Mental Sunshine

Each week my aim is to provide you with a simple tip Something small you can do that will hopefully bring some more sunshine into your day. I can’t decide if this week’s tip is a really obvious one, or a really not-obvious one… Let me know what you think! This week’s tip is to

For this week’s Mental Sunshine, I want to suggest something that will probably sound absolutely bonkers. I love the tips that sound ridiculous, because often even just the thought of them makes me smile! This week’s tip is to try walking backwards. I don’t mean you should attempt to do your morning commute backwards; that

Whether you’re having a great week, or a less-than-great one – let’s see if we can improve on that shall we! That’s what these weekly emails are about – just increasing the level of Mental Sunshine in your life where we can. This week I want to talk about morning breathwork, after hearing Julia Bradbury

The UK appears to be having a record breaking summer, with large parts of England in drought. We’ve just had our third or fourth heatwave and I think a lot of people are looking forward to going back to moaning about the rain! Why am I talking about the weather in an email about Mental

For this week’s Mental Sunshine, I want to talk about bucket lists. The term “bucket list” was popularised by a 2007 film starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. It comes from the old idiom “kick the bucket” Essentially, a list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket! I’m willing to bet

When was the last time you engaged with the arts? That sounds rather la-di-da, doesn’t it? “The Arts” sounds like going to the opera or a West End show – so in that case, it may have been a while! A recent book by researcher Daisy Fancourt, called Art Cure, takes a wider view of

When was the last time you did something creative? I know you’re probably thinking, Creative? I don’t have time for that! We can often feel that we’re too busy to take time out for creative pursuits There’s work, housework, family commitments… the list of things we need to do is endless, right? The problem is

How did you get on doing nothing last week? For this week’s Mental Sunshine I want to suggest an app for your phone. I know what you’re thinking – I usually encourage you to spend less time on your phone, not more! Well, the type of app I am suggesting can help with this. We

When was the last time you did nothing? I mean: absolutely nothing Not watching TV Not half-watching TV whilst doomscrolling on your phone Not listening to a podcast Not fiddling with a pile of paperwork, you keep thinking you should file away Definitely not sitting still whilst ruminating and over-thinking in your head Absolutely nothing

How are you coping with the heat this week? We are all trying to find ways to cool down I’m a big fan of cold water swimming – but there’s not much cold water around to have a dip Even my local lake is around 25 degrees One of the best tips I’ve found is