About Building Immunity & My Personal Thoughts on ‘Sleep is Number One’

March 20, 2020 Leave a comment

I work for a charitythat shares information about being healthier.

Below is a link to an article from one of our ambassadors. It is about building immunity to be more resistant to diseases, including viruses.

At this time, we are all challenged to look after our own immune system, so as not to allow any specific virus to thrive within us… for the sake of others.

=== Our charities key message continues to be: EAT REAL FOOD ===

I used to facilitate 3-day self-management courses for groups of people with bipolar diagnosis. An important part of that course was, how mood troubles and sleep troubles are always related (maybe 99% of the time). We all found that when we slept well life was so much better.

I gradually came to realize is that focusing on sleep only helped a little. My belief now (for me and perhaps for you too) is that when you start to get most other things right then sleep comes so much more naturally. So, the only thing I would change in Lou Walker’s article is that I would move ‘Sleep’ from number 1 to number 10.

Sleep is essential. It may be the most important thing for good health and healthy moods, yet I find ‘not focusing on it more helpful these days’. I am not expecting many people to agree with that – I am just sharing my thoughts.

A good read: https://louwalker.com/ten-ways-to-support-your-immune-syst…/

Best wishes

Roger

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Life after bipolar and a letter from Sir David Attenborough

May 21, 2019 Leave a comment

I am not sure if Karen will remember emails we exchanged many years ago while we were each still struggling, having been told no one recovers from  bipolar disorder.

Contrary to ‘expert’ opinion, we have we each recovered. Karen has a video on this web page where she talks about her recovery: http://www.karentyrrell.com/recovered-bipolar-you-tube/

This is not new news, so why am I mentioning Karen now?

There is something about her latest book that is grabbing a great deal of attention. It is a letter of support from Sir David Attenborough for Karen’s ‘Great Barrier Reef Rescue’ for children, an eco-adventure mystery, to educate and empower kids to care for the reef.

I am sharing this because not only may it help inform more people of a new or greater danger to this habitat… It also to let more people know recovery is possible and Karen is one of many examples of people thriving beyond / after being described as bipolar.

 

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Emotions are made of… #moodmapping #bipolarrecovery

May 11, 2012 1 Comment

Emotions are made of…

As a stress adviser I found this diagram to be useful showing emotions to have three components:

emotional health

Emotion

The arrows are there to show how:

  • The way we feel can affect our energy and our thinking.
  • Our energy can affect the way we feel and the way we think.
  • Thoughts can affect our energy levels and our feelings.

I was told I had a mental illness. ‘Mental’ being to do with thinking, it made sense to me that if I could improve my thinking that would sort out my problems. In fact, improving the way I was thinking did help me to recover.  I wrote about this my first book, Stop Paddling/Start Sailing. Readers have told me how much it has helped them.

The reality is, thinking alone does not provide lasting recovery or build resilience. If your feelings and energy levels are kind of out of control then simply reading Stop Paddling/Start Sailing is unlikely to do much towards a full and long lasting recovery.

Eventually, I was amazed and delighted to discovered I was not mentally ill. I was not even ill. I had a mood problem and for this  I needed to understand that FEELINGS and ENERGY are the components mood. Knowing more about how to feel differently and have more control of energy levels turns out to be an excellent place to start recovering from being labelled with bipolar disorder.

Next time… Looking at Feelings and Energy to provide a balanced approach to having moods that are good for you and those you live with.

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