Welcome to ‘And Breathe….’

Hi, and welcome to my new blog, which will help shine a light on mental health issues, in particular anxiety, panic and depression.

I have suffered with mental health problems since September 2015, when I suffered my first panic attack, which was caused by work related stress.

Since this time my battle has been long and arduous; I have had some good days and some really bad days.

With this blog I hope to raise awareness of the basics of panic, anxiety and depression and the effect they have on the mind and the body.

I am also doing lots of reading on the subject and will share thoughts and ideas from various experts.

I will introduce you to some therapies and practises that are not available through the NHS, and will take you on a journey which will hopefully make you think about your own attitude to both yours and others mental health.

“Some topics will challenge the normal way of thinking”

Some of the topics will challenge ‘The Normal Way of Thinking’ and you may think I have lost the plot on more than one occasion, but please believe me, when suffering is involved you want to try everything you can (that is not harmful or illegal) to try and reduce the feelings, and eventually fix it.

This is not just a blog for those suffering with mental health issues; I also want to help those who have a friend or loved one who is suffering, so you can understand a bit of what is going on, and what you can do to try and help.

You may be fine, you may have no mental health issues, and not know anyone who is suffering; this blog is for you as well.  Preventing mental health problems is even more important than dealing with them once it is too late.

A lot of the books I have read relate to what we learn as we are growing up, so teaching children things such as meditation, gratitude, patience, tolerance, and the importance of good nutrition and exercise will really help them in their future development.  With this I do not mean teaching children just to be good or bad, but to teach them how these things actually affect their mind and body both now and in the future.

Lastly, I am going to campaign for better health and well being in the work place.  More needs to be done to force companies to take mental health in the work place more seriously, after all, it is in their best interests because a happy workforce is a productive workforce.

This blog is a small part of a larger campaign that my wife, Kim, and I are going to be starting called ‘Body At Work’, which will deal with all aspects of health and well being in the work place.

I hope that you will find the blog interesting and informative?  Hopefully there will be a bit of something for everyone.

Thank you for reading, and I wish you all happy mental health.