We have become a looks-based society, that’s for sure. We only have to scroll through our social media, watch TV, or glance through magazines to feel that beauty is judged from the outside and not from the inside. Although as we get older we may become more disparaging of this concept, we might also be trying our hardest to keep age at bay and find ourselves struggling to stay youthful in appearance. We’ve all heard of the middle-age spread but did you know that the term appl

Beingwell are over-the-moon, watermelon sugar high, OTT, excited to be working with nutrition expert Jenny Tschiesche. You might have seen Jenny on the telly, heard her on the radio, or bought one of her cookery books. Known as the Lunchbox Doctor, Jenny is a BANT registered nutritionist, best-selling author, and nutrition workshop facilitator. But enough from us, we'll leave it to Jenny to tell us more: "Jenny has been delivering nutrition workshops with SportsAid athletes a

If you’ve been in the pursuit of perfection, to be extraordinary, to find greatness, to be the best - we have some news for you. While having goals, purpose, ambitions are wonderful and keep us moving forward, many of us set these so impossibly high that we cannot actually achieve them. Or when we try to, it all goes wrong, we make mistakes, or it doesn’t turn out quite as we’d hoped. And then how do you feel? Deflated, disheartened, perhaps even unworthy? Our perfectionistic

Conflict, clashing disagreements, arguments, differences of opinion. A normal part of every relationship, be it romantic, friendly, family or work. We can’t be expected to agree with each other on everything, but when conflict arises it brings some really unpleasant emotions with it. So much so, many of us may try to avoid it. Perhaps you’ve drifted from a close friend during the pandemic, or have been struggling to communicate with a work colleague following your return to t

It’s tempting, isn’t it? To believe the promises of those six-week body boot camps, to gawp at the toned tummies and bouncy bottoms advertised in fitness magazines, and to fantasize about how much better life could be if we could just lose a little weight… It may feel disheartening then, to learn the research shows exercise is actually pretty unhelpful for weight loss. That’s because, on average, pretty much everyone burns the same amount of calories a day. That’s true even w

If you’re familiar with HBO’s Game of Thrones, you’ll know the significance of the line ‘Winter is coming’ - and if you aren’t, well it’s probably missing the humour but it comes round every year, and every year some of us really dread it (as did the Night's Watch). Mornings and evenings start getting darker, it’s colder and usually damper outside, and the sun’s not around as much to brighten our days. Does the winter weather affect how you feel? It can be a bit of a dreary t

It’s the most wonderful time of the year (ok, maybe the second-most). As the leaves start to crunch underfoot many of us take it upon ourselves to carve out menacing faces in pumpkins, adorn our houses with bats and cobwebs (as if they weren’t there before…), dress up as blood-thirsty vampires and regale each other with ghost stories (or at least watch our favourites) until the hairs on the back of our arms stand up. But why? Fear is at best an unpleasant feeling and at worst

We’re getting to that time of year where to paraphrase Bob Dylan “The clocks they are a-changing” and for many of us, it can cause a bit of anxiety about our sleep, both for ourselves, and (if we have them) our children. Which is why we asked our James, AKA The Sleep Geek, for his advice… In Autumn the clocks change, moving us onto Daylight Savings Time (DST). Shifting the external time away from the timing of our internal body clock can create a sense of jetlag. I’m not goin

All legends have an element of truth, and this is the case of the well-known myth about the left and right sides of the brain. We've probably read thousands of times about how our left side is responsible for our analytical and rational thinking, while our right side is the centre of our creative thinking and intuition. The myth goes as far as saying the two sides of the brain are responsible for generating two opposite personalities, such as mathematicians versus artists. An

Meditation can feel like wellbeing’s answer to every modern malady; feeling stressed at work? Meditate. Finding your partner increasingly irritating? Try a quick guided meditation. Got creative block? Start your morning off in silence. And in fact, the research does show that meditation can support our wellbeing in a myriad of ways; from improving our cognitive fitness (particularly our attention spans) to helping us to better manage stressful situations. Despite these well-d

Have you ever felt the stress of having to hide something about yourself that you believe others that you care about won’t like? Because it’s part of you, you might feel heavy, uncomfortable and possibly awkward about keeping it from them? You might be feeling like you need to ‘come out’ about it. Although coming out is usually seen as an LGBTQ+ topic, it can also be associated with many other circumstances ‘Coming out’ means telling someone something about yourself that isn’

The World Health Organisation refers to health as the “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” In this same way, when we talk about mental health, and good mental health for that matter, we’re not only referring to the absence of mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety but our overall quality of life. Mental health affects how we think, feel and act, and while many of us have seen, experienc

Anger gets a bad rep - and yet experiencing anger is a pretty unavoidable part of the human experience. It fuels heated exchanges between couples at counselling, we feel it in the resentment of our colleague who has been overlooked for a promotion, and we can even see it in the eyes of our toddler when we refuse their demands for just-one-more sweetie. Worst of all though, is when we feel anger bubbling up within ourselves, afraid that it will pour out, leaving a path of dest

Have you heard of automatic thoughts? You’ve very likely experienced them without even realising. Automatic thoughts are ones that just pop up in response to a trigger (we’re hearing this word a lot recently). For example, you stub your toe and then automatically think, ‘Why did I leave the chair there, I’m so stupid!’ or you’ve messaged your mate about meeting up for a drink but they don’t reply for donkey’s years and the automatic thought might go something like this, ‘OMG

Whether our health is suffering in response to the covid vaccine (or perhaps even the dreaded virus itself) or our kids have brought back lurgies a few days into returning to school, it can feel difficult taking time off work to recover (no matter how desperately it may be needed). Although the anxiety-inducing thought of telling our boss we’re not well enough to work can make ploughing through (between coughing fits) a tempting alternative - it is possible to take a sick day

Cara Fielden, journalist, wellbeing warrior, and social media guru, shares her experience of anxiety and how mindfulness has changed her mindset. Anxiety I’m an overly anxious person. I mean, generally - it’s part of my personality. But it’s also something I’ve been diagnosed with. Severe anxiety to be precise. Since my diagnosis, I’ve realised that many of my behaviours belong to anxiety, which inspired me to do a lot of research into how to cope living with this condition.

And just like that, summer’s over (although we may feel like we missed it altogether with this weather). So if you’re weeping whilst packing up the BBQ, feeling sad about sending your kids back to school or just desperately scouring airbnb for October getaways, you may have a case of the post-holiday blues. The irony being that we often see holidays as a chance to escape our blues and hope (or even expect) to come back from holidays feeling refreshed and ready to take on life

According to the good-old Cambridge dictionary, a habit is ‘something that you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that you’re doing it: I always buy the same brand of toothpaste out of habit.’ If you drive, think about parallel parking. Uttering these two words is enough to make any learner driver break out in a cold sweat, but if we’ve been driving for a long time it’s second nature. It’s a habit. We are wondrous creatures of habit. According to one study, 45%

This week is World Suicide Prevention Day and one of our Beingwell family members shares their vulnerable personal experience. Trigger warning: This blog contains references to suicide and suicidal thoughts. My nervous breakdown wasn’t spectacular, it wasn’t urgent, or explosive, nor full of frothy emotions. It was a gradual, terribly slow, falling over sidewards. So slow in fact that I barely registered it until I had a few dozen paracetamols in my hand and suicide in my tho

What’s for dinner? Those three little words are laden with more importance than simply arguing with the kids, our partners, or even ourselves. Our planet is warming, the seas are rising, Arctic permafrost is disappearing, deserts are expanding, and biodiversity is woefully withering. Frankly, it’s terrifying! A report by the UK government wants to introduce taxes on salt and sugar and have the NHS prescribe vegetables. The little daily decisions we make about what deliciousn