Deirdre Walsh – Integrative Health Coach

If I was standing in my childrens’ shoes and thinking about what excited me enough to devote years of study to, it would be neuroscience.  I am fascinated by the workings of the mind and the brain and how they affect so much of our experience of life. More often than not the books stacking up in my reading pile are about the wild reaches in the mind-body connection.

A decade ago the prevailing belief was that our brain was fixed as we left childhood, or perhaps adolescence.  Any of our experiences later in life left little trace in our brain, beyond minor alterations in neural connections or cell death.  But the new thinking is that the brain continually changes as a result of our experiences—whether through fresh connections between neurons or through the generation of utterly new neurons.  Read the rest of this entry →

Our lives are filled with stress, no doubt about it. When you’ve taken on a big slice of life you have things.to.do. and not.enough.time to do them. If ‘being stressed’ was an item on our to-do list, we’d go to bed every night feeling complete and accomplished.  Read the rest of this entry →

Welcome to 2012!  Best wishes to all of you resolving to create a new style of health this year.  Heaven knows the gluttony of the season pushes most of us into a treat fatigue and lethargy that doesn’t look or feel good.  I’m sure I’m not the only one who remembers moments of jamming something in my mouth, hoping no one saw.  I always feel by New Year’s Day that I’m disconnected from the nourishment of food and exercise.  It’s the novelty and mood-changing abilities that I’ve been after – (ahem) chocolates and wine.  Read the rest of this entry →

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. – Rumi

You’re excited about a new direction for your health – get better sleep, look for a job that is more in line with your evolving self, figure out what foods really work for your body, whatever is lighting up your future. But put a toe on the start line and there’s this voice that pops up in your head, reminding you of how you’ve tried this before, how it didn’t work then and how it won’t work now. The voice can be nasty or oh, so concerned, but it’s still telling you that you’re not up for the job.

What you’ve done is awoken and frightened your inner critic – that protective voice that rings from the past. Read the rest of this entry →

A kind friend (and lovely soul) sent me a poem this week on how illness and suffering can help us remember our best self – our compassionate, patient and accepting self.  Illness is never a welcome guest. It throws our daily lives into chaos and forces us to strip away the fluff. But we have so much time and energy invested in the fluff that its removal adds yet another layer of anguish to our days. All the things we should be doing . . .  What will I miss? What will I lose? Read the rest of this entry →

Another Valentine’s Day has come and gone, bringing a range of experiences and emotions for those in intimate relationships and for those that are not. With the emphasis on mind-reading that the day brings, I admire the brave souls who dive headfirst into the celebration of this thorny day. My son was asking me what females (let’s be honest, girls) really want on V-Day. A little surprised, I was very honoured that he would consider me an expert. We decided was that the best thing for V-Day was a meaningful gesture that reflected the intensity of the relationship that was also fun and a bit out of the ordinary. Read the rest of this entry →

I’m seeing mindfulness and meditation popping up in self-care articles more often in magazines and online media.   A recent study that got a lot of press showed that people in an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) increased their gray-matter density in the hippocampus (an area of the brain known to be important for learning and memory) and in brain structures associated with self-awareness, compassion and introspection.  The authors concluded that people practicing meditation for about 25 minutes a day are able to play an active role in changing their brains for the better and improving their well-being. Read the rest of this entry →