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Winter Blues

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Winter can be a tough time for many people. Shorter days, colder weather, and social isolation can contribute to feelings of sadness, anxiety, and fatigue, and for those of us who have struggled with our mental health in the past this can often feel like a risky time for relapse. But don’t worry – Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) can be a powerful tool to help you navigate the winter blues and make sure that the only slippery slopes you slide down are the ones you choose to go sledging on!

Understanding the Winter Blues

The winter blues, also known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), is a type of depression that typically occurs during the winter months. It can manifest in various ways, including:

  • Low mood
  • Fatigue
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Changes in appetite
  • Social withdrawal

How CBT Can Help

CBT is a practical approach that focuses on identifying and changing unhelpful thought patterns and behaviours.

Here are some specific CBT strategies to help you combat the winter blues:

  1. Identify Negative Thoughts:
    • Mindful observation: Pay attention to your thoughts without judgment. Are they realistic or exaggerated? How are they making you feel? How helpful are they?
    • Question negative thoughts: Rather than treating your thoughts as facts, try to look at them with more of a critical eye. Are there any other ways of looking at the situation? What would a friend say if you told them you were thinking this way?
    • Challenge yourself to think more flexibly: Ask yourself what a more balanced and helpful thought might look like. If you could think this way, how would you be feeling?
    • Put this into practice: the next time this negative thought comes up, remind yourself of your more balanced alternative.
  2. Look after your Physical Wellbeing:
    • Healthy eating: Fuel your body with nutritious foods to boost your mood.
    • Regular exercise: Engage in physical activity to release endorphins and reduce stress.
    • Adequate sleep: Aim for a regular sleep routine to ensure your body and mind are well-rested. Spend some time thinking about how to make your sleeping space as calm and restful as possible.
    • Increase exposure to light: Spend time outdoors during daylight hours every day, even if it’s just for a short walk.
  3. Prioritize Self-Care:
    • Identify the barriers to self-care: what gets in the way of looking after yourself? Are these practical barriers, like time, money, or social isolation? Or emotional ones such as not feeling like you deserve to look after yourself?
    • Problem solve practical issues: break practical problems down into small chunks and tackle them one at a time. Don’t automatically discount any potential solutions, the most helpful idea might be one that you haven’t taken the time to consider properly before!
    • Practice self-compassion: Try treating yourself like you would treat a good friend. When it feels difficult to prioritise self-care, identify one small thing you can do to look after yourself, and give yourself lots of praise every time you manage to do this.
  4. Ask for Support:
    • Remind yourself: It’s always okay to ask for help.
    • Make use of existing networks: Reach out to family and friends, talk about how you are feeling, and ask others to help you to put the above strategies into action.
    • Professional support: If you’re struggling with your symptoms, please get in touch, we’d love to help.

Uncertain Times

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For many of us, these feel like uncertain times. Between the big things in the news (the climate crisis, elections, conflicts in countries around the world) and the everyday things (cost of living, decisions about jobs, health concerns), it can be hard not to feel like we’re facing a future where we can’t be sure of anything.

Unsurprisingly, this kind of uncertainty can feel very difficult for many of us, and we might find ourselves reacting in ways which have a significant negative impact on our lives.

Perhaps you have noticed your worries spiralling, taking up much of your time and energy? Or you might find uncertainty throws you into fight or flight mode, frantically trying to make things as certain as possible. You may try to control little things in your life in order to avoid thinking about the big things. You may feel very anxious a lot of the time.

Unfortunately, we know that while uncertainty is unavoidable, the way we feel about uncertainty often plays a big role in anxiety problems like Generalised Anxiety Disorder, OCD and Health Anxiety – and the more we see uncertainty as a threat, the more likely it is that we will struggle with these kinds of difficulties.

So how can we cope more effectively with uncertainty?

  1. Focus on things that are in your control (rather than hypothetical worries).
  2. Take advantage of opportunities to change your attitude to uncertainty – perhaps you know someone who quite enjoys being spontaneous, or not knowing what’s going to happen next? Ask yourself, how might they approach this situation?
  3. Make a deliberate effort to notice when uncertain situations don’t turn out as badly as you expected – or perhaps even when the result is a good one!
  4. Aim to slowly build up your tolerance of uncertainty – you don’t have to jump in at the deep end, instead ask yourself what is one small step you can take to dip your toe in the water. This might be as simple as trying a new food, or taking a new route home from work.
  5. Try not to criticise yourself if you find this difficult – our attitudes towards uncertainty are often learned from our childhood experiences, and take time to change. If you’re struggling, we’d love to support you – please get in touch.

Introducing EMDR at Lantern Psychotherapy

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We’re excited to let you know that we can now offer Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) at Lantern Psychotherapy!

Please see our EMDR FAQ below for more information:

  • What is EMDR?

EMDR is a type of therapy which focusses on helping people with distressing memories. When we have difficult or traumatic experiences, our normal ways of processing and storing information in the brain can be disrupted. This can leave us with memories that feel more emotional than usual, and that continue to affect us negatively even after a long time has passed. EMDR aims to unblock distressing memories and allow us to store them properly, so that they are no longer causing problems in the here-and-now.

  • How does EMDR work?

EMDR uses bilateral stimulation – which just means stimulating both sides of the body in some way – to kickstart the brain’s natural information processing systems. This usually takes the form of eye movements, but could also involve you tapping both sides of your body, or listening to sounds in both ears.

We know from research that this process is effective in reducing the distress caused by upsetting memories, and although we don’t know exactly why this is the case, there are a number of different theories. For example, it could be that EMDR replicates the kind of information processing we do during REM sleep – when our eyes naturally move in a very similar way to the movements created in an EMDR session. We also know that concentrating on a number of things at once is difficult, and it may be that by splitting our attention between different sorts of tasks, EMDR reduces our capacity to focus fully on the upsetting memory and therefore makes the memory less vivid.

  • What happens in an EMDR session?

Your therapist will work with you to identify a target for the EMDR. This might be a recent traumatic memory, but could also be a difficult memory from childhood or another point in your life. When you have agreed together what memory to work on, your therapist will help you to practice bilateral stimulation – usually eye movements – and will take you through some exercises to make sure you are able to manage any difficult emotions that could come up during processing.

During a processing session, your therapist will ask you to think about your difficult memory whilst using bilateral stimulation. As you do this, you might notice changes in your thoughts, emotions or physical sensations. Your therapist will check in with you regularly about what is coming up for you, but you do not need to talk about your memories in detail.

  • Is EMDR just for PTSD?

There is a strong evidence-base for using EMDR as a treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). However, many mental health problems – including Depression, Low Self-Esteem, Phobias and other anxiety problems – have their roots in difficult memories, and EMDR has been used to treat all of these.

  • What does ‘EMDR Therapist-in-training’ mean?

To qualify as an EMDR Therapist, practitioners must have completed a 3-part training course in addition to their core psychotherapy training. All therapists at Lantern Psychotherapy have completed at least the first part of the EMDR training course, and are now eligible to provide EMDR under supervision.

  • Will I be hypnotised?

We know that EMDR can seem a little strange at first though, and it’s understandable if you feel unsure about it. But no, you definitely won’t be hypnotised! In EMDR, you are always in control, and if you want to stop, you can – your therapist will always discuss this with you before beginning any processing work.

Please get in touch with us if think you might be interested in EMDR or if you have any questions – we’d be very happy to talk to you.

Effective Goal Setting

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How do you feel about New Year’s resolutions? Does setting goals for yourself help you to start the New Year with a positive focus? Does having resolutions help to motivate you? Or are they just an unhelpful reminder of the things you haven’t achieved?

If you are anything like me, you may be approaching the end of January with the familiar feeling of already having lost sight of resolutions that you began the year determined to follow through on. Perhaps you have had an unexpectedly difficult month, with many demands on your time and attention that have left you feeling you have no time to focus on your goals. Maybe you put everything into your resolutions for a week or two, and then found that you ran out of energy to keep going. Or perhaps the dark days and cold weather have just made it difficult to motivate yourself full stop.

In this situation, it’s easy for what might have started out as a way of encouraging yourself to focus on what is important to you in life to become just another a stick to beat yourself up with. And if you are also feeling low in mood, as many of us are at this time of year, this can be particularly difficult to cope with.

So why set goals at all? It’s easy to see why some people might decide to wash their hands of New Year’s resolutions altogether. However, research suggests that goal setting can be a helpful way of motivating ourselves to live more in line with our values, and to overcome obstacles to move towards things that are important to us. This is one of the reasons that your CBT therapist will always help you to set goals for treatment at the beginning of therapy. So how can we set goals that work for us?

Here are some top tips:

  1. Try to make your goals specific.
    • We are much more likely to act on a specific goal such as ‘read one chapter of my book every day’ than a more general one like ‘take more time for myself’.
  2. Break your goals down into smaller steps.
    • When we set goals, we think about where we want to be, rather than where we are now. This can be motivating, but can also be disheartening if it feels like the gap between the two is a big one. Breaking your goals down means that you can choose to focus on the next step, rather than constantly being aware of how far there is to go.
  3. Plan in time to review your goals regularly.
    • If you find you aren’t making progress towards your goal, aim to consider what might be getting in the way of this. Is this goal still the right one for you? Is it realistic? Can you break it down any further? Is there anyone you could ask for support?
  4. Be compassionate towards yourself.
    • Changing behaviours is hard work. We are all doing the best we can under difficult circumstances, and it’s okay to have days where we let things slip. Give yourself credit for the things you are already achieving, allow yourself to set realistic targets that will help you to build on these things, and then give yourself credit for any new achievements!

So ask yourself – what could your not-quite-New Year’s resolutions be?

The Power of Images

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Have you ever stopped to consider what your thoughts look like? When you think about something, do you tend to think in words or pictures? Or a mixture of the two?

What about other sensory information? Do your thoughts contain sounds, smells, tastes or physical sensations?

What comes to mind when you read the word ‘red’? Or the word ‘beach’?

Now try closing your eyes for a moment, and imagining that beach.

What did you notice? Did you see a picture of a beach in your mind’s eye? Maybe you heard the sound of the waves, or felt the warm sunshine or a cool sea breeze on your skin. Your image might have been crystal clear, or more hazy. Perhaps you remembered a specific beach you love, or had a more general impression of beaches you have visited in the past.

You may have found that imagining a beach felt more ‘real’ than just reading the word – if so, you are not alone. Research tells us that when we really imagine something, our brains respond in almost exactly the same way as they would do if we were actually having that experience. From a neurological point of view, there is very little difference between vividly imagining walking on a beach, and actually walking on a beach.

One of the consequences of this is that thoughts that come to us in the form of images tend to be more closely connected to emotion than other kinds of thoughts. You might have noticed some emotions coming up for you as you imagined your beach. If you like beaches, you might have started to feel a sense of relaxation. On the other hand, if you hate sand perhaps you noticed a feeling of irritation!

It is this close connection to emotion that makes it so important to pay attention to the role that images play in our mental health. Unpleasant or upsetting images can be very distressing – often much more so than verbal thoughts. For example, for people suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) images of the traumatic event are often so vivid that it can feel like the trauma is happening again, right now. For those with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), images of potential future catastrophes can feel so real and so anxiety-provoking that they might feel they have to go to great lengths to prevent these things from happening. And for many of us, images associated with difficult childhood experiences such as being bullied, or feeling vulnerable, or being told off by our caregivers, have a powerful impact on how we see ourselves even as adults.

But we can also use the link between images and emotions to our advantage – because images, often to a much greater extent than reality, can be changed. And while images have the potential to cause significant distress, they can also create positive emotions which are just as powerful.

If you would like to explore this further, or if you are struggling with distressing images or memories, please contact us at Lantern Psychotherapy to find out how we can help. In the meantime, you might like to experiment with using imagery to create your own personal ‘safe place’ which you can visit in times of stress:

Click to access SafePlace.pdf

Looking After Others/Looking After Ourselves

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When someone we love is struggling with their mental health, it can be hard to know how to help. We might feel anxious and out of our depth, worried about what might happen in the future. We might feel guilty, like we’re not doing enough. We might feel like we are going round in circles, and that nothing we do or say is right. We might feel sad about the change in our relationship. We might even feel angry and wish that our friend or relative could just ‘pull themselves together’.

It’s horrible to feel powerless when someone we care about is suffering. And so it’s easy to get sucked into trying harder and harder to make things better, using up more and more of our time and energy, and putting our own needs at the bottom of the list. Sometimes it might even feel like we don’t have a choice.

We’ve all heard about putting our own oxygen masks on first, right? We all know that if we don’t look after ourselves, we’re unlikely to be in the best position to look after anyone else in the long run. But even though we know this, it can be hard to put it into practice.

So how do we get the balance right? Here are some ideas:

  1. Remember your own emotions are valid, and important, whatever they might be. You’re allowed to feel them.
  2. Be there for your loved one when you can, whether this is to help out with something practical or just to listen, but don’t hold yourself responsible for their happiness – you can’t control how other people feel.
  3. Encourage your friend or family member to seek out and make use of other sources of support, or help them to do this if necessary. Don’t feel you have to do it all by yourself.
  4. Be persistent in providing opportunities for your loved one to improve their wellbeing – invite them out for a walk, or round for a cup of tea, or offer to go with them to do something they find difficult – but remind yourself that it’s up to them to take you up on these opportunities.
  5. Ask yourself what your oxygen mask looks like – what do you need to do to look after yourself or recharge? And then take time to do these things!
  6. Prioritise identifying and building your own support network – whether that’s family, friends, your doctor, a community organisation, or other services – and ask for help when you need it.
  7. Try not to criticise yourself, or hold yourself to impossibly high standards – you are human, and you are allowed to make mistakes.

Useful Links

Carers UK Website

Guided self-compassion exercise by Kristin Neff

Noticing the Stars

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Image by Bessi from Pixabay

Sometimes it feels like everything is going wrong and we can’t do anything right. We might find ourselves focusing on shortcomings within ourselves or others, thinking about the things we or others should or shouldn’t have done and feeling like things will never change. It can feel really difficult to see anything beyond this never ending spiral.

We all carry with us beliefs about ourselves (who we are as people, what we can and can’t do etc), beliefs about others (what we can expect from others, how other people will treat us etc) and the future (what we believe the future will hold for us). Sometimes these beliefs are helpful to us and improve our wellbeing, sometimes they are less helpful. If the less helpful beliefs are very strong, rigid or inflexible we can find ourselves stuck in vicious cycles of unhelpful thinking.

We naturally notice information that fits with our beliefs. For example, if you believe “all trees are beautiful” you will mostly notice trees that do look beautiful and will be less likely to notice trees that may have issues like disease or decay.

Another way to think about this is to imagine your mind is like a postbox: you can only post letters in the post box that fit through the hole. Your mind will therefore only accept information that is small letter shaped. Now imagine that all information that is small letter shaped is unhelpful to you, its tells you that you are no good, you are a failure and you can’t do anything right.

There is other information out there though. Imagine this information is large letter shaped. This information is more helpful to you, it reminds you about the great feedback you got on that work project, or when that waitress complimented how well your child behaved or you really helped a friend. But this information doesn’t fit in the post box, to make it fit you have to fold and scrunch it up. To make it fit you tell yourself that you only got good feedback because you got lucky with this project, or they caught your children on a good day or you just did what anyone would do to help your friend. Now it is small letter shaped – it confirms you are no good, you are a failure and you can’t do anything right – it fits in the post box.

Then there are ginormous star shaped parcels containing information like consistently performing well at work, your children being happy, healthy and thriving, and having great friendships, however you ignore these completely as there is absolutely no way these ginormous star shaped parcels will fit in the postbox.

When we don’t ‘notice the stars’ and scrunch up the information in the large letters by discounting it, minimising it or telling ourselves it is an ‘exception to the rule’, we are feeding our unhelpful beliefs.

So what to do?

  1. Name it when you notice this pattern of focusing on the unhelpful information or discounting information that challenges unhelpful beliefs.
  2. Start to deliberately try to search for and find information that does not fit easily into the postbox – try to find the positives, alternative or ‘stars’.
  3. You could try writing a list of positives about yourself or others, or keeping a diary of positive things you do or notice everyday.
  4. Practice looking at the whole picture by taking notice of ALL the information available to you about any situation.

This may sound ‘easier said than done’, but with practice and patience it can really help us to get more used to picking up on the things we don’t normally pay attention to: information that can challenge unhelpful beliefs and lead to improved wellbeing.

If this is something you would like to explore further please contact us at Lantern Psychotherapy to find out how we can help.

Positive Emotions and Resilience

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‘How can I stop feeling so stressed all the time?’

‘I just don’t want to feel low any more’

‘How do I get rid of this anxiety?’

As therapists, we hear things like this a lot.  This isn’t surprising – after all, nobody wants to go around feeling terrible all the time, and people don’t usually come to therapy because they’re feeling good!  The whole point of therapy is to help people to overcome difficulties in their lives, so it makes sense to focus on those difficulties.  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is particularly good at this, helping people to understand what the problem is, what’s keeping it going, and how to tackle it.

We all do this naturally in our day-to-day lives as well.  If something’s gone wrong, or we’re in a threatening situation, it makes sense to focus on this so we can try to do something about it.  In fact our brains do this automatically, as a way of helping to keep us safe.  You don’t want to be focussing on how lovely the sunshine is if you’re being chased by a bear!

The problem with this approach is that it can sometimes lead us to overlook the positive experiences we have – and while it’s easy to see why we might need to pay attention to negative emotions, research shows us that positive emotions (such as happiness, excitement, and contentment) are just as important.

Positive emotions help us to think more creatively and problem-solve more effectively.  They can make us feel more secure and closer to other people.  They even help us to recover from the physical effects of emotions like anxiety.  In fact, research suggests that positive emotions play an important role in resilience, and that people who can continue to experience positive emotions during difficult times are more likely to be able to ‘bounce back’.

In other words, it’s important to pay attention to our positive emotions – especially if we’re struggling, and especially after what has been a very difficult year for a lot of us.

So we’d like to invite you to have a think about how you can make more use of your positive emotions. Here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Make a deal with yourself to notice your positive emotions (however small or fleeting) and allow yourself to experience them fully
  • Keep a record of your positive emotions – use a notebook, your phone, your diary, or whatever works for you
  • Dedicate some time each week to identifying the things that have made you feel good that week and re-playing these situations in your mind
  • Use your phone to take pictures of things that bring up positive emotions for you, and look back through these later on

Coping with Covid

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For our first blog post from Lantern Psychotherapy we thought it was important to say something about the biggest issue impacting the everybody’s lives at the moment; COVID-19. The current situation is proving incredibly difficult for so many people for many different reasons. There is lots of information out there about how best to look after yourself and your mental health and wellbeing during this time. This blog discusses some of the best tips we have identified to cope with the impact of COVID-19 and how Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) might be able to help. 

Stay connected with others: While we must stay apart physically at the moment, it is really important we maintain social contact with others where possible. We are social creatures which is one of the reasons that these restrictions are so difficult, many people struggling with their mental health report feeling better after spending time with friends or family. Consider if this might be helpful for you and ways to do it such as telephone, video calling or a socially distanced walk in a permitted place. 

Exercise: There is lots of research showing the positive effect exercise has on mental health. Exercise has been shown to increase levels of naturally occurring “happy chemicals” in the brain and helps us to improve our physical health and fitness. Think about how to exercise safely and pace yourself!

Do not ignore problems: COVID-19 has thrown up all sort of different issues for people and those issues can be difficult to navigate and feel overwhelming. Perhaps you are struggling with childcare issues, managing finances while furloughed, coping with working from home, looking after sick relatives or finding it difficult to get out for essentials. Sometimes when people feel overwhelmed by issues it can be hard to know which way to turn. CBT can help people struggling with these issues to learn effective problem-solving techniques, enabling them to identify and tackle these difficulties. 

Do things you enjoy: When the world around us is in such turmoil it might feel trivial to be thinking about doing things you enjoy, but to take care of your wellbeing, it is important to consider what you have control over – and one of those things is how you spend your time. This might be a good time to resume a hobby you have not had time for recently, read a book, watch a boxset or even try something new.

Limit media exposure: Whilst it is important to stay informed about the current situation, when there is not much good news constant exposure to this might start to feel overwhelming and be damaging to your wellbeing. People have reported feeling ‘obsessed’ with the news spending hours each day looking at different sites online, constantly refreshing to get the latest updates. If this is something you can relate to, think about how much this is helping or hindering you. Consider limiting your news intake to a specific amount of time each day and spend the rest of the time focusing on other things.

Keep a routine: Lots of people are currently feeling like their lives are unrecognisable when compared this time last year. Many things we used to do to give our lives structure like going into the office or meeting friends are currently unavailable to us. Research shows a lack of routine can lead to and maintain low mood. It is therefore important to try and ensure our days have some structure – simple things like getting up on time, having breakfast, lunch and dinner and going to bed on time as well as trying to have a balance of enjoyable activities, routine activities and activities that provide a sense of achievement. If you have noticed your mood is low and you are struggling to maintain a routine or find motivation to do things a Cognitive Behavioural therapist can help you to identify and plan activities that motivate you and help you feel better .

Do not catastrophise: Catastrophising a is way of thinking where everything is ‘worst case scenario’ and can lead to worry and feelings of anxiety. It understandable to think and feel this way when faced with a global pandemic! However, there are things you can do to keep these thoughts under control; try asking yourself if you are jumping to the worst conclusion or imagining a “what if?” future scenario. If you think you are then ask yourself some questions. What are the chances the scenario you are worrying about is going to happen?What is most likely to happen? What would you say to someone else in your situation? If this is something you are finding difficult, CBT can give you the tools you need to be able to identify the catastrophic thoughts that cause you anxiety and help you to be able to challenge these thoughts and think differently in these situations.

Be kind to yourself: We are facing exceedingly difficult times and doing the best we can to cope as best we can, so do not expect too much of yourself. Try not to compare yourself with others or try to reach anyone else’s standards or expectations. Your wellbeing is important so take time out to look after yourself – if that means spending time on the sofa in front of the TV, spending more time than normal on your hobbies, going out for a run or treating yourself some nice snacks then it is important to do it.  If, however you are finding coping difficult, feeling anxious or worried about your wellbeing then Lantern Psychotherapy are here to help. Please get in touch to discuss how CBT could benefit you. 

Some Helpful Links

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/coronavirus/coronavirus-and-your-wellbeing/

https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/coronavirus-covid-19-anxiety-tips/

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/managing-stress-anxiety.html