https://www.nhs.uk/every-mind-matters/coronavirus/covid-19-anxiety-tips/
We are approaching the autumn and winter a time when colds and flu begin again circulate. But the numbers of people getting covid-19 is increasing I’m familiar it’s going to bring back the anxiety and stress we have already felt
During the last two winters.
There are some very useful ideas in this NHS article
Over the years people have told us countless times about much of a difference being creative has made to them – through the social contacts made as well as the intrinsic pleasure of making or performing. A report we did with the Campaign to End Loneliness back in 2012 highlighted the already high levels of loneliness among older people. This is going to be a particularly hard time.
However, the wonderful world of creative ageing is already alive with ideas about how we can still bring the joy of arts and creativity
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And research suggests online cultural activities such as museum tours can significantly improve the mental and physical health of elderly people who are homebound.
“Our study showed that art-based activity may be an effective intervention,” said Dr Olivier Beauchet, a professor at McGill University in Montreal and lead author of a study published in Frontiers in Medicine.
Social isolation and loneliness, which are often more acute in older people, are as bad for health as long-term illness and can lead to premature death. Successive lockdowns during the pandemic only made things worse.
Researchers suggest that just one virtual trip to the museum a week could foster social inclusion and improve the physical and mental wellbeing of seniors.
If you feel old, lonely and wary of the internet, do what I did – learn Zoom | Esther Rantzen
The team recruited 106 community-dwelling adults aged 65 and older to investigate the potential health benefits of art-based activities. Half of the participants attended
And research suggests online cultural activities such as museum tours can significantly improve the mental and physical health of elderly people who are homebound.
“Our study showed that art-based activity may be an effective intervention,” said Dr Olivier Beauchet, a professor at McGill University in Montreal and lead author of a study published in Frontiers in Medicine.
Social isolation and loneliness, which are often more acute in older people, are as bad for health as long-term illness and can lead to premature death. Successive lockdowns during the pandemic only made things worse.
Researchers suggest that just one virtual trip to the museum a week could foster social inclusion and improve the physical and mental wellbeing of seniors.
If you feel old, lonely and wary of the internet, do what I did – learn Zoom | Esther Rantzen
The team recruited 106 community-dwelling adults aged 65 and older to investigate the potential health benefits of art-based activities. Half of the participants attended
I can’t afford to buy any crisps today I can’t buy any tea
But I just got an interest-free loan
If I can’t afford it now how can I pay it back?
Is this is Johnson’s last bad joke he does deserve the sack
They needbto be more cruel like in the general strike.
They didn’t care if the miners died or whether they had bikes
Boris Johnson come on now what the hell has Boris done.
He got himself a a daughter he got himself a son.
He has seven children anyway so it’s not new for him.
But it is new for Carrie and her pretty face looks grim
The women with no money keep their eye pencils for years
They get chronic infections that look like poisonous tears
Could they follow Jesus and love all humankind
What do you think you would do if you were going blind?
Comparisons are odious we were told at school
But I always like to see just home the rulers ruled
The mind that sees the mouth that speaks the area that listens in.
The body with its hormones songs for
blissful sin.
If you have no money they say you can have more
If you are a prostitute or just another whore.
On the road the car slow down the women raise their eyes.
Sometimes there’s a murderer sometimes there’s a spy.
She took him round the corner she couldn’t see a face.
That was the end for Julie Jay
She was buried wearing lace.
I emptied tomato sauce over my head,
Sent for the doctor and lay on my bed.
He spotted my hoax and ordered some curry
Thus encoated ,I now start to worry.
For, though a hoax ,it¹ betrayed real needs
I needed attention at record speed.
Surely an articulate woman like me
Can make to all a sensible plea.
Acting out is usually done
By those who privacy wish to shun.
But sometimes it’s tempting to throw a fit
And give the boot to our stiff upper lip
I recommend yoghurt and warm cherry pie
Spread it extensively round your eyes.
Call the doctor and say you’re hot
After all.who’s ever not?
Oh let me be neurotic in my way
I’m heterosexual but I’m feeling gay.
I like to meet a man
With a le creuset pan.
Because I’m far too mean to have to pay.
Will you be neurotic in your way?
Unless you are psychotic every day.
0 did you read Donald Laing
Hs methodology stang
You must decide whether you will go or stay.
Can I be sarcastic when we play
Sarcasm isvnot welcome when we pray
0h you are too dramatic.
You’re irony’s pathetic
You’re not a donkey so you cannot bray.
Sorry I can’t answer the phone
I am in Treeged
I am in Spired
I am in Domitable
I am in Attentive
I am in Doors
I have been fired and can’t afford to speak
Stop ringing me up.I am dead.
Stop asking me about that accident last week.It was deliberate
Stop asking me to give you a cigarette.I only know the missionary position:Jesus never smoked.
I do not want to become a Christian.I don’t believe in conversion.
Stop asking if I accept my sins are forgiven.I want to suffer guilt if I do wrong.
Stop telling me Jesus was the Messiah.I don’t believe in believing
I am an unorthodox Jew so I do odd things like watching burning bushes and writing on my Tablet.I have now got a new commmandment
Do not ill treat immigrants or people you wrongly call immigrants.After all one might be the Messiah or Satan.Or me or you one day
Oh,steam iron how I love your heat
And how you make my clothes so neat.
A flat iron is no use to me
No open fire is here,you see
And though I liked the flickering coals
I feared those faces that looked droll.
They were in the flames and peered
At anyone who ventured near.
I wonder how the people past
Kept their trousers neat and pressed
Now I’ve bought a hand steamer
To keep the germs off my femurs
I didn’t like to say,my crotch,
In case the devil is on watch.
I never ever used to think
My body perfume was distinct.
And yet it may appeal to men
I don’t want to try again.
One dear husband is enough
Though he did enjoy a cough
He had asthma and bad eyes
Looking out with wild surmise.
He saw my golden hair float by
As by his window it did fly
All at once he fell for me
And we sat by an apple tree.
His clothes were wrinkled so I thought
I would iron them for a start.
He could darn and polish floors
Cook lamb chops and apple cores
So my steam iron sees much use
I wonder if it’s self abuse
For as a woman feminist
I’m not meant to iron vests
I’m not meant to boil men’s socks
Nor their pants of interlock
I’m not meant to make them tea
What a naughty person,me!
I must confess these strangling sins
Then I’ll polish my old bin.
Satan wants me down in hell
Don’t say he needs my iron as well
As he was an angel proud
I’ll save him into One Drive Cloud
If I’ve got a new infection
Can’t you give me more protection?
My immune system’s gone on away
And I have to write a Play
No Shakespeare am I as yet
No bookmaker’s taking bets
But if I write a sonnet new
What will all the critics do?
Meantime I get up at night
Stumble to the bathroom bright
I don’t know why my pee’s so green
Now it is aquamarine
Green the sea at Hythe in Kent
Down the Saxon cliffs we went
The burning stubble , earth’s deep fires
The inner work that purifies
Steep,steep road in our old car
Smoke around us where we were
From the depths my soul cries out
The cry is answered , do we doubt?
As we reach the lowness deep
In our conscious mind we weep
When we touch the lowest place
We will feel, angelic grace
So the symbol of deep fires
Filled my mind as we drove by
Glory , for the Burning Bush
Burned again as stubble’s crushed
Destruction of all our intent
Is itself a sacrament
For it makes an empty space
Where new creation can take place
Why we shop is not so hard to know.
When we’re lonely time goes all too slow.
And in dark night a minute is an hour.
The faces on the wall now seem to glower
When there are no adults children sob
Maybe that’s why man created god.
0 I wondered what our mam bought in the sales
She always did annoy me with her tales
Here’s a woollen vest made for a boy
I’m sure it’s something that you will enjoy.
Here are shirts and trousers but no dress.
I
I felt into the bag, there’s nothing left
My face fell when I ran upstairs to bed
If you find it send it to my head
In the year 1989 I learnt that one of my students a young woman called Heather who was married to another student was diagnosed with cancer of the bone.. she had told me in the summer term that she had a pain in her thigh.
I think I may have told them if I had surgery on my foot in 19 78 for a tumour between the bones
When we started the autumn term Heather told me that she has cancer and she was going to the Royal Marsden hospital for treatment that was the end of September l
ByChristmas time Heather has died leaving a young husband devastated
Before she got so much worse I went to see her in her flat on about the 20th floor of a tower block.
She was sitting at the table Open in front of her a text book and she show me that she waskeeping up even though she could not come to the classes.
When I was coming back from seeing heather the last time I went into Marks and Spencer’s and bought a blue coat.
I had the urge to take something in because I was going to lose someone.
It would have been more rational to give the money to Jeather who was very poor or to donate to an appropriate charity.
I remember after leaving Heather’s tower block I had to walk along the street in a very rough area and young men were swearing at me even though tears were running down my face like rain.
But Heather had never complained about that. But I realise why she had bought a dog
If I had not bought the blue coat I suppose I would have forgotten about it but we don’t know do we ?
Why not buy yourself a brand new winter coat in your favourite colour even if you already have 10 winter coats
And since the autumn is coming on why don’t we subscribw to our favourite magazines as the weather gets bad and we can’t get out to the newsagents to buy them.
Doesn’t every woman deserve some new new leather boots for the winter even if it never snows where she lives.
Why bother to go shopping stock up your food cupboard or fridge when you can order a takeaway delivered to your door every evening?
Oh maybe one of your friends would like to eat in restaurant with you. You can pay with your credit card.
Why not start the academic year with a new watch so that you get to the lecture room on time and don’t take the students waiting.
If you work in an office that’s a reason to buy a new watch
Your sister will need one too.Buy online and have it delivered. You need to show how much you love her and you can’t see how to do it without spending a lot of money
Because everybody else including your sister will buy one and you can get some with red straps and red faces that will keep winter depression at bay. Though it might bring on panic disorder when you get new credit card bill and then you have to pay a therapist to help you with your depression
Then you might think why am I wasting money on the cheap therapist when I can spend 10 years in 4 times a week Freudian psycho analysis. That will help me to get to the bottom of why do I waste money on things I don’t need and it will also make me bankrupt at the same time
These are some common ways money can affect your mental health:
“
Fifty-eight percent believe there are important things they are unable to afford – putting money into a retirement account (38 percent) and life insurance (35 percent) were at the top of the list.For those who don’t have life insurance, the top reason for not having it was they thought it was too expensive (52 percent).
“People tend to overestimate the cost of life insurance,” said Ladder Co-founder Laura Hale. “Trading off a couple of smaller short-term purchases per month can support a monthly policy payment. It can give you the longer term satisfaction that comes from making sure your family is protected.”
The survey found that only 10 percent of respondents know that they could get life insurance in place in less than 15 minutes online.
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Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, The Times celebrated poetry. For instance, in “Broadway Is Closed. Write Poems Instead,” a piece published the same week the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, the playwrite Sarah Ruhl discusses the power of language to heal:
During the 1590s plague, when the theaters were shut, William Shakespeare apparently chose to write poems instead. From his “Venus and Adonis,” penned while the playhouses were closed and writers were essentially quarantined, came this somewhat strange compliment: “The plague is banished by thy breath.” Should we theater people — writers, players and audiences alike — be staying home now and writing and reading poetry as a curative for the next month? Books, unlike group events, carry no germs.
My own children’
Men work hard and long in the coal mines
While women kept their life good on the home lines.
Deep down underground
Values can be found.
In the heart not the sky our new sun shines
The back of the mind is so deep
We live there at night while we sleep
A theatre of sorts.
Where at night we are taught
Symbols and signs we will keep
What do we keep in the back of our minds?
Things to which we would like to be blind
Pull each one out
Do not ever doubt
Wisdom is wider and kind
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/well/small-talk-anxiety-strangers.html
Social anxiety is extremely normal,” said Stefan G. Hofmann, director of the Psychotherapy and Emotion Research Laboratory at Boston University. “As humans, we have a strong need to belong and feel part of a group.”
Still, knowing something is normal doesn’t make it easier. How can you coax yourself out of hermithood and talk to people when your social skills feel blunted by quarantine? Here’s some advice from people whose jobs require them to make friends with strangers every day.
all about how to keep warm if you’re at the point of cutting back on heating. But before you do, there are a few important things to consider:
Curried heels
Fried legs.
Marmalade on clothes
Wheat bricks with curdled ink.
Cornmates.
Worried oats with bunny
Wee or toffee always inimitable fright or play. 24 showers a day at least.
However folded rivers sigh
Watch fields of barley unreel red eye
Bad-mouth the world then eat the sky;
And thro’ the weald the toads run by
To moody glowering Havelot;
And chips in hand the fishes row,
Gazing as the matrix glow
Refine algebra with its flaws
The Geometry of My Blot.
Pillows quaver, aspirins quiver,
Little wheezes flush our livers
With two eyes mauve that gleam forever
By the cardinal’s email lover
Fleeing down to grab a phone.
Fifty shades of grey ,balls powered
Overload the ovaries
And the silent male implodes
For the Lady, will she Not?
At my jargon, pillows wailed
They read the heavy sheets in braille
Slow and blue the duvets failed
The dry mop shuttered silk and pale
Slapping down wi fi Hotspots
But which computer saw her glands?
Or at her thyroid wondered long?
Or is she known to heartless men,
The Lady M.A [aegrotat]
Only drapers, fold sincerely
In among the beds and parlours,
Hear a gong that echoes queerly
From the river bounding eerie
Down to showers for Camper’s Foot
And on the Lune, the sweeping fairies
Pile the leaves in uplands barely
Listening, whispers “‘Tis the lovely
Lady with a white Tea Pot.”
Should a doctor start up his own blog?
Or is it better if he walks his own dog
Today both is fine should he live alone
But don’t do it walking in fog
We once had a doctor called Twigge
Whose eyes were excessively big
His head was large too
As was his shoe
Nevertheless he could still dance a Jig
How my heart speaks 