With its persistent and inevitable day-to-day manner, Life has trundled along these past few years, bringing with it highs and lows, happiness and sadness and a whole lot of learning. Without getting too deep into what has happened, for fear of a five part novel length story, it’s safe to summarise the past few years as challenging, enlightening and full of change. And along with it, I have decided to revamp this blog, to reflect these changes and include the wonderful new things I have learnt!
I used to have spectacular interest in Psychology and our brains, of why we think in certain ways, feel certain things, and how our mind functions on the daily. Naturally, I chose to study Psychology at university, which seemed like the obvious choice. Unfortunately, I really did not enjoy the courses offered, nor did they align with the type of content that fascinated me.
Despite a few (okay, MANY) breakdowns and threats to drop out of university, I completed my undergrad at UCT, got my certificate and swore I was done with studying. And I suppose I was, in that type of context. I thought I had completely lost my love of psychology and learning (being squashed under unnecessary statistic courses and monotonous slide-show lectures), but over time I have discovered my love of learning was still here, burning brighter than ever. It just didn’t exist in the form of lecture halls and excel spreadsheets at 8am everyday.
Now, I reading and researching about the brain, the mind, the body and all the connections between them, and am loving every second! Whereas I used to dread lectures and learning, I now wake up excited to gather more information!
Maybe its the slight difference in content (I now get to choose what I teach myself, and you best believe there’s no stats or maths anywhere in sight), or maybe its the fact that I can roll out of bed, make a coffee and learn everything while still in my pyjamas! Whatever it is, I am happy I’ve found subjects that excite me, and am keen to share the interesting things I learn, and how they are helping my mental health! Who knows, maybe they’ll help you too.
For example, I am reading about the connection between our thoughts and emotions (that move within our brain as chemical messengers) and how they cause the release of certain hormones, which in turn impact our minds and bodies! So negative thoughts and emotions actually have negative mental and physical impacts, which we can actually learn to control and reduce! It’s amazing the power we actually hold, to improve our thought patterns, and as a result, our overall mental and physical health! Obviously this all takes a LOT of time and dedication, but its possible!
I am looking forward to learning and sharing more of what I learn and experience, and maybe you’ll gain some insight along the way! If not, at least you’ll get a semi-entertaining read out of it! See you in the next post 🙂