Children and teenagers have been out of school longer for than ever before and returning to an environment that looks very different. The imminent return to school will bring with it excitement and purpose. Some children and teenagers will be looking forward to reconnecting with friends and may enjoy the structure and routine offered to them once again. For others, however, the experience will feel daunting and anxiety-provoking and the challenge will be experienced with trepidation and...

We all speculate about the meaning of our dreams. Are dreams simply replaying the experience of our waking lives? Or do they have a deeper meaning? I discuss the latest sleep science which has shown that dreaming puts your brain through therapy every night while you are asleep. We dream to forget, or strip away, those painful, emotional and traumatic experiences from our memory. Dreaming looks after your emotional well-being and protects you against developing emotional disorders like PTSD....

Why is movement so important for our mental wellbeing? I discuss three ways in which exercise can boost your brain function and mental well-being and finish up with some strategies to help you move. Aerobic exercise promotes the growth of neurons by producing brain chemicals akin to a brain fertiliser. These new neurons can help you learn and change your behaviour to boost your mental well-being.  Exercise improves and prevents depression by targeting all of the brain chemicals...

Brain and mental disorders afflict 1 in 4 people worldwide. That is 25% of the world population.  When your brain is damaged, it can affect many different things, including your memory, your sensation, and even your personality. Brain disorders include any condition or disability that affects your brain. This includes conditions that are caused by illness, genetics and injury.

We are going to consider the three categories of brain disorders: brain injury, neurodegenerative disease and...

Your brain can change itself. That statement in itself is kind of amazing. How many machines or devices or computers or phones that exist that you know of can change themself? Well, the answer is none. There are no computers or machines out there that can do that, but your brain can.

It changes its structure and function in response to the experiences you have across your entire lifetime. Your emotions, your memories, your actions, all of your behaviours at any moment can change...

Let’s start by introducing the general layout of the human brain.  This layout is present from birth and is consistent in all animals from very primitive species all the way up to humans.

At the bottom an adult human brain,  we have the spinal cord which is bringing information into the brain and sending it back to the body. One thing to remember is that the closer we are to the spinal cord, the more basic functions are. We then have the hindbrain and the midbrain. And...

It’s a familiar story to many of us. It’s the start of a New Year and we promise to do Dry January, sign up for a new gym membership and commit to losing 10 pounds so we can fit into that new outfit. However, many of us find this sort of behaviour change really challenging, and we often fall back into our old drinking and eating habits before the month is out.

So why are habits so hard to break? How can we break unwanted habits? And how can we introduce new habits into our life?...

We sleep for a third of our life. That means if you are 80 you have been asleep for 27 years! But many of us give surprisingly little attention or care to our sleep. We should do however, because it is critical for our memory right now and later in life. 

In the 1950s, we spent, on average, 8 hours a night sleeping. In our modern busy lives, we only sleep for about 6.5 hours. That is 1.5 hours of sleep per night lost in 70 years.

This neglect of our sleep is often the result of a major...

When we describe our emotions, we typically label them in a way that reflects how we feel: love, sadness, fear, happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, panic or depressed. But what causes us to feel an emotion?

To understand what causes you to feel emotions, we need to dive deep inside your brain to look at an ancient set of structures. The limbic system is one of the oldest parts of your brain (evolved in early humans). It is a group of brain structures that surround the brain stem, which...

Dr Zoe Webb, a qualified clinical psychologist, explains how you can become a clinical psychologist. Zoe answers the most important questions about training and practicing as a clinical psychologist, including:

1. What is a clinical psychologist?

2. How do you train to be clinical psychologist?

3. What attributes do you think you need to be a clinical psychologist?

4. Do you have to pay for your training? How much does it cost?

5. What is the difference between a psychiatrist and clinical...