lifeaftercancer

3 Key Nutrition Principles

What is a healthy diet? It seems that are a myriad of new theories about what is best.

Keto, vegan, low fat, low calorie, high fibre,  Intermittent Fasting, TRE (Time restricted eating) – I’ve seen online articles about all of these in the last few days alone.

So how do you know which is best?

As always, I'm not going to tell you what you must do and what you mustn't do. I'm going to invite you to think about your nutrition. Is it serving your health goals? And if …

‘Happiness, happiness, the greatest gift that I possess’ 

I loved that song as a child, but back then I didn’t appreciate just how elusive happiness could be, both for me as an adult, and for so many people.

Most of us aspire to be happy and I have been thinking about why is it that some people just seem to go through life very happy, and some people don't?

What can we do about happiness? Is this something that we can create? Is it just something it's outside of our control if bad things …

The biggest issue that many cancer survivors face is Fear. And for some people that fear gets worse, and more life limiting after treatment has finished.

What can we do about that ?  Is it just something you have to accept ? That it's just the way life's going to be now after your treatment is finished?

A huge issue for a lot of people is fear of checkups and ‘scanxiety’, the crippling fear of going for scans, waiting for the results and not knowing if you are going to get bad news again.

So …

Self-love. That's a phrase that triggers a lot of people.

What is self-love ? Why is it important that you heal the relationship with yourself? Why is self-love so difficult for all of us?

The concept of self love is something that I've only recently learned, just how important it is to love and accept yourself. And I've come to realize that most people I meet don't even like themselves, never mind love themselves. And before we can talk about healing or changing anything in our life, we nee…

What's for dinner tonight? - That question used to drive me crazy - if my son or husband asked - in all innocence, I could feel my blood pressure and stress levels rising.

One of the most time consuming things can be deciding what to eat, espcially when you are following a healthy eating plan.

Thinking about food, planning meals, grocery shopping, preparing and cooking meals  - it all adds to 'mental overload' in a busy life - it's easy to become overwhelmed if you don't plan ahead.

One thing…

Is positive thinking enough to get you through a cancer diagnosis and through the treatment afterwards?

How is it possible to be positive when you feel bad?

When you've had that diagnosis that tells you that you've had cancer and quite possibly you may be going to die, how can you be really positive about that? I think it's a lot more than positive mental attitude that is going to get you through this.

The sad fact is we're all going to die sooner or later. Something we don’t like to think …

Stress

Why does stress make us ill? Is it true that stress causes cancer?

How can we manage stress?

Is it possible to avoid it altogether or can we make it manageable in our lives rather than letting it take over everything?

It seems to many people that stress is everywhere. It seems for a lot of people that stress is just ‘part of life’. We've almost become to expect that there's nothing that you can do about it. But is that true? I'd like to think about why we get stressed and what that …

Happy New Year!

I wanted to share a New Year ritual that I have that helps me to ‘draw a line’ under the old year just passed. I like to take down my old wall calendar and look at my paper planner (I am old school, I like to have a diary that I can write on!) However this works equally well with digital planners.

I like to take some time, over a cup of tea, and reflect on all the things that happened, good and bad, in the year just gone.

There are two things that always surprise me.

1. How mu…

1 Remember it's OK to feel down sometimes

Sad days happen to us all. It is temporary and is part of life. As someone who has suffered with depression in the past, I know how it feels to be down, but sometimes I just allow myself to feel a bit sad, I just don't stay in that place for too long. 

“Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

2 Look in the Mirror and Smile

Smiling releases neuropeptides, which help fight stress. Other feel-good hormo…