A Common Condition

A huge 80% of all mothers experience the ‘baby blues’, which classically arrive in the first week after the birth (often on day four!) and are usually dispelled after a few days with plenty of support from your partner, family and friends.

For one in ten new mums, however, ‘the blues’ last longer than two weeks and are often a sign that postnatal depression is developing. Postnatal depression can begin at any time during the first year. It can be experienced by first time mums, mums who already have several children and even fathers – although theirs usually kicks in later, around 3-6 months after the birth. Postnatal depression can also affect women who have had a miscarriage or stillbirth.

Juliette Kellow and Dr Sarah Brewer take a look at some of the best foods to eat for brain health. We can't reverse all the brain changes that come with getting older. But as we find out about how ageing affects the brain, research offers up new food solutions to slow cognitive decline, boost mood, improve memory, and protect against dementia and stroke.

To put it in a short little phrase, binaural beats are like exercises for the mind. It’s because they are known to help with memory, mood, cognition, and in the treatment of diseases connected to the brain, like Alzheimer’s and dementia.

If you are wondering what brain fog is, it’s basically just the opposite of when you feel calm, optimistic, level-headed and motivated. 

It’s understandable why it can rob one of happiness and inspiration, increasing the likelihood of depression and anxiety. 

Even the medical fraternity has not recognized this ‘condition’ as a real, specific health condition - in medical literature; brain fog is usually described as a ‘mild cognitive impairment’. And coffee doesn’t help!

Emotions are something you can’t see and you can’t touch them either. But one thing you can do, and that is to feel them! Some people are excellent at having their emotions buried down in the recesses of their being, protecting themselves from being hurt by other people.

What is emotional health? 

A very important part of each of our lives. In fact, if our emotional health is not good, it is not likely that our physical health will be up to par either. 

Emotional health is what helps you to reach your full potential, it enables you to work productively and it also helps you to cope with all the stresses and knocks of life effectively. All the above can’t function properly if your physical health is poor.

When caring for someone with dementia, you may begin to see that daily tasks become overwhelming as the dementia becomes more severe.  There are a few things to watch out for in this area.

Dr Jonathan Leach looks at the role friends play within the recovery state of a person mental health problems. How friendship and support, even from a stranger can be therapeutic.

‘Quite often talking is the best form of therapy and having someone who knows you, who you can confide in and can talk back to you on a personal level based on the fact they know you, can sometimes be very comforting.’

(Service user quoted in Leach, 2015)

All of us no doubt has experienced loneliness every now and then. This feeling of loneliness, it can drain one of self-esteem, it can cause us even to become depressed, and it can lead us to take on unnatural behavioral tendencies or death.

Have kids, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. When these little blessings hit the terrible two’s, things get real! We’ve held them and nurtured them from their first breath and it seems when they hit a certain age, toddler-hood, they turn into little imps running around controlling the universe. Oh, the tantrums!

As adults we tend to be opinionated about how teenagers have become in the last decade or so. Playing the devil’s advocate here, what if the teens and students are under a great deal of stress and we are simply refusing to acknowledge it?

Relationships are hard work. People get busy with life and simply neglect to nourish their union. Sometimes it turns into a competition for time between family, work and self-care. With all that happens in a day or even a week, what’s left over for sustaining a relationship?