Category Archives: General Psychology

How to Feel Happier

Feeling depressed and unhappy can really bring you down. Rates of depression in our population are increasing radically. In the USA rates are ten times higher than they were in the great depression of last century, and people are getting depressed much earlier in their lifetimes.

We have an abundance of technology that should help us have easier, happier lives, but our artificial lifestyles seem to stress us out, bring us down, and reduce our happiness. It’s fair to say we are having a bit of a depression epidemic.

Many people believe that it is impossible to lift their mood, to climb out of depression, and to be happy, without medication. But, to the contrary, research has shown that it is possible to improve our baseline happiness by actively and consciously taking steps to turn our mood around. This is the science of positive psychology.

WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO FEEL HAPPIER?

Well, apart from the obvious, when we are happier, we perform better and tend to become more successful.

Children who were encouraged to recall a happy experience before doing a task outperformed their peers by fifty percent. Similarly, adults who are primed to be positive and happier before completing an intelligence test, or thinking task, perform significantly better than their un-primed peers.

Research has shown that happy people are healthier and live longer than unhappy people too. This makes sense, as mood is known to affect our immune systems.

HOW TO FEEL HAPPY

According to Shawn Anchor from Harvard University, we can increase our general state of happiness by doing some really simple stuff.

Write down five things you are grateful for every morning. If you do this for 21 days your baseline happiness levels should improve for the next 6 months.
Write about a positive experience every day for 30 days. This has been shown to boost immune system and increase your sociability.
Do one thing at a time, rather than trying to multitask. Multitask increases stress and we know that stress affects us physically and emotionally.
Work out what you are good at and use these strengths in your everyday life. This will increase your self esteem and productivity, and so positively affect your well being.
Exercise. This reduces stress levels and improves mood, and is much better for you than anti-depressants.
Meditate. This has been shown to affect brain waves, reduce stress reactions, and increase happiness.
Smile. The more we smile on the outside, the happier we feel internally.

When my depressed clients to do this simple stuff, it makes a significant difference to their general mood.

CHANGE THE DIRECTION OF YOUR ENERGY

On top of these homework strategies, I often show clients how to control the energy in their bodies to create a more positive mood.

Think for a minute about how you feel when you are low or depressed. People usually feel a heavy feeling moving down through the lower half of their bodies.

Now think of a happy or exciting experience. Where do you feel the energy? What direction is it going? Usually up and out from the heart.

So now go back to feeling sad and low. Feel that heavy, sinking energy.

Now take that feeling, and imagine it moving up your body. Imagine it coming up through the earth, through your feet, up your legs, through your belly, into your heart, where it’s transformed into positive energy. You might be able to feel the energy as light, glowing or tingling stuff.

Then feel that positive energy expand in your heart. Imagine it expanding to fill your whole chest in a warm, yummy way. Now imagine it continuing up your spine, up through the back of your neck, through the back of your head, and up and out the top of your head. YES! YES! YES!!!!

THINK POSITIVELY

Another really important strategy for increasing happiness and productivity is to think positive thoughts. Become aware of your internal dialogue: the things you say to yourself about a situation or experience, or your life. Identify the negative or pessimistic ones, then simply change your head. Let go the negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts. Simple.

GET OUT IN THE SUN

Sunlight is known to increase happiness and health. Scientists believe this is, at least in part due to Vitamin D. Vitamin D is produced in our skin in the sun. It’s known to play a significant role in switching our genes on and off, so is vital for health and well being. People who are deprived of enough sunshine can fall victim to low mood caused by SADs, or seasonal affective disorder. This is why so many of us suffer depression and low mood in the winter. So, whatever the weather, make sure you get out in the daytime at least once a day. Failing that, or if it’s too cold to expose much skin, take vitamin D supplements.

BEGIN NOW

I realise it is often very difficult to motivate yourself to make changes and try new things when you are feeling low or depressed. But if you force yourself to apply all, or even some, of these strategies for a few days, starting today, you will be on your way to being happier, healthier and more productive.

So stop what you’re doing, get out a pen and paper, and write down five things you’re grateful for. It could be anything from a beautiful sky to a loved one, or the crunchy apple you had for lunch. Next, spend five minutes writing about a positive experience that you have had. Then go for a walk with a smile on your face. Do that every day, and you should start to feel a difference very quickly. Simply suck it and see.

Have fun.

Can a Difficult Birth Create Psychological Problems Later?

It is well known that psychological trauma of any sort can have a lasting, damaging effect on human beings. The earlier the trauma, the more profound the effect, so the impact of a difficult birth on the infant as he develops into a child and adult can be especially significant.

The Birth Experience

Imagine being a fetus. Imagine floating comfortably in the warm, soft, dark, fluid space of your mother’s womb, drifting in and out of sleep, surrounded by muffled sounds and heartbeats.

Then imagine the sudden shock of being awakened, and pushed and squeezed into the harsh, stark, and noisy outside world, amid your mother’s pained shrieks, racing heart, and adrenalin charged system.

Add to that the strain of an unusually long labour, painful forced delivery, or a life threatening situation, such as being strangled by the umbilical cord, and you have a major traumatic event. Then add the inevitable distress of the mother, to whom the baby is psychologically and energetically linked, and you have a super trauma.

And try to imagine, on top of all that, the added distress on the newborn infant of being removed from the mother for emergency treatment: the infant’s or hers.

What an incredibly cruel, loveless, unpredictable and scary place the world would seem to the distressed newborn.

That is the experience and sensation that is imprinted onto the traumatised neonate’s untainted mind. A newborn’s immature nervous system is purely unconscious mind, combined with life or death driven emotion, so it does not have the cognitive capacity to be able to sort experiences and make sense of the world in a logical, conscious way. Its mind is like a blank sheet on which is printed the first experiences. And this imprint becomes the blueprint on which the child’s life and future experiences are fashioned.

Long Term Psychological Effects

Children who have had traumatic births are more likely to be anxious or aggressive than their easy-birth counterparts. Of course genetics and many other factors come into the equation too, but, if all else was equal, the child who was traumatised at birth would be more vulnerable to psychological problems.

Separation from the mother at birth, as well as the mother’s own post-trauma stress response, can affect the early bonding between the mother and child, which is another major factor in the child’s psychological development.

As a clinician, whenever I am presented with a highly anxious, angry, or oppositional child, I always ask the parents about the child’s trauma history, including their birth experience. Actually I do this with my adult clients too. And very often the links are obvious.

Effective New Treatment

Modern psychological treatment can help to correct the psychological damage of a traumatic birth. Therapies such as EMDR [Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing], EFT [Emotional Freedom Technique], and AIT [Advanced Integrative Therapy] are particularly powerful.

I mainly use AIT in my practice today, and find that it is incredibly effective for dealing with the effects of early trauma. AIT uses kinesiology, or muscle testing, to help the clinician and the client communicate with the client’s unconscious, to determine which early traumas might be affecting them in the present. I find that traumatic births are indicated quite often.

The really good news is that clearing the birth trauma with AIT is quite simple and straightforward, and once the early traumas and their links to presenting problems are cleared, and the blueprint is recreated with a clear, conscious mind, the client is able to let go of lifelong symptoms, such as excessive anxiety, fear of abandonment, anger and control issues. This is incredibly exciting stuff.

Lorri Craig practices AIT in her own private practice in Brighton and Hove, UK, and internationally by phone or Skype. To find out more about AIT go to the article on this site: WHAT IS ADVANCED INTEGRATED THERAPY?

Image thanks to arztsamui at freedigitalphotos.net

We Think and Feel What We Eat

Food is essential to human life, and it can feel good to eat, but how does what we consume affect our mental and emotional states once we have left the dinner table?

Some Stuff is Bad

Loads of studies have linked diet to mental health. Some studies look at the affect of toxic substances on our emotions. We know, for instance, that caffeine can increase anxiety, and too much sugar can play havoc with our blood sugar levels and that this can affect our mood and energy levels.

Alcohol helps most of us feel relaxed and happy in the moment, but the after effects can include low mood, irritability, and low energy [not to mention that headache]. Many studies have linked artificial food additives to behaviour disorders, such as hyperactivity and aggression, in some children.

Some Stuff is Good

On the other side, it is well known that a lack of certain nutrients can also negatively affect our mental state. A deficiency in some of the B vitamins can lead to restlessness, irritability and insomnia. Lack of folic acid can lead to low mood and low energy, which are the main symptoms of depression.

Low iron levels can also cause tiredness, and can affect our ability to think. Not enough vitamin C can affect the absorption of iron, and has been linked to depression, schizophrenia and dementia.

Many adults have reduced their anxiety levels, improved their mood, and improved their cognitive ability by taking omega 3 supplements, or foods rich in omega 3, such as oily fish and krill. I have known children diagnosed with ADHD who have benefited from omega 3 supplements to the point that they did not need to take prescription drugs.

Orthomol..er..Food Psychiatry

But why does one person benefit from a particular food or supplement, while another does not?

Linus Pauling, founder of Orthomolecular Medicine, believes that, due to variations in our genetic makeup and exposure to toxic substances, different people require different diets for optimum health. Pauling has successfully treated a range of mental disorders through Orthomolecular Psychiatry, including serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and clinical depression. He uses extensive testing to determine what his patients are lacking at a cellular level, then increases or decreases particular nutrients or substances as appropriate.

It would be difficult to test us all so thoroughly at this stage in our technical evolution, but another solution is to reduce the toxins and bad stuff in our diets, and increase our intake of healthy foods.

Super Foods

David (Avocado) Wolfe, health guru and star nutritionist, believes that certain foods, such as raw chocolate and goji berries, have extremely high levels of nutrients that are essential for optimum health and emotional well-being. Wolfe thinks that we should be eating more raw food, because the cooking process damages many nutrients in our food. He’s a great believer in blending raw fruits and superfoods into delicious smoothies. Not such a penance really.

H2O for the Soul

Finally, adequate clean water is essential for optimum mental health. Dehydration can make us feel tired and grumpy, and can affect our ability to think. Whenever I am working therapeutically with clients, I encourage them to drink a glass or two of water during and after treatment. Emotional clearing works the nerve cells and creates chemical debris. Water pumps up the nervous system and clears away debris and toxins, thus assisting the therapeutic process.

So, make sure you are drinking plenty of water, eating plenty of healthy food, including a few superfoods and more raw fruit and vegetables, and reduce your intake of damaging substances, such as alcohol, caffeine, sugar and artificial additives, and you will probably begin to feel and think a whole lot better.

Happy eating

Lorri

TAP FOR HEALTH WEALTH AND HAPPINESS

The Tapping phenomenon is sweeping the world. Meridian Tapping has successfully been used to clear emotional blocks, limiting or dysfunctional beliefs, trauma, physical pain, and even physical illness. It is fast, effective and easy to learn, and it is turning the worlds of psychology and medicine upside down.

WHAT IS TAPPING?

Tapping, is the central technique used in EFT, or Emotional Freedom Technique. It involves tapping chinese meridian points [like those used in acupuncture] whilst naming fears and dysfunctional or limiting beliefs.

EFT was developed in the 1990s by Gary Craig [no relation to me as far as I know], and came out of TFT or Thought Field Therapy, which was developed by Roger Callahan. Craig believed in making the procedure simple and user friendly, so that it could be available to more people and so make a larger positive impact on the world. EFT has since been used by psychological therapists and medical practitioners to treat vast numbers of people and conditions. I love it, and use it myself and with my clients to manage emotions, shift old emotional and mental blocks and habits, and as a first aid treatment in a crisis.

WHAT CAN TAPPING BE USED FOR?

Overcome Childhood Traumas
Reduce anxiety
Manage anger
Manage and Eliminate Pain
Release Cravings and Compulsive Eating Habits
Build Thriving and Loving Relationships
Overcome Addictions
Let Go Limiting or Dysfunctional Beliefs, including those about being well
Break Through Blocks to Success

WHERE TO LEARN EFT OR TAPPING

Gary Craig’s website has an easy to follow course for those who are interested in using tapping for their own use, or for incorporating it into their clinical practice. There are many other online and in person courses out there, as well as practitioners. If you want to focus on psychological issues, make sure you find therapist with experience and training beyond EFT.

LEARN TO TAP FOR WEALTH

Success coach, Margaret Lynch, is one of the greats of the tapping world. Margaret uses tapping to help her clients break through emotional blocks to being financially successful. She has produced loads of very easy to follow videos where she demonstrates the technique in a light hearted way. You can use the same technique to clear emotional blocks to anything. One of her latest videos focuses on tapping to let go of sexual blocks.

Here’s the link: TAP FOR WEALTH WITH MARGARET LYNCH.

If you would like to learn more about tapping for psychological blocks, please contact me by email or make a comment in the box below.

Happy tapping.

Cyber-hugs,

Lorri

WHAT IS ADVANCED INTEGRATIVE THERAPY or AIT?

AIT: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

I’ve been a psychologist for a long time now, and I’ve trained in and used a huge number of therapeutic strategies. But I have never been so excited about any form of therapy as I am about AIT. Advanced Integrative Therapy [AIT] is an exciting and powerful new energy psychology that is particularly effective at removing the effects of emotional trauma. I have found AIT to be an incredibly efficient and effective, yet very gentle way of treating a range of issues with adults and children of all ages.

How AIT Works

AIT works on the holistic principle that our mind, body and energy fields are interconnected, and that traumatic memories are often trapped in our nervous system throughout our bodies. These trapped memories affect our interactions with the world, and can create traumatic patterns or dysfunctional beliefs about ourselves and our world. These can lead to phobias, relationship problems, challenging behaviours, anxiety, depression, anger, self-harm, low self-esteem, and somatic illnesses.

AIT is based on the premise that traumatic memories and their emotional charge are stored throughout the body, not just in the brain. To get a sense of this, if you reflect on a past upsetting experience of your own, you might feel some sort of a sensation or discomfort in your throat, stomach, heart, or another part of your body.

What Happens

The AIT therapist helps the client to identify the issues using their therapeutic and interactive counselling skills, and then uses muscle testing, or applied kinesiology, to confirm the treatment decisions. Muscle testing was developed originally by a chiropractor, and adopted enthusiastically by alternative health practitioners, such as naturopaths and allergy specialists. I have found that muscle testing to be a wonderful tool to use in psychological therapy. It involves gently feeling resistance, or lack thereof, in the client’s muscles in response to particular statements. The muscle goes weak when the statement is false and stays strong when it is true. It is a really good way of tuning into the client’s unconscious [or internal computer], and can be a fun way to engage children and adults, especially those who are unsure of the cause of their emotional difficulties, or who find language or talking about feelings difficult.

Once the cause of the problem has been determined, the AIT practitioner guides the client to hold certain points on their body, to stimulate the nervous system, while labelling the trauma in a simple way. The client stays mindful of their body, and relaxes with their breath through this process, while witnessing the memories, thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they come and go.

This gently and effectively clears the blocked trauma from the nervous system, so the client is soon able to remember the experience without feeling the uncomfortable emotions attached to it.

In a Nutshell

AIT is an incredibly powerful therapy, but doesn’t require the uncomfortable, long-winded catharsis of tears and talk of many other therapies. Change is quick and gentle, yet monumental. As I said, very very exciting stuff.

I practice AIT in person in Coulsdon and Brighton and Hove, UK, and via telephone or Skype to the rest of the world. Feel free to contact me if you would like to find out more. You can leave a comment here.

I really look forward to hearing from you.

Lorri Craig

PS To find out more about AIT and who might be practicing it near you, go to the AIT UK and Europe or the USA AIT Institute websites.

Welcome to Psychology Through the Internet