Using psychology to improve your mental health
This little piggy went to market,
this little piggy stayed at home,
this little piggy had roast beef,
this little piggy had none,
and this little piggy went….
Onto better things, one hopes. The pub next door to my grandparents’ home in Five-Ash-Down
Continue reading “Day 29 – the poetry of alcohol”
Yesterday I looked at motivation as a way of understanding how and why people make decisions about their health-related behaviours, and how changes in motivation can affect how they pass through the various stages of change. Hopefully there were some useful pointers there to help with your decision-making processes.
Continue reading “Day 28 – cravings and relapse prevention”
I am aware that as we come into the last few days of Dry January I have not really provided anything helpful in terms of how you can make changes and stick to them, be it in relation to drinking, smoking, dieting or exercising. I will try to redress the balance over the next couple of posts or so. Some of the material can then be replicated in the main body of this website as static pages that people can more easily access. It is after all a self-help website, although I do have problems with that terminology. It does carry (unintentionally) undertones of “pull yourself together” and “I did it and therefore so can you“. What works for one person may not work for another, and everyone has a different starting point.
Continue reading “Day 27 – are your cogs dissonating?”
Today I want to take another look at alcohol’s effect on cognitive functioning, specifically learning and memory. I have already touched upon learning theory in earlier posts, especially the role played by this in the development of alcohol problems. Here I also want to explore memory.
Continue reading “Day 26 – a stumble down memory lane”
Tonight Scots across the world traditionally celebrate Burns Night with haggis n’ neeps and a wee dram of whisky. I am not of Scottish heritage as far as I know, but I did live in Edinburgh for two years and I enjoy the occasional glass of single malt whisky. Talisker is one of my favourites, with deep peaty flavours. The title image is of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh – and no, I was not drunk when I took the photo!
Continue reading “Day 25 – a wee dram with that if you please”
Here’s to alcohol, the rose colored glasses of life.
Today I want to take a look at looking. I have already noted in a previous post that alcohol, in common with all psychoactive substances, affects our emotions, thinking and behaviour. At the heart of these we find the key role played by perception. It is not the case that our sense organs project a multi-sensory representation of the world into our brains. The process of perception is active rather than passive. Reality is created in our brain by integrating and interpreting the mass of data that is being transmitted through a maze of neural pathways. The nature and quality of this data are in turn affected by how alert or drowsy we are, and by what is guiding our attention. At any given moment we are only conscious of a small fraction of what is happening around us and within us – oh, did I just feel a twinge in my knee and a little flutter in my tummy? An apposite reference here to the cocktail party effect – even if you are deep in conversation with someone, your attention will be activated if you hear your name being mentioned by someone else in the room.
Studies (e.g., Dal Lago et al, 2023) have shown that alcohol use is associated with an impaired ability to recognise faces. The inability to recognise faces is a neurological condition known as prosopagnosia. Could the effects of alcohol here account for the well-known beer goggles, and explain why everyone is a “best mate”?! But there is another side…
Understand Yourself Better 