Woody Wonders

Say hello to your new BFF's - endorphins and power ironing I'm sure you've all heard of endorphins but here's a quick little re-cap.  Endorphins are neurotransmitters, in other words they transmit electrical signals within the nervous system.  They help to reduce our perception of pain and act in a similar way to drugs such as morphine and codeine.  Woo hoo!! It gets even better because we can give our endorphins a helping hand when it comes to releasing them.  A number of activities can cause their release but for the purpose of today's blog we'll be focusing on exercise. Endorphins trigger a positive feeling and for those of you who exercise on regular basis, you'll be used to how good you feel afterwards and that 'exercise high'. Exercise is a vastly under utilised 'prescription' for mental health issues and mild depression and, over these last few months, I've realised how important it's been to me and my fitness clients and group...

What does positive mental health look like? As we near the end of mental health awareness week, it's made me think about my own mental health. I consider myself to be extremely lucky in that I've never suffered from depression or any kind of mental health issues.  I'd go as far as to say that I believe I'm incredibly strong in terms of my mental health.  Why?   Is that down to my genetic make-up or is it the things I do in order to keep a positive mindset?  A combination of the two?   I simply don't know.   A number of years ago I lost both my own sister and my sister-in-law within 3 weeks of each other.  If that isn't a good enough reason to be depressed then I don't know what is.  But, even though I had some horrendously bad days and was incredibly sad, I don't think I ever felt depressed.  I remember one particular day where I sat in my dressing gown all day and cried.  I also remember thinking to myself "this is ...