Healthy Mind Marbella

25/02/2021

In my opinion, your mental health is just as important as your physical health. Do your New Year’s resolutions ever include getting yourself mentally healthy?

Mental health matters. If you don’t attend to your mental and emotional needs, your quality of life suffers; your work suffers; your relationships suffer; your physical health suffers.

granted. It’s not like a broken arm or a heart attack. There’s nothing visible to alert you that your mental health is suffering. Of course, there are signs, but you have to be paying attention. In fact, often people don’t recognize their mental health problems until they manifest as physical symptoms.

Common mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and stress often show up as physical health problems, including headaches, fatigue, muscle tension, stomach aches, heartburn, heart palpitations, changes in appetite, or trouble sleeping.

Often we try to deny our emotions and mental health problems. Unfortunately, there’s still a stigma that makes it hard for many of us to acknowledge and seek help for these issues. Sometimes we have a hard time accepting our own emotional pain, fearing it’s a weakness, and instead we push it down, drown it in food, drink, or other compulsions.

22/02/2021

The psychology of affairs and cheating
We know that over one-third of all marriages end in divorce and affairs and cheating is quite a big part of this sad statistic.

But what causes someone to cheat?

The truth is infidelity is a complex topic and, there are many reasons why people cheat and have affairs.

Monogamy as a cultural norm is a new idea
It’s important to remember that s*xual exclusivity is a relatively new idea and often thought of the ‘gold standard’ of relationships.

However, in centuries past, s*xual exclusivity was not assumed and, if someone had s*x outside their primary relationship, it was not a dealbreaker.

Today, if someone wants to be in a non-monogamous relationship, they are often viewed as having psychological problems or mental health issues.

But this is not the case.

The truth is, many people who want to negotiate a non-monogamous relationship are just as mentally well as the rest of the population and often have better communication skills, can manage emotions like insecurity and jealousy well, and can have long-lasting happy relationships.
When heteros*xual people pair up, they often assume monogamy and have difficulty changing this contract later on. Gay male couples typically navigate these issues much better and can negotiate open relationships that work for both partners.

Why do people cheat?
When someone has an affair, it’s a violation of the relationship contract.

Keep reading below in comment....👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

22/02/2021

22/02/2021

Falling in love
As “falling in love” can activate the reward system, some people compare the initial stage of falling in love as being similar to the high produced by co***ne — that’s because infatuation is characterized by intense cravings to see or talk to someone you are smitten by and the desire to be closer to him or her. When we are first falling in love, our attraction is driven by changes in our brain chemicals, including:

Increases in dopamine that motivate us to seek and maintain a relationship with a preferred romantic partner
Norepinephrine increases that give us a rush of excitement, nervousness, energy and motivation to pursue our romantic partner. This also produces physical symptoms like a racing heart, flushed skin and sweaty palms.
Serotonin decreases, which can improve mood. Serotonin is an important neurotransmitter in regulating mood, s*xual desire, and function, appetite, sleep, memory, social behavior and learning.
If you are newly smitten with your partner, you may see the person as doing no wrong or you might idealize your partner and neglect to see his or her flaws or negative traits. In that sense, it is true what they say, that “love is blind.” Despite the pleasurable and enjoyable state, infatuation is only temporary, and the elated and euphoric feeling wears off anywhere after a few months to several years – and it’s definitely not what makes people stay together for the long term.

22/02/2021

Valentine’s Day is the time of the year when we take the time to celebrate love and the people who are meaningful to us. Love — which could be defined as a field of resonating, often oscillating, and sometimes synchronous energy — is more than just a biological imperative to procreate.

Maternal love and bonding
Early in life, our first experience of love is through the warmth, nurturance, and affection we receive through the contact and touch from our mothers, fathers or another primary caregiver. During our infancy and childhood, warm, nurturing, and affectionate behaviors from our parents provide us with the capacity to form intimate, emotional bonds or relationships, called attachments, which shape how we form bonds with others throughout our lives.

Affectionate behaviors like touching, holding, kissing or hugging help to provide us with a sense of loving safety, and trigger the limbic system to release vasopressin, which helps us to form bonds, and oxytocin (“the love hormone”), which combats stress, promotes feelings of closeness with others and helps to soothe us.

Bonding during infancy is not only important for our survival; it provides us with the safety, comfort and security we need when we are stressed or in danger, and protects our physical and psychological well-being. Humans are not the only ones who are affectionate toward one another for the purposes of love and forming bonds. Tenderness can be seen among other mammals that form bonds with one another and display affectionate behaviors, like nuzzling in horses or kissing and hugging in chimpanzees.
The different types of love:

Maternal love is only one type of love that we experience in our lives. The different types of love involve different amounts of intimacy (trust, warmth, and closeness), passion and commitment.

Keep reading below in comment...!!!👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

22/02/2021

Modern Day Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

At the base of the pyramid are the physiological needs which include the very basics of food, water and sleep which physically keep us alive. Next comes Safety where we bring in the protection and security that we all have as a need, which could be to do with security in employment or safety in a home as part of a family. Next in the pyramid we have Love & Belonging where we have a need for friends, family and loving relationships. This level has expanded out recently I feel to Social networks,where we now all have the sense of Belonging with friends that we have on online social platforms, and being part of online social groups.Online, you may have a sense of belonging with someone you have never met, but built up an online friendship.
Towards the top of the pyramid we have Esteem which is all about self-esteem, confidence and achievement, and then Self-actualisation which covers personal growth and fulfilment when you achieve your full potential.
But in this world of the internet and dependence on being connected, where does the Internet and the ability to be connected fall inline.There are modern day needs that fall outside this 70 year old theory.Often on Twitter or Facebook you’ll see the tongue in cheek status update talking about which could be trivial problems like your phone running out of charge.This is really not a major problem, but in this era of connectivity to many this is a major problem and a breakdown of one of their major needs.Maybe there should be a modernised Hierarchy of Needs that addresses the dependence we have in our live on electricity and the internet which allows us to stay connected and in touch, whether that’s for our day to day work life or our home and social life.On reflection I am still amazed at the speed of change that the internet has brought to businesses and our personal lives,affecting the way we communicate, the way we share endless information about what we are doing,and the way we learn. Look back only five years ago at how different things were or try looking back at what you were doing ten years ago,then look back when you wouldn’t have even had a mobile.

10/02/2021

When you read the words “s*xual vulnerability,” what do you feel? For many of us, it triggers our innate gag reflex, and we think “s*xual abuse.” Many courageous women have come forward in the recent past to educate us about the ways s*xual vulnerability can be exploited by men in power. And while women are the primary victims of such abuse, they certainly are not the only ones. Thinking about it makes us sick. And in our efforts to contain and ultimately eradicate this devastation, women are cultivating their fierceness. Strong women are safe women. And safe is good. Except when it’s not. As a s*x therapist discussing the intimate details of women’s s*x lives for hours every day, I am often immersed in both the advantages and the disadvantages of female s*xual fierceness.

But it’s the disadvantages that can easily be misunderstood by women and men today. When women are determined to avoid feeling vulnerable in the context of a trusting, respectful long-term intimate relationship, passion and great s*x are easy casualties.

Vulnerability in general, and s*xual vulnerability in particular, is a key element of great s*x. After all, it is when we are vulnerable that we bring down any barriers we have between us and our lover. Being vulnerable means showing up as our most authentic, unprotected self. It creates those tender, exquisite moments in love-making when we are seen for who we are, and accepted. When our most personal selves are embraced, it can form the most healing, powerful moments.

Keep reading below in comment👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

10/02/2021

Understanding The Power of Meditation:

Tibetan monks meditate for hours upon hours each week. Their devotion to their religious traditions makes them experts in the practice of meditation.

Turns out those experts have a lot to teach us about how sustained mindfulness affects the brain.

Meditation and mindfulness induce a heightened state of awareness and focused attention. Various studies demonstrate the practice can help relieve stress — as well as manage anxiety, reduce inflammation, and improve memory and attention, to boot. Such striking results have many doctors, across specialties, prescribing meditation just as they would an anti-depressant or blood pressure medication.

08/02/2021

When you ask someone what it means to be vulnerable they oftentimes start talking about it as a synonym for weakness.
To be vulnerable means to be at risk of experiencing harm. In the military, vulnerability is a measurement for how likely it is for damage to be inflicted. If we fail to buy the proper renters insurance we are “vulnerable” to things like burglaries and floods. But, being vulnerable means something else when it’s placed in connection with human flourishing.
“Vulnerability isn’t good or bad. It’s not what we call a dark emotion, nor is it always a light, positive experience. Vulnerability is the core of all emotions and feelings. To feel is to be vulnerable. To believe vulnerability is weakness is to believe that feeling is weakness. To foreclose on our emotional life out of a fear that the costs will be too high is to walk away from the very thing that gives purpose and meaning to living.”

This is what empathy writer and researcher Dr. Brené Brown writes about in her wonderful book Daring Greatly.

Brown concentrates on two questions which she views as utterly dangerous and detrimental to the growth of individuals and society. Those questions are, “what should I be afraid of,” and, “who’s to blame for it?” We encounter a stressor which actives a flight or fight fear response and we want to kill the thing doing it to us. It’s a primal piece of our makeup, but it’s also a symptom of social manipulation. We’re taught to view the world in this way, and we’re taught that viewing the world in this way is the most natural way to experience life. But it isn’t. Researchers in empathy, community development, anthropology, social patterning, and psychological development, have shown us that “fight or flight” isn’t the only basic human drive. That competition and aggression are not our sole motivators. Sure, if your society is structured to reinforce those values, you’re going to end up inheriting the effects, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t more to us. The data is clear: we are social animals. Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics have been vindicated by modern behavioral and neuroscientific research: we do, in fact, exist for each other.
Keep reading👇🏼

08/02/2021

From time to time, everybody leaves a task lingering on their to-do list for a few hours — or days, or weeks — too long. Procrastination is a normal, near-universal phenomenon — which makes it all the more important to understand why it strikes and what to do about it.

“Procrastination is not just avoiding or delaying a task.”It also has to include an aspect that’s counterproductive, irrational or unnecessary.”

Those triggers typically fall into one of four camps: expectancy, value, time or impulsivity. other words, “People procrastinate because of a lack of value [associated with the task]; because they expect that they’re not going to achieve the value they’re trying to achieve; because the value is too far from you in terms of time; or because you’re very impulsive as a person.

Strategies for overcoming procrastination will vary depending on why it happens in the first place. “The first step is stepping back and figuring out what’s going on. Identify your own habits. “Is there one kind of thing you always put off to last? What is it that you tend to put off, and what are your thought patterns around that?”

Once you have a clearer picture of your own work or study habits, you stand a better chance of fixing them. Here, some common reasons you may be procrastinating, as well as strategies for combatting them.

If timing is the issue:
Many people are inherently more productive at certain times of day.Working around these natural productivity ebbs and flows when you schedule your days. “If you know you work better in the mornings on certain kinds of tasks, schedule it for then.
Don’t try to do it at a time when you’re tired and it’s harder for you to do.

Keep reading in comment below...👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

08/02/2021

Navigating the modern dating world can be a venture rife with disappointment and disillusionment. On the other hand, dating can lead to a lifelong partnership.

Sadly, for many it is more often the former. From dating fatigue to the sting of rejection, even the most confident daters are not immune to the negative effects of dating on psychological and emotional well-being. And for those who struggle with self-worth, these effects can be especially harmful.

Online shopping for mates

According to social researchers, “Online dating has produced some of the most profound and widespread changes to traditional courtship that have been seen in decades—namely, its effects on fundamental interpersonal processes.” And in an increasingly commoditized dating landscape, these changes are not always for the better.

According to online dating coach and founder of ProfileHelper.com, Eric Resnick, “[Swipe apps] have trained the newest generation of single adults to look at online dating as more of a video game than as a viable way to make a real connection.”

“We are in the process of redefining how humans communicate and potentially how we fall in love.”
When we spend the majority of the courting process using electronic communication such as text, all we are doing is projecting our insecurities onto a screen. “We are basically having a relationship with the most insecure parts of ourselves.”

A new dating language

This new language describes some of the toxic dating behaviors that have emerged as a result of online dating, including the following:

Keep reading below in comment.👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼