I’m a keen runner but have been carrying an injury for the past couple of weeks so have not been doing my normal 2-3 morning runs per week. I have noticed an impact on my mood and also an increase in my agitation which I’m guessing is partly the result of my decrease in physical activity. I know people often say that exercise is good for our mental health but why? This short YouTube clip gives a good introduction to the positive impact of early morning exercise…
Cognitive Defusion
This concept has appeared a number of times this week in my work with clients. The idea is that emotional difficulty can be influenced by our ability or lack of to defuse from negative thinking. In conceptualising our mind as a separate entity to ourselves we can watch it create thoughts and stand back from them. Our thoughts can be powerful and can often feel like truths or facts which inevitably can cause us pain. If we can learn to take a step back to notice that our thoughts are simply a product of our mind and not our reality we can also emotionally detach. Ultimately our mind is doing what it has evolved to do, our negative thinking is an attempt to protect us however to much fusion with negative thinking can cause us distress. Dr Russ Harris explains this well in the following You Tube clip.
