Abigail's Anxieties

  Foods proven to reduce anxiety (featuring science) Image from NHS https://www.uhb.nhs.uk/hiv-healthy-eating.htm  It is currently estimated that each week, 6 in every 100 people in the UK are diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder, also known as GAD ( McManus S, Bebbington P, Jenkins R, Brugha T. (eds.), 2016) and that 18% of the population of the USA, around 40 million people, are struggling with some type of anxiety issues at any one time (Naidoo, 2019). While many will find their own ways of coping with their anxiety such as therapy and possibly medication, there is one way of helping yourself that many always look over; food and diet. Many a study has been carried out in many countries looking into the effects of different nutrients and food groups on peoples moods. I myself have even looked into it as part of my degree: BSc (Hons) Food Development and Innovation, and it will also play a part in my future research projects in my career. So with my experiences with fo...

 The best-laid plans... It is often said that the best-laid plans go awry, and in my case, it seemed that my plan for a come back to regular blogging had a little hiccup and so on the first scheduled Wednesday at 9:48pm UK time I find myself writing today's post.   But I can assure you that there is a pretty decent explanation as to why the writing is a little late. I actually had another post almost complete for you all last Thursday and was planning to have it finished Friday ready for today, but that plan definitely went very awry. On Friday 4th September 2020, I woke up with costochondritis pain yet again and prepared to have a day of taking painkillers, which trust me, got taken, to try and control it, but there was something very different about this pain, the main difference being that there was a pain in another part of my body, more specifically my lower right abdomen. This was immedietly where we (i.e. me, my mum and my dad) focused our attention to because this...

Feeling guilty for being chronically ill... But should I be? So in case you're new to this blog, I'm chronically ill in a few ways. A full list of medical conditions is as follows: Generalised anxiety disorder (GED) Moderate depression Asthma Fibromyalgia Costochondritis And unfortunately having the mix of all of these means that there are and many things I'm unable to do, not only for myself but for others around me. For example, I would often like to be able to carry things for my mum, but because of my fibromyalgia, I can't carry much with the pain in my back, shoulders and arms. I'm always being told it's okay that I can't do things like that, but it still doesn't suppress the guilt in me, especially when I see people struggling with something. As I write this, I'm in the tail end of a fibromyalgia and costochondritis flare-up. 24 hours ago I was in such pain that I just wanted to, unfortunately, end it all. I was also bu...

I'm on medication for my mental health, should I tell people? Now the answer to this question is obviously going to be different for each person. Some will say "I have nothing to hide, I'm happy for people to know" while others may say "I don't want to be judged for it, I'd rather not have people know", And honestly, when I first went onto my mental health medication, my answer to this question was a mix of both these answers.  It almost ended up sounding more like this: "I don't want to hide the fact that I'm on medication, but I am quite young so am I going to be judged for it? Is there even a good age to go on medication for mental health? But I don't feel like this is something I can keep to myself so I need to decide who to tell. How many people do I want to know?" and so on and so on... Many of you may be going through the same thing right now, some may just be interested in what can go through the process...

2018: somehow the best and the worst year of my life. But Abbie, how can something be both the best and the worst? Well, let's just say that 2018 wasn't exactly a quiet year in my life. (and it doesn't look like it's going to be much quieter at the end, seeing that as I'm writing this I'm stuck in bed with the worst cold I've had in years, coughing my lungs up, wishing for my eyes to pop out to relieve the pressure behind them...little TMI? Oh...okay...note to self; don't talk about eyes popping out of skulls or lungs being coughed up too much...anyway!) In January of 2018, I decided that it was finally time to explore my love of vintage fashion (that of the 1940's and 1950's) and well, it ended up taking over my entire wardrobe. Now in my local town and at university known as the girl that can always be seen in vintage clothing, making me easy to spot and often taking up a lot of room on public transport due to my love of giant ...

My new curly hair routine for 3A/3B curls So over a year ago, I did a post all about my  hair care routine  and explained how having good hair seemed to help me with my depression by lifting my spirits. Well since then I've done a heck of a lot of research into the best ways to care for curly hair as well as trying a few different techniques. Now along the way, there was lots of frizz, lots of knots but in the end, lots of good results. So I thought I'd share this new routine with all my curly haired friends out there and those who are intrigued by curly hair, which to be honest seems to be everyone in my life who doesn't have it. I mean, I even have complete strangers sometimes come to look and even try to touch my hair. No, not weird at all, go ahead random person I don't know, attempt to run your hand through my impossibly thick hair while knotting it up in the process. Just....just no.   Now, just a couple of things bef...

Dear body, why are you working against me? Do you ever feel like something or someone is working against you? Like it/they don't want you to do well or succeed in life? And that it/they will do anything to get in your way? Well, I feel like that right now. And this thing that's getting in my way? My own body. It started when I was diagnosed as asthmatic  which affects me a lot with physical exercise e.g. walking around and extream weather such as very hot and very cold affect my breathing so I have to use my inhaler but I've had it for so long I'm used to it. Then October 2017 happened and I developed costochondritis which I still have to this day. Most cases sort themselves out in less than a year or at least improved. My case has gotten worse over the past near year and my day-to-day life is affected. I have to take multiple breaks during the day just to give my body a chance to recover. I have to use so much more energy just to get through the pa...