As International Stress Awareness Week passes, let’s take the ‘stress definition’ as the launch pad for this blog. We all need stress and challenge, and too little stimulation can be just as stressful as too much. On the whole, the challenges we face in our daily lives keep us active, engaged and alive, in constant … Continue reading The importance of stress awareness
The fragmented jigsaw puzzle of today’s NHS General Practice
Patients very rightly protest when a General Practitioner is not paid for carrying out a postnatal examination on a woman at six weeks, presenting with their new baby. This is simply not in the GPs contract! But why has NHS general practice come to this? I recently read a brief letter to the Guardian, from … Continue reading The fragmented jigsaw puzzle of today’s NHS General Practice
Being Human: PNI and the links between stress and dis-ease
I am currently re-reading a book called When the Body Says No - The Cost of Hidden Stress by Gabor Maté. Descriptions of many medical stories are detailed where serious ill-health is a consequence of sustained stress. Our book Reclaim Health also details symptoms resulting from chronic stress that are often misinterpreted as due to … Continue reading Being Human: PNI and the links between stress and dis-ease
Alternatives to drugs for Chronic Pain?
“Deaths jump five-fold as doctors dole out opioids like Smarties” - Sunday Times, August 28, 2019. This blog takes as its theme chronic pain and the experience of novelist Tim Parks. This is a topic dealt with in both my book Reclaim Health (which includes a chapter on breath and its role in healing), and … Continue reading Alternatives to drugs for Chronic Pain?
Mindfulness and the Breath – Breathless with Excitement!?
My last post focused on symptoms of overload signalling a need to create a breathing recovery space. When we are in a state of sustained stress, our higher thinking centres switch off. We need to switch off this threat response, find the breathing space – and ask what we really need now. This article focuses … Continue reading Mindfulness and the Breath – Breathless with Excitement!?
Dr David Beales 