In recent years, conversations surrounding gender identity have become more prevalent, shedding light on experiences that were previously misunderstood or overlooked. One such experience is gender dysphoria, a condition where there is a conflict between a person’s assigned gender at birth and the gender with which they identify.

The summer holidays are a wonderful opportunity for children to explore the world outside, make new friends, and develop a range of skills. However, with the allure of screens and indoor comforts, getting them outside can sometimes be a challenge.

We all enjoy a holiday in the summer – a chance to get away from the monotony of everyday life and enjoy warm weather in another country. Holidays are supposed to be relaxing and enjoyable. However, for some children, holidays can cause a lot of anxiety.

When you start studying at university for the first time, it’s not uncommon to start feeling like you’re a fraud. It can feel like everyone else around you knows what they're doing, and you don’t. That you just happen to be scraping by, getting away with not knowing anything out of pure luck.

University life can be challenging, often filled with academic pressures, and social activities. Striking the right balance between work and personal life is essential to maintaining your mental health. Here are some practical tips to help you manage your work-life balance effectively.

According to research, about one in four university students feel lonely. University life is often portrayed as a vibrant social experience filled with new friends and exciting adventures. However, for many students, it can also be a time of profound loneliness. Here are some tips to help you navigate these feelings and make your university experience more fulfilling.

Going to university is one of the biggest transitions in a young adult's life, especially if it involves moving away from home to live in student halls or housing. This is a major step in gaining independence and becoming an adult.

Dealing with money and budgeting can be intimidating as a student, especially if it’s your first time moving away from home and paying for things like rent, bills, and groceries yourself. But there are ways to manage your finances and stay on top of things.

As we approach the end of another academic year, there will be many transitions to come for children across the country. Whether they’re moving from primary to secondary school, secondary to college, embarking on university life or simply moving up a year in their current school—we understand that these changes can bring a mix of excitement and anxiety.

June is Men's Mental Health Month, so now is a good time to focus our efforts on one of the most often overlooked areas: the mental health of teenage boys. Mental health issues and habits established in adolescents are destined to grow and develop into more serious issues in men, especially in a world with such high societal pressure on boys and men to keep their mental struggles to themselves and “suck it up”.

But what it is the freeze mode? Freeze mode is the body’s silent response to threat, whether this is real, a memory, or just imaginary.

In psychological responses to stress and trauma, the fight-or-flight reaction is widely recognized. However, there is a third, often overlooked response known as "freeze mode." This involuntary reaction, rooted deeply in our evolutionary past, plays a crucial role in how humans cope with extreme stress and elevated levels of anxiety.

The holiday season is an exciting time of the year, full of festive fun. However, no celebration is free everything comes with a cost, from presents to Christmas dinner, from New Year's parties to taking time off from work. All of this can add up to be quite expensive and leave you struggling in January. But there is no need to despair, there are things that you can do to manage your finances proactively!

If you are finding that money is tight in the New Year there are solutions to this, you need not cut out all luxuries. Budgeting is a useful tool in this case. Budgeting will help to break down all your earnings, necessary outgoings, savings and disposable income. Breaking this down into each part can help you see your financial situation to see what money is inaccessible and how much you can spend elsewhere. You can do this using a list or a spreadsheet, depending on what works best for you. This will reduce any anxiety about the unknown, laying out clearly what you must do and what you currently can and cannot afford to spend.

When we lose someone whether it’s through death or a loss of a friendship/relationship through rejection we can go from a place of contentment and happiness to instant sadness.

The pain of loss is as painful as physical pain as it activates the pain center in the brain and deactivates chemicals that make us feel good, like all is well.

This can make us feel anger and hostile, bio-chemically this makes sense. Anger blocks empathy. We can only give empathy when we feel safe and secure.

Grief is a change we were not ready or prepared for and can be seen as love with nowhere to go. We can go into ourselves to protect from further hurt or pain.

You can become quite defensive; this helps us to not feel others' pain while we are already feeling overwhelmed with our own.

The shock of the news can trigger the fight, flight and freeze response as we try to work out how we can continue going forward without that person in our life.

As we celebrate the year coming to an end, we look forward to starting the New Year. This is an exciting time and most want to go into the New Year on a positive note. However, this brings a lot of baggage with it as ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ can put pressure on individuals, this pressure can come from within, from others or society.

This being said New Year’s Resolutions can be a good thing if they are set with the right intentions. Anxiety can be a debilitating disorder and leave someone with only negative thoughts, so we must be careful to be kind to ourselves when planning our resolutions. This means that it is important to set goals that are actually achievable. Setting a strict unrealistic goal may feed into anxiety when it is inevitably not reached. However, having a good intention to stick to a more manageable resolution is more likely to be accomplished and, therefore, can help improve one’s self-esteem. For example, telling yourself that you are not ever allowed to eat chocolate again will only set yourself up fo failure, and the self-deprecating emotions that come with that. However, allowing yourself to only have one snack a day will be more achievable as it is not a sudden change and still allows you to treat yourself.

It’s Christmas time and it’s a safe bet that at some point in the day, you’ll see phones in hands scrolling. So this Christmas we challenge you to give a gift that cost you nothing, but is far more significant than anything else – the gift of being present. In our digital age, where countless distractions demand our attention, choosing to be fully engaged and attentive to our loved ones is not just a nicety, it's a necessity.

Christmas can be a very exciting time, full of magic, presents, relaxing, and lots of good food. While some children look forward to this time all year, others find the time away from their regular routine difficult and can lead to triggering or worsening of anxiety. Think back to when COVID-19 came into our lives and the schools closed. Perhaps you stopped going to work and were stuck inside for the foreseeable future. This may have been very enjoyable at first and then the lack of structure may have gotten to you. And you even might have found yourself creating a daily routine for yourself to break up the day. This is what we recommend doing for your children at Christmas. Remember: they have stopped going to school, they have stopped their afterschool sessions and clubs, and they have stopped seeing their friends regularly.

Christmas has always held an incredibly special place in my heart. It was clear that from a very early age, I was taught that family is an incredibly important part of Christmas, and I have carried that throughout my adulthood. When I was a child, my family was very close, and I therefore did not know any different than sharing that special time with both my mum and dad and my siblings all in one house.

Mindfulness is used to describe a more general approach to being aware of our experience in the present moment without judging it.

Mindfulness can help us cope better and can reduce anxiety as it helps to calm our emotions and handle stressful situations in a controlled way.

It’s about being present in the moment, here and right now achieving a higher sense of awareness.

Although meant to be a time of celebration, in reality, the lead-up to Christmas and Christmas itself can be a very stressful time for all… there might be;

Seasonal Affective Disorder, also known as SAD, is a mental condition often associated with depression, which interestingly occurs during specific seasons (the majority during winter or autumn) when the nights get longer and the daily light shorter. In adults, it is estimated that around 5% to 10% of the population may experience symptoms of SAD, with prevalence varying depending on factors such as geographical location, age, and gender.