Marianne* asked me if it would be okay if she brought her husband Robert* with her when she came to see me. “The thing is”, she told me, “I’ve got no idea what it is I’m doing because I’m asleep through the whole thing. It’s Robert really who’s there for it”.
News that the NHS is opening a National Problem Gambling Clinic for children and young people aged 13 to 25 has brought childhood gambling into focus. But why do children start gambling, and what signs should you be on the look-out for?
I’ve written before about orthorexia, where the wish to eat healthily actually shades into an eating disorder. Well now I’m writing about orthosomnia – where trying for a good night’s sleep actually becomes a problem.
Back in February 1990 the world looked on amazed as Nelson Mandela walked to freedom out of Victor Verster Prison. However, a sizeable number of people were profoundly shocked, as they distinctly remembered him dying in prison years before. This false memory was so compelling it’s led to an idea called the Mandela effect.
Hangovers bring many things – dehydration, headaches and nausea but also feelings of anxiety and guilt. This ‘hangxiety’ isn’t simply caused by what we can or can’t remember doing – it’s the way alcohol physically changes our brain.
“I don’t even think that I should be here if I’m honest” Barry* told me. “My wife said that I should see you about my thoughts, but to be honest I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them.”
“Did you know you only use 10% of your brain?” is a recurring factoid about our most mysterious organ. In fact, studies have shown that pretty much all of it is in use all the time, even when following the plot in Midsummer Murders. But what about people who have a large percentage of their brain missing?
Social media may be able to bring people together, and it may be able to help them stay in touch. But it’s also the case that it can enable bad behaviour in new and fresh ways as well. And ghosting, bread-crumbing, cloaking, and EMGs are all these.
I’m contacted by a lot of people who say they have dental phobia. A large number of them turn out to not like going, but it doesn’t stop them seeing the dentist or having work done. Alan* though was at the very opposite end of this reaction.
Many of us have been lucky enough to chance across an experience where everything just seems to flow, and perhaps even seems effortless. Unsurprisingly those times are really good for us – so how can we make them happen more often?
