With Christmas just around the corner it’s worth pausing for a moment and identifying self-care practices that can help protect your mental and emotional health and reduce the negative effects of stress during the holiday season.

There are so many wonderful ways to practice self-care like taking a bubble bath, switching off your phone but especially protective is the act of being mindful of the present moment. You could opt to pay attention to sounds surrounding you or the breath moving in your body. Mindfulness offers you a practice that is an inner-resource there for you at any time; any place, allowing you to become your own best friend.

Ingredients for a mindful moment include awareness of the present moment, self-compassion towards yourselves and non-judgement.

To think about how this could be beneficial for your health, consider mindfulness for a moment to be like gardening. If you were to tend to a garden and do some weeding every day for a short amount of time, you would become aware of what types of plants exist, what’s growing well, what not so well.

Similarly, if we tend to our thoughts and emotions through mindfulness we become more self-aware of what’s occurring internally, what needs more care, what needs pruning. Over time with this little bit of daily care, the garden becomes a calmer, less overwhelming, more spacious place to be and so too do our own lives.

Christmas is the season to eat, drink and be merry but as we know it can sometimes come with added stresses be they financial or emotional. Loss can be more acutely felt amidst this season of reunions and togetherness. Mindfulness doesn’t stop the stressful events from happening but it does offer you a chance to respond to stress from a calmer, clearer position rather than reacting from an overwhelmed one. For example if you are prone to using distractions to avoid stress – be that with food, shopping, alcohol or even your phone, Mindfulness can help you see and be aware of  this habit as it is happening and offers you the choice to choose differently.

So try a little bit today, sit comfortably, keep the time realistic and manageable, perhaps 3-5 minutes and connect to your breath. If you would like to practice a guided Mindfulness meditation you will find one on our website page. You are also welcome to attend Mind Body Ireland’s next  “Introduction to Mindfulness” workshop at Essential Wellness in the New Year!

Art Therapy can be a really good therapeutic option for children and adolescents who need help regulating their emotions.

Emotional regulation is a learnt skill that we begin developing in infancy but for a whole host of reasons we learn this skill at different rates and fine tune it again and again at various stages in life.

When emotional regulation is present children can tolerate disappointments and other minor stressors without becoming dysregulated. Many children and teens however find it challenging to regulate their emotions and unfortunately this can negatively affect their school work, friendships, family life and self-esteem.

Dysregulation can cause either hypo-arousal which results in a flattening of emotions or hyper-arousal which can appear like anxiety or behavioural meltdowns.

Art Therapy helps the body navigate its way from a place of constant emotional dysregulation towards emotional balance.

It has been demonstrated that art-making induces Alpha brainwaves which are associated with relaxation. There is also evidence that art-making reduces cortisol levels (stress hormones) in the body.

However a key factor for improving emotional regulation comes from the relational aspect of the therapy.

A child is supported by the Art Therapist as they put difficult feelings outside themselves onto paper. They can begin to see and know what they are feeling as opposed to acting out what they feel. Through this process they gain a sense of security by having their experiences seen and shared by the therapist. This internal sense of safety can have a wonderfully positive influence on their lives by reducing their sensitivity towards stress - helping them have other options other than dysregulation. 

If you would like to know more about Art Therapy and its role in emotional regulation please get in touch with your concern. 

Welcome to the

Mind Body Ireland blog!

For our first blog article we would like to answer some commonly asked questions about Art Therapy.

We hope that you find answers to some of your questions here but remember you can contact us at any time to speak about your personal circumstances and suitability for Art Therapy.

What is Art Therapy ? 

Art Therapy is a style of psychotherapy that utilises personal expression, imagination and creativity. It is often used as a mental health intervention. 

Similarly to talk therapy there can be discussion, sharing, problem solving and personal exploration - but in Art Therapy there is the addition of art materials to further help and guide this exploration.

The ability to verbalise inner feelings is not something that comes easily to everyone so this added mode of communication and self-expression can be very empowering and insightful.

Art Therapy sessions always move at a pace that suits the client and the form of therapeutic work with which they are engaging.  Following an intial assessment or parent consultation a tailored care plan that best suits the clients needs is put in place.

Art Therapy is a sensory experience and often times a person is using and moving their body and hands and engaging all of their senses. Just think about how cotton wool or cold clay feels, what memories flood back at the sight of wax crayons or whether the sound of water stirring sooths or not.  

This sensory aspect of Art Therapy aligns it with mind-body interventions which see the body and the mind influencing and effecting positive change upon each other.

Many leading trauma experts say that psychological trauma is non-verbal and its language is that of images and sensation. The sensory and visual qualities of Art Therapy lend themselves very much to trauma processing.

Maybe you've experienced at some point how difficult it can be to recall clearly or speak about overwhelming, stressful or traumatic events? Recalling such events in therapy can be equally as difficult but having art materials to hand in those moments can provide a stabilising and grounding experience for people. 

For more information on mind body interventions and trauma processing we recommend the book “The Body Holds the Score” by Bessel Van Der Kolk, it is a well worth read. 

Is Art Therapy Just for Children? 

No... both children and adults benefit from this style of creative therapy.

Art Therapy works verbally and non-verbally and so it is very inclusive and open to many different age ranges and personal experiences including anxiety, emotional dysregulation, chronic pain, low self-esteem, gender dysmorphia, birth trauma, bereavement and acquired brain injury.

Under 3’s can even engage in didactic therapy which involves the mum (or a main care giver) and baby partaking together and this can be a great therapy for mum and baby bonding.