Using psychology to improve your mental health
Like all good stories, Dry January had a beginning and an end. I have catalogued my 31 days of abstinence from alcohol in this series of posts. For someone who set out not to drink, I have devoted more than 23,000 words to the topic and spent over a hundred hours researching and crafting these posts. We have looked at the history of alcohol and drinking, how wine, beer and spirits are made; what strange things are added to our tipples (including some guidance on
Continue reading “In the End”Everything is fine as we come to the last evening of Dry January, except that I have no internet for the next couple of days. A bit of a hiatus between contracts. I will provide an overview, a bit of reflection, and tie up any loose ends when I am reconnected.
Wishing everyone a lovely weekend and congratulations for getting to the end of the month. If you lapsed, then do not despair, that is the norm. Be glad you are not a robot. Until later, keep safe and well.
Yesterday I took a poetical look at alcohol. Today I am going philosophical. My starting point was going to be “I drink therefore I am”. This turns out to be a book on wine by the philosopher Roger Scruton – I drink therefore I am: A Philosopher’s Guide to Wine. The original phrase is attributed to W. C. Fields. In Latin it is Bibo Ergo Sum. Pipped at the post again! Never mind…
Continue reading “Day 30 – the philosophy of alcohol”
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?”
Understand Yourself Better 