Helen O' Connor
BPS Chartered Psychologist and HCPC registered psychologist. London, UK. Applied focus on interventions for emotional and mental wellbeing, addictions and substance misuse. REBT, Motivational Interviewing, group-work. Interested in athlete mental health/wellbeing, PED and steroid abuse, exercise dependence, and overtraining/burnout. Research interests - common factors in psychological interventions, practitioner fidelity and competence, REBT, single-subject methodologies, hermeneutics
@psycurious
Article
Whether for exams or general school or university studies, it could be important to schedule time for exercise as well as for homework and revision. Exercise can not only help you concentrate and remember information better, it can also help you sleep more soundly and cope with the pressures of...
Article
Although there might be a general relationship between our age and how efficient our brains are, what seems to matter more than our actual age is how healthy our brain is. So what can we do help our brain remain as healthy as possible as we get older? Exercise, particularly cardiovascular exercise,...
Article
Advertisers are experts on human motivation and decision-making, using psychology to get us to buy their products or use their services. Take a look at these two commercials for mouthwash. Aside from any brand loyalty you might have, which of the two would be more likely to motivate you to...
Article
I do a lot of work in health behaviour change in the NHS and one of the main goals for my clients is to get a healthier weight through being more active and eating more nutritious food (I hate the word 'diet'). Essentially they are trying to develop new healthy...
Article
I was reading the book Bounce: How Champions are Made recently, and the author mentioned a Michael Jordan commercial for Nike from several years ago. Watching the commercial again, I realised how powerfully it demonstrates the importance of accepting failure and setbacks as we strive for greatness in whatever we...
Article
Last year several newspapers reported the failure of a randomised controlled trial to identify any additional long-term benefit of 'facilitated exercise' over and above conventional care (such as counselling and medication) for people with depression (Chalder et al., 2012). These findings were reported with dramatic headlines such as 'Exercise "of...
Article
There are many physical and psychological benefits of exercise, so it might seem paradoxical that there is also a risk that, at really high levels, excessive exercise may produce negative effects, including an unhealthy addiction to it. What is Exercise Dependence? A psychologist called William Glaser was the first to...
Article
About 18 months ago a high court rulingdeemed lengthy gym membership contract tie-ins unfair. This may well have been one reason for the recent increase (in the UK at least) of several low-cost/no-frills gym groups. For too long gyms have happily taken our joining free and monthly standing order whether we...