How can I stop feeling guilty when doing something for myself?

Having to deal with guilt can be a major barrier to trying or continuing with many self care practices. So how can we make it go away? I'm going to be honest with you, the guilt isn't going to disappear by me telling you that you shouldn't feel guilty or that you deserve to look …

Can you do too much yin yoga?

Many of us need to slow down and find a better balance between yin and yang but is there such a thing as doing too much yin yoga? There's an easy to that one: yes! We can do too much of pretty much anything that is recommended to us as good or healthy. And sometimes, …

Does yin yoga count as exercise?

I'm not the biggest fan of the word exercise. As a child and teenager, I was really unfit and often in the "special" group for physical education. It also took me a long time to start exercising more for the health and wellbeing benefits rather than as something that was supposed to help me lose …

The importance of setting healthy boundaries with ourselves

I'm guessing you've heard that it's important to set healthy boundaries. Maybe you've been practising this already or you're feeling a bit lost about where to start. But what if you're doing all the "right" things by saying no to everything you don't want to do and you're still feeling stuck about how to look …

Are introverts more likely to burnout?

Lots of introverts are shy and possibly socially anxious but you can also be shy and socially anxious as an extrovert. Contrary to popular belief, being an introvert doesn't always mean you don't like being around other people. It can sometimes be more helpful to think of the introversion-extroversion spectrum as more about how much …

Realistic self-care for exhausted therapists

I burnt out in my first job as a qualified clinical psychologist but I don’t think I recognised it as burnout until the second time this started happening to me. At the time, I knew I was exhausted all the time, was experiencing a few other physical symptoms and just wanted something to make me …

What’s personality got to do with burnout?

I work with a lot of people who face incredible amounts of pressure at work and/or home, and I really wish I could fix those unfair circumstances for them but I can't. What I can support people with is developing an understanding of how their lifestyle and personality interact with those challenging circumstances in a …

Self care for therapists

How to look after yourself as a therapist or applied psychologist. I responded to a query from a fellow therapist on Facebook yesterday. Not someone I know but someone who sounded like they were experiencing burnout, was taking some time off, planned to focus on self-care and was interested in what other therapists in the …