http://www.ocdclinicbrisbane.com.au/

Dr Daphne Bryan, OCD Clinic Brisbane, Brisbane (2025)

05/01/2025

Happy 2025! It's the first week of the New Year 🎊

For many, New Year's = Resolutions; a time to reflect on the coming year, set your intention and set goals to achieve over the next 365/366 days. I love the sentiment behind it. I love the element of reflection and intentionality. But what I am not getting behind, is the pressure to set goals and potentially reinvent yourself for the new year. Don't get me wrong, goals are great! Intentionality is even better! But why only in New Year's? Why does it have to come at a set time?

I haven't set a new years resolution in more than a decade. Somewhere along the line, resolutions made me feel like a failure: my resolutions were not good enough; they're not meaningful enough; I can't achieve them; or I ended up setting really tiny goals just so that I could tick them off and say: I DID IT!! Sure some of this is my own inner critic but it also placed a huge amount of pressure to think of something or a word that would make my new year.

So instead, I've chosen not to make a resolution at new years. I choose freedom for myself; the freedom to make goals at any time of the year. Hell at any moment. Awake at 2am and deciding that I want to cut back on how much screen time I'm having? DO IT! Driving in the car on a random March Wednesday and thinking about how I want to work on a fitness or professional goal? LET'S GO!

Resolutions are not the devil. But they also don't have to be the be all and end all of your new year's. Choose to be intentional in your daily life and open to new ideas, goals and opportunities whenever they come up for you.

Remember, January 1 is just another day in the calendar 🗓️

09/07/2024

Current view as I watch Netflix.

It's been a chaotic few days. It's sickness season we are in the thick of it. It's currently round 3 of virus in a 6 week period. This week features Hand Foot Mouth Disease (HFMD). Woohoo 🥲🥴😬

Everyone's exhausted and running low. Of course because of how contagious HFMD is, I haven't been able to hit the gym for a snippet of self-care. So today, this is how I'm showing up for myself: I'm sitting down instead of picking up the toys, taking a deep breath, watching my favourite TV show as I dig into a pint of homemade Biscoff ice cream. It's the small moments that count 😉🤏🏽

04/07/2024

Self-care can be such a catchphrase. And often it can feel like a luxury or even selfish. The thing is, self-care isn't a frivolous exercise that only some people can afford. Self-care is about doing something intentionally for yourself as an act of self love. It doesn't have to be extra or a huge deal, and can be as simple as you like. Because if you're not looking after yourself, who is?

03/07/2024

Looking after yourself is always a priority, and there are lots of ways that you can do it. In the current climate it's easy to dismiss or postpone self care so that we can focus on other priorities. The problem with that is when we don't look after ourselves, we burn out and become unable to focus or engage in our priorities.

There is no secret recipe or formula to self-care, it's really just a case of making sure you do something for yourself each day to look after yourself both physically and mentally. This could be: prioritising sleep each night to ensure that you are well rested to face the day; ensuring you are having a balanced diet; making time during the day to connect with someone; doing something you enjoy (e.g., cooking, exercising, reading, watching an episode of your favourite TV show); staying present and engaged in the present moment; exercising and moving your body.

My personal favourite : moving my body. It took a while to embrace it but the science is there: moving your body produces endorphins that help you to feel good. I enjoy challenging myself at the gym and doing things that feel impossible; that satisfaction at the end of it is 🤌🏽 and sets me up with the mindset of: If I could do X, I can do anything today. Of course there are days when I don't feel like a good "smashathon" at the gym and those days are also ok. At those times, even turning up and making an effort to move my body is good enough. Also it does help when you find a gym with a smashing community. Because then you kill three birds with one stone: movement, doing something you enjoy, and social connection 😉

What about you? What can you do to prioritise yourself today?

03/07/2024

My favourite breathing exercise to prescribe: 4-7-8 Breathing.
I personally prefer this one over other exercises because there is a discreet end point to the exercise. Many breathing exercises tend to cycle through until you feel calmer. However I've found that this tends to make people more anxious as they keep looking to check if they are still feeling anxious (hello fulfilling prophecy!).
This rhythm of breathing is also physiologically helpful in calming your nervous system down as it helps slow your breathing which allows your body to absorb some of that carbon dioxide you're exhaling.
Give it a try and see how you like it. In for 4, hold for 7, out for 8. Repeat for a total of 4 times.

24/06/2024

Let's talk breathing exercises...

Do they work? YES! I know this because I had first hand experience of it working during labour.

You're probably thinking: well she's a psychologist, so she's obviously biased and would say that. Well, I probably shouldn't say this, but in all my years as a psychologist, even though I was confident in breathing exercises when I prescribed them to clients, when I had to use it for myself, I always had a little voice in the back of my head saying: this isn't going to work. It's JUST breathing.

Well when I was in labour with my third, my body started shaking after I got my epidural. I knew this would happen based on my last 2 experiences so I let the midwife know to bring me more blankets. Except this time, she kindly informed me that the shaking was happening because of the adrenaline coursing through my body as it was preparing itself for pushing (fun times!). So what does she tell me to do: breathe 😅 Makes solid sense right? Diaphragmatic breathing to trigger the parasympathetic nervous system to calm the body down ✅

So I breathed. I practised the breathing exercise I give to almost all my clients. And what do you know: IT WORKED! I stopped shaking after the first round of breathing. 🤯😱😱😱

Diaphragmatic breathing to trigger the parasympathetic nervous system to calm the body down ✅🙌🏽😂 who knew! 😂

So next time your therapist tells you to breathe to help counter your anxiety, remember this little anecdote. And remember that breathing exercises work 2-fold:
1) Diaphragmatic breathing to trigger the parasympathetic nervous system helps to calm the fight/flight response down. This helps to relax your physiological responses.
2) Breathing exercises help orient your mind to the breath, which turns attention away from anxious or stressful thoughts and worries. This can also have the effect of calming you down.

06/05/2024

I'd like to make a preposition: the next time you find yourself experiencing strong unwanted feelings in a situation, instead of challenging how accurate you're feeling or thinking, I'd like you to try asking yourself: is this helpful/working for me right now?

It's easy to jump in and blame ourselves when we find ourselves in a situation where strong feelings are triggered. Often the response to these circumstances tends to be: are you sure? Maybe there's another reason or a better way to think about it? Sometimes we might even go so far as to minimise or dismiss how we are feeling: I shouldn't feel that way. This doesn't make sense...

While well intentioned, these responses invalidate how we are feeling in response to a situation or a trigger. And when we feel invalidated, we (and our feelings) are more likely to dig heels in and stand their ground, which means change is less likely to happen.

Asking ourselves: is this working for me? Is this helpful for me? Allows you the space to acknowledge how you're feeling and validate the experience. It also allows you to go the extra step of assessing whether this is working for you. If it's not, then you can start looking at whether you want to make changes and how to make a change. Regardless of whether your response is "accurate" or not.

So, is this helpful or working for you right now?

28/04/2024

This one goes out to the peeps who aren't sleeping well because they have kids, pets, noisy neighbours, crazy project deadlines, or watched a little too much Netflix and might struggle in the morning. You're not "tired", you're just "awake drunk" 🥴🤪

It's a phrase my husband and I coined a while back to help us reframe being tired. Why? Because we found that constantly saying: "I'm tired 😩" served no purpose other than to make us feel even worse than we felt. So rather than saying we were tired, we made a joke about being awake drunk and it stuck! Why does it help? It's a subtle shift in mindset. The term tired can have such a negative connotation for many of us. So instead of focusing on the negatives which would make us feel worse, we decided to take the power back and flip how we communicated about how we felt. It's not about minimising or invalidating our experience, it's about finding a way to communicate how we are doing in a way that works for us. And we both get a laugh out of it which is pretty winning.

I'm not tired, I'm awake drunk. Because I spent all weekend celebrating my son's first birthday 🎂

14/04/2024

Lying awake in bed used to make me feel anxious. I'd start to think about everything that happened during the day, and everything that would be coming up the next day. I'd also start to worry about not getting enough sleep, which often made it even more difficult to sleep.

Over the years, I have slowly come to appreciate the stillness that accompanies being awake at night. I've started to realise that it is not as bad as I thought it was. There are still moments of frustration or anxiety about being awake, of days past or to come. But for the most part, being awake at night has been a grounding opportunity for me to stop and enjoy the stillness. To let the darkness envelope me, and to practice being mindful. The soft breathing sounds of my children next to me anchor me to the present, as I take slow deep breaths and focus on how my body feels as it settles into the mattress.

This has made a huge difference in how I approach sleeplessness: Rather than being a negative experience, it has become an opportunity for me to be mindful in and amongst the chaos that is 3 children and life.

12/04/2024

Reality: First up, let's address this idea of needing to be fixed. No one "needs to be fixed" because no one is "broken". Feeling anxious, depressed, angry, being diagnosed with a mental health disorder and/or engaging in maladaptive coping strategies do not make you broken. All it means is that you are struggling right now and could use a hand to navigate what's going on and to find more adaptive coping mechanisms.

But! Therapy isn't a magic fix and therapists aren't magicians with all the answers. Clinical psychologists have mental health knowledge and are skilled in evidence based therapeutic strategies. However, everyone is different and strategies need to be tailored to each individual and their circumstances, needs, and life stories.

Therapy provides a safe space for exploration to help both you and your therapist develop a shared understanding of how things got to where they are. You and your therapist work collaboratively to explore and implement evidence-based and individualised strategies to address your needs and work towards improving your quality of life.

Just like physical fitness, you've got to put in the hard work to get mentally fit 💪🏽 I believe in you and I know that you've got this 💪🏽

11/04/2024

Reality: Mindfulness is the practice of being present in life. Whilst meditation exercises can be an excellent tool for practicing mindfulness, it is not the only way to be mindful. Meditation can also feel ineffective or impractical at certain times; think times where you're already really agitated or when you're in the thick of work. For some, meditation can be difficult to get into and/or ineffective.

You can be mindful and practice being present whilst actively engaging in tasks. This is called: active mindfulness. All you need to do is to pay attention to what you're engaging in with openness and acceptance. Fully engage in your movement and the environment you're in with your senses (touch, smell, taste, sight, sounds) without judgement. This could look like running a mental spiel on what you're doing, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling (tactile AND emotionally).

Apply this to any activity you are engaging in, whether it's eating, walking, riding a bike, lifting weights, cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, or even folding laundry.

Try it out and let me know how you go 🤍

11/04/2024

When anxiety hits 🥴 it's easy to get frustrated with our minds 🧠 and to blame our brains for not working like it should. The reality is, your mind is doing it's best to help and protect you 💟 Well at least it's trying to 😅 See our minds are programmed to problem solve, look out for us, and make sure we survive. And sometimes that can look like overestimating risks around us and making us feel anxious, so that we do less and stay safe ✅
So the next time you get anxious, maybe try being kind to your mind: Thanks for looking out for me and letting me know that this could be scary. But I've got this.

Dr Daphne Bryan

05/01/2025

09/07/2024

04/07/2024

03/07/2024

03/07/2024

24/06/2024

06/05/2024

28/04/2024

14/04/2024

12/04/2024

11/04/2024

11/04/2024

Address

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share

Category