-
Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic (book review)
I was recently asked to review the book ‘Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic’, by American psychiatrist Paul Conti. After two years of a pandemic and with the recent monkeypox outbreaks, any mention of the word ‘epidemic’ is going to be quite alarming. But, there’s no reason to panic. This is a different kind of an epidemic – trauma is not a contagious disease, but its consequences can be as (or perhaps) even more devastating than those of Covid 19. Here’s the full review as published on Goodreads and Amazon. Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic, a book review According to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), “a wide range of…
-
A Cure For Darkness (book review)
Hosted by the Mental Health Foundation, the Mental Health Awareness Week is taking place from 10 to 16 May 2021. As a Psychiatrist, I simply had to share a post about mental health (rather than travelling) today. Being an avid reader, I’m sharing my thoughts on the recently-published book ‘A Cure for Darkness: The Story of Depression and How We Treat It’, by Alex Riley. I’m also discussing about bibliotherapy and the beneficial effects that reading has on the mind and the brain. A Cure For Darkness ‘A Cure For Darkness’ is a blend of scientific theory and personal memoir. Written by Alex Riley, a science writer who’s struggled with depression…
-
10 tips on how to break up with your phone
A couple of years ago, whilst browsing in a shop in Santa Barbara, California, I came across the book ‘How to break up with your phone’ by Catherine Price. I immediately bought a copy to give to a friend of mine, who, at that time, was addicted to Candy Crush and would spend hours and hours on her phone. Since she no longer does so, I can only assume that the book did the trick. Being a Psychiatrist specialising in the assessment and management of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), I daily come across people telling me that they spend hours and hours on their phones, often to the detriment…
-
15 culture-bound syndromes
Hello! Today is the World Mental Health Day and this year’s theme is ‘mental health for all’. As a Psychiatrist, I am passionate about mental health and wellbeing. At the same time, as a travel enthusiast, I love not just visiting different places around the world, but also discussing and learning about these places and their culture. Today, I will put both these hats on, and talk about 15 culture-bound syndromes. The term ‘culture-bound syndromes’ was included in the fourth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), but in 2013, it was replaced by the term ‘cultural concepts of distress’ in the fifth edition of the…
-
A wellbeing journey with Víkingur Ólafsson
I recently watched the Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson performing live from his new home in Reykjavík. In that video, Víkingur played three pieces by Bach, Rameau and Debussy, but also talked about the power of music to take us on a journey, to transport us to another place, and to stabilize emotional turmoil especially during times of crisis. Unfortunately, that video is no longer available on YouTube, so I’m sharing today other videos with Víkingur Ólafsson on the piano. The power of music to stabilize emotional turmoil during a crisis As both a musicophile and a Psychiatrist, I am in total agreement with Víkingur Ólafsson. In fact, I have previously…
-
Breathing, Music and Mental Wellbeing
When I published my posts about mental health and wellbeing, I did not include either breathing or music into the 10 key areas (of pillars) of mental wellbeing. I did, nonetheless, consider music (and music therapy) in the context of pleasurable activities (key area or pillar no 10). But how about breathing? On average, we breathe 16 times a minute, or 23,000 times a day. Over a lifetime, we take hundreds of millions of breaths. Yet, we barely think about breathing. Yoga (key area no 3), meditation and mindfulness (key area no 6) are practices that help bring our attention to our breathing. Deep breathing is actually an effective stress…
-
Sophrology: Europe’s alternative to mindfulness
When I recently visited my friend Marie in Nantes, her 5-year-old daughter Daphne was about to start attending sophrology classes at school. Neither Marie nor I had been particularly familiar with sophrology (I had personally read an article in the Guardian, and that was pretty much all). So, we understandably struggled to explain it to Daphne. Since my return to England, however, I have tried to learn more about sophrology. Amongst the resources I used were the books ‘The Life-Changing Power of Sophrology: A practical guide to reducing stress and living up to your full potential’ by the Swiss sophrologist Dominique Antiglio, and ‘The Sophrology Method: Simple mind-body techniques for a…
-
Self-isolation, social distancing and wellbeing
I’ve recently written a couple of posts about the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, the situation has dramatically changed since then; the number of cases and coronavirus-related deaths has sharply increased around the world. As I am writing this post, the death toll has reached 422 in the UK alone, whereas the total number of confirmed cases is now 8,077 across the country. On a global level, so far we have had 18,251 fatalities and 407,678 confirmed cases. As many countries are now in lockdown (including the UK as of this week), the terms ‘self-isolation’ and ‘social distancing’ have entered our daily vocabulary. In these challenging times, we should not forget our…
-
15 Books about Happiness For All, Forever
Happy International Day of Happiness! Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, let’s remember that today is the International Day of Happiness. The theme this year is ‘Happiness For All, Forever’. According to the United Nations World Happiness Report, which was published today, Finland is the happiest place (for the third consecutive year). The Finnish capital, Helsinki, is the happiest city in the world. Perhaps it is obvious that I enjoy reading articles and books about happiness. In fact, informed by such books about happiness, as well as my professional background as a Psychiatrist, I have previously written extensively about mental well-being and happiness. I have often considered happiness from different perspectives, including…
-
The 7 Secrets of Happiness: An Optimist’s Journey
What an awesome title for a book! Happiness, optimism, and a journey, all in the same sentence. In the introduction, Gyles Brandreth writes about his personal journey looking for happiness, a journey that took him to different places around the world where he met some very remarkable people: the Pope’s exorcist at the Vatican, Buddhist monks in Cambodia, Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, Quentin Crisp in New York, and the Queen of Denmark in Copenhagen. But it was in Dublin where he discovered the 7 secrets of happiness thanks to the late Dr Anthony Clare, Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College, widely known for his radio interviews: In the…