You've been murdered. Who do you want on the case? (He’ll bring me back, right?)

Here's a simple reframe that comes out of couples counselling that also works at home, at work, everywhere. Stop making it you against them, and make it the two of you against the problem.

Unpopular opinion in the mental health space: breathing exercises probably won't stop a panic attack once it's underway. Keep doing them anyway — just don't expect a miracle!

Monday Motivation! Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have
 #MotivationMonday

A goal would be nice.

Hydration break

Have you ever rung someone about a problem and felt relieved when it went to voicemail? If so, you might be a conflict avoider. Most of us are to be honest. Here's why the conversation is still worth having though.

The male Lionesses are on fire 🔥

A lazy day should recharge you. So why does a whole weekend in pyjamas sometimes leave you feeling worse? A therapist on the strange maths of rest.

Avoiding the place where you had a panic attack feels like self-protection. It's actually teaching your brain the place is genuinely dangerous. You're not doing anything wrong — it just backfires.

Happy Friday! #FeelGoodFriday

If one thing takes up 99% of your attention, everything else has to squeeze into the last 1%. A therapist on why devotion needs a backup plan.

When the what-ifs take over, your attention is stuck in an imaginary future. Here's a simple way to bring it back to what's actually happening.

The cruel loop of panic disorder: you fear another attack, so you monitor yourself constantly, which keeps you on edge, which makes another attack more likely! #AnticipatoryAnxiety #PanicDisorder #MentalHealth

The hardest part of any task is the opening line. So here's a trick from a man who's written a lot of them: don't start at the start.

Monday Motivation! You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes every day. Unless you’re too busy then you should sit for an hour.
 #MotivationMonday

Worry doesn't just live in your head, it wears out your whole body. And the way through it is probably the opposite of what your brain is telling you.

Waking up out of a dead sleep in full emergency mode, with no event, no context, no idea why. Nocturnal panic attacks are real and they come with their own extra layer of misery: becoming afraid to fall asleep at all.

There's no one simple trick that cures depression, whatever the adverts say. But there is something that helps, and it's less glamorous than you'd hope.

Happy Friday! #FeelGoodFriday

Fight or flight gets all the attention. But the freeze response is the one that's rarely talked about. And it's incredibly common in panic disorder.

Edgar Allan Poe wrote about self-destructive impulses in the 1840s and accidentally described something psychologists are still working with today.

You can do it! #inspirational

If you've had a panic attack you'll recognise this immediately. If you haven't, it's genuinely hard to explain. Which is part of why it's so isolating.

What day is it again? #DoctorWho #DrWho

Intrusive thoughts — even really dark ones — are more normal than people realise. What matters is how you relate to them, not whether you have them.

They tell me I’m uncultured, but I’ll always recognise a bit of Beethoven.

Wait! Is the 6 7 meme a Hitchhiker’s Guide thing?? Is the question to the meaning of life the sodding 6 7 meme and it’s been inside us humans all this time?

The brain's threat detection system can misfire even when you're sitting there having a lovely, peaceful cup of tea. That's what a panic attack actually is.

Happy Friday! #FeelGoodFriday

Trying hard not to think about something almost always backfires. Here is why that happens and what to do instead.

When we use clinical terms casually to describe just any version of a thing, we lose the word for the actual thing — and that makes it harder for people experiencing it to name it, get help, or even believe it's real. Language drift feels harmless, but in mental health it has a cost. 🗣️

Talking about something difficult doesn't always make the thing smaller. It's like someone taking one end of something heavy you've been carrying alone. It hasn't changed. But now you can actually move with it.

Monday Motivation! Just for today, try and talk more about the things you love rather than the things you hate
 #MotivationMonday

Damn it. I was searching to see if Charles Cumming is on here and now I need to wash my eyes.

This is the clip where I go off on a bit of a tangent about medical history. The short version is that talking about your problems still helps. The longer version involves tobacco smoke and mercury and I think you should watch it.

You've Fizzed your last Buck

The word "okay" is doing more emotional work than you realise. And what it means to you personally might be quietly dragging your mood down every single day.

Without downloading any new pics, what’s it like dating you?

Resilience isn't being good at failing. It's practising dealing with challenges so you've already got the habit of picking yourself back up. And I know that as a therapist, I'm biassed when I say talking about your problems helps. But it does. If it didn't, I'd be doing something else.

Happy Friday! #FeelGoodFriday

"Why is my life such a mess?" is a question. It might seem rhetorical at the time but because brains don't like unanswered questions they will always look for ways to answer them and probably not in a helpful way! Here's what to ask instead.

Have a super day everyone! Make sure to stay hydrated. There're a lot of folk out there who are quite out of touch with how their body feels and don't notice just how thirsty they are. If that's you, you might need to check in regularly.

At some point you might realise you're not being pushed down that path anymore. You're just walking it out of habit. The kids who defied the odds in the Hawaii study didn't wait for circumstances to change. They found their own people and decided they were in the driving seat.

When your brain tries to predict what to do next, it only has one place to look. That's why repeating old patterns isn't weakness, it's just neuroscience.

Us Brits spent all winter longing for warmth. We were fools. Absolute fools. Always be careful what you wish for! 🫠

I ordered the book “How to Recognize Scams” over six months ago, and it still hasn’t arrived…

Hot. Wet. Not in a fun way. #UKSummer

Sometimes the critical voice we hear in our head isn't actually ours at all. It belongs to someone from our past. And once you realise that something shifts.

Monday Motivation! Knowing there’s a light at the end makes your journey through the tunnel less daunting
 #MotivationMonday