Being close to someone who is suffering from a mental health problem can be very difficult, not knowing how to help, feeling confused about what is going on, feeling frustrated with the person, the situation, or yourself, maybe feeling isolated and hopeless about what to do next. In this blog I am going to share 6 tips to help you to help the person that you care about. 1. Inform Yourself An important first step is to find out as much as you can about the problem that your friend […]...
In part 1 we looked at how you can learn to manage symptoms of pain and fatigue by pacing yourself. The first step is to complete an activity diary to calculate the amount of rest you had over the week and divide by 7. This gives you the amount of rest you need to take each day. You now need to make a plan for each day or week and try to stick to it, where possible. This will be personal to you. Examples of an initial activity program For […]...
People who experience prolonged and severe symptoms of pain or fatigue, often try to manage it by: 1) Resting more and reducing activity in the hope of feeling better and to prevent symptoms from getting worse. 2) Pushing themselves to do as much as possible when they can, and rest more when symptoms get worse (‘all or nothing’ behaviour). Many people use both of these strategies. They are natural, understandable ways to try to manage symptoms. However, when you rest more and reduce activity in an attempt to get better: […]...
It has been long suspected by Mental Health professionals that an individual’s emotional state affects how they respond to injuries and Chronic Pain. Brain scan research has confirmed that chronic pain can develop due to an emotional response to an injury, a process involving interactions of the Frontal Cortes and Nucleus Accumbens, which are two regions of the brain. Professor Vania Apakarian, the lead scientist in the study, from Northwestern University in Chicago has said ”The injury itself is not enough to explain the ongoing pain. It has to do […]...
