and worldwide disruption and chaos, it is easy to lose sight of our innate and wonderful relationship with the natural environment. We have a biological and spiritual need to hunker down and be more inward looking for the winter season. We share so many qualities with the natural world, and yet it can be easy to forget as the busy mind takes over and runs away with relentless cares and concerns. I think of how I have always loved stones, stopping to pick one up that draws my eye, feeling the smooth dense solidity of it. Stones are among the oldest living things on Earth. Stones, rocks and chunks of meteorite are...
Winter Unplugging: a time for rest and reflection
Reflecting on the winter months and how the dark, shorter days can impact health and mood, I am reminded of the healing value of our connection with nature, with the...
We need to encourage dads to look after their m...
Fatherhood is the biggest challenge many men will experience in their adult lives. Mental health in men continues to be a taboo subject; there is a great deal of focus on men’s physical health but not enough on their emotional, psychological and mental wellbeing. Some people argue that this is not true, and that modern men are more open. This is valid, but so is the fact that 70–75% of suicides in the UK are men.¹ Not only does becoming a father represent major social, cultural and financial changes, but also men must deal with numerous physiological responses in their bodies in the months preceding childbirth. When his partner is pregnant, a man’s testosterone levels will decrease while other hormones increase – basically rewiring his brain to prepare him for fatherhood. These drastic physical changes continue through the first year of the child’s life. While they will better equip a...
We need to encourage dads to look after their mental health
Fatherhood is the biggest challenge many men will experience in their adult lives. Mental health in men continues to be a taboo subject; there is a great deal of focus...
The art of hibernation: tune into the season’s ...
How do you hibernate? Eat as much cake as you can and find a big duvet? I’m joking – sugar overload is a key factor in compromising the immune system, particularly in the winter. Hibernation means to enter a state of torpor, to withdraw or to be in seclusion. We know that bears, snails and hedgehogs do this; their breathing and metabolic rate slow down. It makes sense in the winter. Conditions can be harsh, so why not turn everything down until summer and effectively go into a long sleep until spring appears? We humans don’t need to go to that extreme, but over years of practising homeopathy I see an increase in illness during the winter months, often caused by people continuing to work, play, burn the candle at both ends and not live in alignment with the seasons. This includes me. However, for the past few years I...
The art of hibernation: tune into the season’s energy
How do you hibernate? Eat as much cake as you can and find a big duvet? I’m joking – sugar overload is a key factor in compromising the immune system,...
Breaking the packed lunch routine: simple tips ...
When you’re getting the children up in the morning, making breakfast, getting ready for work and then dashing off to school, there’s precious little time left to be creative with lunches. So a sandwich, a bag of crisps, an apple and a ‘treat‘ can easily become the default option, and it’s popular. Many people opt for packed lunches because their children are fussy eaters, yet making the same lunches can mean children become more reluctant to try new foods. So how can we make things healthier without adding extra work? Use leftovers wisely. If you make a soup, pasta bake, chilli, shepherd's pie, etc. for dinner, make a little more for next day’s packed lunch or to freeze in portions for another time. This is a great way of cutting down on work for you, reducing waste, being thrifty and also introducing more variety into lunchboxes. Invest in some good...
Breaking the packed lunch routine: simple tips to add variety
When you’re getting the children up in the morning, making breakfast, getting ready for work and then dashing off to school, there’s precious little time left to be creative with...
How to support yourself naturally through perim...
Perimenopause is as natural as waking up in the morning – but eavesdrop on a conversation between forty-something women, and you’d think the end of the world was near. Though talking about menstruation is beginning to lose its hushed whisper, the shame around menopause is still hot and sticky. But the news from the wild shores of menstruality coaching is that perimenopause is something to get excited about, that it’s the biggest self-help workshop you ever signed up for, and that you get it for free! The task of perimenopause is to clear up outdated ways of being, the roles that don’t fit, and toxic relationships in your life. Post menopause, or in the Second Spring as it’s known, you’ll emerge revitalised and deeply engaged with your calling. It’s an inside job, a rebirth. No wonder, then, that the old patriarchal systems don’t like older women; the last thing they need...
How to support yourself naturally through perimenopause
Perimenopause is as natural as waking up in the morning – but eavesdrop on a conversation between forty-something women, and you’d think the end of the world was near. Though talking...
Taking time to cook with wild ingredients
It is dark outside and has been for some time. The gentle ticking of the clock, muted by the hum of family life during the day, is the only sound in the kitchen. Accompanied by a little glass of sloe gin, I have spent several hours preparing sweet chestnuts to use in my little girl’s birthday cake. Earlier, at the base of a tree near her school, we used our booted feet to separate the spiky cases scattered on the ground, checking each one for shiny, plump chestnuts. Now I score each one with a cross to roast in the oven. Once cooled, there is the arduous task of peeling the shells; I will have sore fingers for days. I could have bought vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts instead, and I often do. So why spend precious ‘me time’ doing this? Here’s the thing: on one hand, we want to prepare nutritious...
Taking time to cook with wild ingredients
It is dark outside and has been for some time. The gentle ticking of the clock, muted by the hum of family life during the day, is the only sound...
Why it's important to meet your own needs in mo...
I became a mother at 25. Straight out of university, I left the parental home to travel a bit and make some cash. After spending a few weeks in the north of England, I went to London to visit the man I had met and fallen in love with at a summer festival. (And we have pretty much stayed together since.) Five months into us living together, I was pregnant. What takes some couples years, we covered in months. I came across JUNO in the health shop where I worked. It was a true godsend to me. I was totally inexperienced, but I knew I wanted a home birth, to breastfeed and to carry my baby in a sling. How hard could it be? When it came to it, I was often alone at home with my baby. I barely knew anyone, and nobody with children. I struggled with cooking...
Why it's important to meet your own needs in motherhood
I became a mother at 25. Straight out of university, I left the parental home to travel a bit and make some cash. After spending a few weeks in the...
Circles and how they can offer us healing and c...
In 2014, my carefully planned, idyllic home birth with a doula turned into a failed forceps and emergency c-section. I felt broken and a failure. I had lost confidence in myself and my body, and all the while, I was struggling to come to terms with the demands of being a new mum to a colicky baby. I felt isolated and alone with my experience and my feelings. Talking about it over coffee with friends didn’t feel right – it was too deep and raw for that – but having therapy didn’t feel right either. Then I happened to read A Doula’s Journey by Hazel Tree. In it, Tree describes a women’s circle in some detail, and I knew it was exactly what I needed to heal. Being held and witnessed by a community of women in a safe and sacred space was just the nurturing I had been seeking....
Circles and how they can offer us healing and connection
In 2014, my carefully planned, idyllic home birth with a doula turned into a failed forceps and emergency c-section. I felt broken and a failure. I had lost confidence in...
Forest Bathing: the benefits of spending time i...
Trees smell wonderful, don’t they! The aroma of leafy materials and flowers from many trees is part of the joy of walking in woods, and you can gain numerous health benefits simply by spending time in forested areas. Altogether some 3 trillion trees on the planet sustain the air and water that are needed for life. Forests benefit living beings by improving air quality, and this is vital since more than 90% of the world’s human population lives in places where air pollution exceeds World Health Organisation guidelines. Trees help mitigate many of the problems of living in urban areas, for example by reducing the urban heat island effect, which is lethal during heat waves, and moderating noise. Given these and other benefits of forests and trees, pioneering health policies have begun to recognise the use of nature to enhance urban population health while conserving biodiversity. Thousands of different volatile...
Forest Bathing: the benefits of spending time in the woods
Trees smell wonderful, don’t they! The aroma of leafy materials and flowers from many trees is part of the joy of walking in woods, and you can gain numerous health...
How to use journaling as a healing tool
I have been journaling in some form or another for most of my adult life. Writing has always been important to me, but I have come to understand it as a deeply healing practice, and I now encourage patients to find their way to journaling as a therapeutic tool. The realisation happened when my daughter was at university. She wrote an assignment while studying the work of Hélène Cixous, the French feminist writer. Here’s an extract: I couldn’t stop thinking about my mother who would pour her heart out into a diary and then hide it away… Perhaps this is what Cixous is saying. Instead of feeling shame and a need to hide their writing, women should want their writing to be read, and through this, the reasons behind the hiding would be addressed and dealt with… Was my mother’s hiding of her writing just a trait of her hiding...
How to use journaling as a healing tool
I have been journaling in some form or another for most of my adult life. Writing has always been important to me, but I have come to understand it as...