Our Psychologist Ailsa answers your questions below about alcohol use and Covid-19.

1. Are you surprised that alcohol consumption has increased among Australians during the pandemic?

2. Why is this dangerous?

3. What are some strategies to help lower/take control of consumption?

Remember when I said that we had big things coming this year? This was not what I meant.

If you read my last blog, you will recall that I outlined a list of changes happening within our practice to manage Covid-19. Since my last blog, things have changed again considerably, so I thought it might be a good idea to share another update with you all.

What a day! What a week! What a year! 2020 is really something isn’t it?

I am not sure about you, but over the last week or two, there haven’t been many conversations in my life that haven’t related to Covid-19. Never have we faced a situation quite like this before. It all feels quite surreal!

With all of the talk about the Coronavirus at the moment, our stress levels as a community are high. You cannot turn on the TV or radio without hearing the latest headlines about Coronavirus.

Our kids are not immune to this. They may hear stories on the news, or from their friends at school. This can be scary and confusing for them.

To all of our valued clients,

We appreciate the growing concern and uneasiness that some of you may be feeling towards the COVID-19 outbreak. If you were worried about whether your care can continue with us through this period, please rest assured we are still open and ready to look after you.

This month the MHC family are focusing on going back-to-school and all that it entails from school lunches to separation anxiety. In this blog I would like to discuss what parents need to look out for in regard to their child’s mental health and how they can help to build resilience in their child and/or children.

Establishing healthy eating patterns with children as they enter school can be really challenging. While school can bring a welcome routine for families, it can also bring stress and anxiety at either end of the day – and this in itself can make it difficult for children to eat. Potentially bearing this in mind – that stress and anxiety can have a huge impact on a child’s willingness or ability to eat – can be really helpful for parents to remember. If we can keep mealtimes calm, then kids are more likely to eat. But if we are hurried and trying to force out kids to eat, then it can discourage them to eat because it makes them more anxious.

1 Have a routine

2 Talk about anxiety

3 Use strategies

The word ‘diet’ is often linked with restrictive eating – no white foods, carbs, no fat – and the list goes on. Unfortunately, such restrictive eating patterns often backfire, creating a destructive role of bad feelings and negativity. Truth is, the word ‘diet’ encompasses all of the food and beverages you ingest, whether healthy or not. So every one of us is on a diet. But not everyone is eating mindfully.

It’s that time of the year when everyone is working on their ‘New Year’ resolutions… Would you believe going on a ‘diet’ or getting ‘fit’ to lose weight is at the top of everyone’s list AGAIN… YET AGAIN !

In the Non-diet approach "exercise" is called different things. One of the names I love is "Joyful Movement". This encapsulates the idea that we can find activities that we love, that make our bodies feel alive, energised, vital. Often people feel that to lose weight they must exercise, do XXX calories per day at the gym, coupled with restricting food calories. But in most cases these regimes leave them feeling exhausted, depleted and demotivated because all their hard work is not translating to weight loss on the scales.

With numerous bushfires still burning across the country, our stress levels as a community are high. Even those of us not in immediate danger are upset about what’s happened and worried about what lies ahead.

Our kids are not immune to this.