My Quest Hub
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News
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Pandemic Learning & Living
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- Articles coming soon
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Trevor Silvester
- Anything more than Nothing is Something
- The Freedom of Restraint
- Words on the Way
- Ready Fire Aim
- Difference makes a Difference
- The Problem with Love
- What is Therapy?
- Be Your Destiny's Parent
- Change yourself because
- Life is Hard
- Turn Failure into Success
- Lessons from a Dog #231
- The Disappointment of Personal Development
- Change Who You Are
- Create the Right Time for Change
- Bitter Sweet Mindfulness
- Exploring the Shadows
- Are you holding on or letting go?
- I'm Sixty is it all over?
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Features
- World Kindness Day
- Mind Over Fertility
- Exploring metaphors to help break the cycle of OCD
- A Hearing Loss Journey
- Altruistic August
- Navigating Social Anxiety on Friendship Day
- Unlocking Healing for PTSD
- Moving Towards Mental Wellness
- Unveiling the Impact of Micro-Stresses on Our Lives
- How Cognitive Hypnotherapy & Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) can assist those Dyslexic Individuals with Low Self Esteem and Confidence
- Time to Talk Day 2024
- Turn Ambition to Achievement
- International Men's Day
- Kindness: It’s contagious. Be a super spreader!
- Looking After Yourself When Your Child Is Struggling - Self-Care for Parents
- Refugee Week
- The Benefits of Volunteering
- World Laughter Day - 7th May
- Screen-Free Week, 1st – 7th May 2023
- World Smile Day
- How we can become the best dad we can be whilst maintaining our mental health?
- Kindness is a Superpower
- Coming together despite driving us apart - Therapeutic reflections from teaching during the pandemic
- Grief and Bereavement
- Love is Love
- Men's Mental Health
- Freeing the child within
- Learned Helplessness
- How Strengthening your FOUNDATION can change your life
- Scaffolding
- It’s Time to Talk – How to get men talking about mental health problems?
- Achieving Freedom
- Your Own Natural Pace
- Can't Shan't Won't
- Running - an uphill battle
- Is your Librarian Stressed?
- Why Smiling is Good for You
- You can choose your friends
- Labels
- Create the Headspace
- Change your Thoughts, Change your Reality
- Belief Triangles
- Are your Red Boxes past their sell by date?
- All you need is Love
- The Spin Cycle of Everyday Life
- Tales of the Unexpected
- Problems come from your past, not your present
- Mind Travel
- Don't Kill your Dragons
- I'm OK are you OK?
- Cannabis: Addiction or Dependence?
- Don't fear change, change your fear
- How to be Certain about Uncertainty
- The Search for Something Bigger
- What have the Romans ever done for us?
- Blueprints
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Personal Stories
- Personal Insights into a Breast Cancer Journey
- We are all fellow strugglers
- How I healed my OCD
- Work in Process
- Talking for Ted
- Facing your Fears
- The Magic Happens outside the Comfort Zone
- Nearly always look on the Bright Side of Life
- Vision Quest
- On New Year's Day I realised my worst fear
- Embrace your Space
- Tree Uprooted
- Why Cognitive Hypnotherapy?
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Metaphor & Poetry
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Random Acts of Kindness
- Chaos, Kindness and Satchmo
- You can't get on with everyone..
- Freeze, fight or flight! - choosing an Act of Kindness
- A Friend in Need
- Random Acts of Therapy
- No Time to be Kind?
- Stressing the Kindness
- Can one person make a difference?
- Should Kindness be one of your 5 a day?
- Tame your Teenager with Kindness
- To be Kind or not to be Kind
- What has Honesty got to do with Kindness?
- The Power of Compassionate Listening
- Unexpected Kindness
- How to be Kind at Christmas
- Be Kind - a Revolution in Mental Health
- What IS a Random Act of Kindness?
- Jelly Fishing
- Twelve Random Acts of Kindness
- All the Lonely People
- Oh No Here comes Christmas!
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Specific Challenges
- How Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapy helped me regrow my hair after total alopecia…
- The Agony and Indecision of Reaching the Make-or-Break Stage in a Relationship
- The 3 Reasons Why Relationships Breakdown at Christmas
- Menopause Awareness Month
- Gambling Your Life Away: How to Overcome Issues with Excessive Gambling
- Therapy and Autoimmune Disease
- Alcohol Awareness Week
- Cancer is as Much an Emotional Journey as it is a Physical One
- Dry January
- How I healed my OCD
- Sports Hypnosis
- Three Quick and Easy Ideas to Manage Stress
- Cool Ideas for Hot Women
- The Stress Factor
- Thinking Slimmer
- PTSD & Trauma Recovery
- Student Case Study – A Blood Phobia
- Time Travel to Success - a case study
- The Rejection Advantage
- Limited Loop of Beliefs
- Do you need to be liked?
- Arachnophobia - a case study
- Confidence
- Relationships
- Real Hope for Smokers
- My Friend Stress
- Adverse Childhood Experiences
- Addiction Illusions
- Anxiety & Depression
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Practical Help
- Sleep
- The Universal Breath
- Battling Stress
- Menopause, The New/Old Hot Topic
- What Can I Do About Suicide
- Self Harm Factsheet
- What is resilience, and why do we need it?
- 100 Happy Days
- WOOP Goal Setting
- Your Best Interview Mindset
- Small Steps to Big Achievements
- Five Statements
- Manage your Risks
- The Double Age Rule
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Watch and Listen
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Children & Young People
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Connecting with Nature
Three Quick and Easy Ideas to Manage Stress
While we can’t control what life throws at us, there is a lot we can do to take charge and feel more in control so that stress doesn’t negatively affect us.
Here are three quick and easy techniques which you can use anytime, anywhere.
1. Measuring your Stress Levels
Imagine a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 means that you are not stressed at all and 10 means that you are so overwhelmed you struggle to cope.
Either draw it out and keep it somewhere you can see it, or do this in your mind. Answer this question “How would you rate your stress levels?” There is a ‘sweet spot’ of stress, so anything below 5 could be considered as a normal level. If you notice that you are 5 and above, you know that you are edging towards too much stress. Do this exercise daily to analyse your stress levels. If you are out of balance or feel too much stress, try the below exercises to feel better again.
2. Pursed lip breathing
- Sit comfortably either on a cushion or a chair with your shoulders relaxed and your hands folded gently over your stomach.
- Close your eyes, if you can.
- Breathe in through your nose for a count of 5.
- Breath out, through pursed lips, naturally until all the air has left your body.
- Repeat for 2 to 5 minutes or until you feel calmer than you did before.
3. HeartMath
HeartMath Institute in the USA has done considerable research into the function of our hearts. They found that we can use our heart to reduce stress and anxiety naturally. Just by taking 5 minutes per day to do this exercise can considerably reduce stress levels and begin to build resilience for future stress.
- Sit comfortably either on a cushion or a chair with your shoulders relaxed and your hands folded gently over your stomach.
- Close your eyes, if you can.
- Breathe in through your nose for a count of 5.
- Imagine dropping your attention from your head to your heart.
- Focus on the area of your heart. You might even want to place your hand on your heart if it helps you.
- Focus on your heart for 2 to 5 minutes
- Take a few calming breaths at your own time and pace.
- Open your eyes. Rate your stress levels.