If you are feeling the heightened stress of expectations of achievement, constant decision-making and information overload, you are not alone. In this age of disjointed social groups and generations, building awareness and practices that help soothe our frazzled systems is more important than ever.

Self-soothing is the mechanism our bodies use to bring us back down to calm, after or even during the jolt of stress. This can mean the space to decide the most compassionate and helpful reaction in a crisis or feeling all systems back to rest after being revved up and reactive. When we’re in chronic stress and life has become one big hyper-vigilant ‘constant alert’, we can feel we’ve lost this route back to settling down and finding the peace we need for recovery.

Without healthy self-soothing abilities, living in continually heightened states can be exhausting, lead to whole host of stress-related symptoms (anxiety, insomnia, IBS and weight gain to name a few) and create fear-based and n...

Happy, regulated mood is where life can feel most calm, easy and enjoyable. Yet many often feel in the grip of a rollercoaster rise of emotions, inner criticism, worry and self-doubt. These can include periods of low mood that can make existing daily feel extremely difficult and even downright exhausting.

Whether this falls into a label of ‘depression’ or not, from a holistic point of view, there are some key potential underlying causes that may offer potential change in how we view ourselves and the world. Attending to the self-care we need to be able to cope and find a more positive outlook can in turn allow us to participate in activities that we know elevate our mood. Humans have a naturally raise in mood and motivation via the reward neurotransmitter dopamine when we do anything that propagates survival of the species; eat, drink and exercise, but as pack animals, also through group bonding and cooperation, so group activities, sports, talking, eating together and touch all help ...