Poor sleep is one of the most common health problems that can leave you feeling exhausted, stressed and run down.  Approximately one-quarter of adults in New Zealand may suffer from a chronic sleep problem, highlighting insomnia as a major public health issue in New Zealand.  

Everyone has the occasional night of poor sleep, or we find it difficult to drop off to sleep especially if we feel stressed or worried about something. Suffering from continuous poor sleep will often cause many other issues or conditions; impatience, intolerance, higher stress level, poor coping methods, overwhelmed, anxiety, inability to think clearly, lack of motivation, low energy, poor eating habits, lower immune system, poor health, generally feeling low or unhappy the list is endless.  

The symptoms of poor sleep are finding it difficult to fall asleep at night, waking up throughout the night, lying awake for during the night, waking too early, restless legs, night terrors and sleepwalking. As a solution focus therapy, time will be spent looking at how to find a realistic and practical approach to finding the solution and restoring REM (good sleep) as quickly as possible.  

It’s worth remembering; Everything you do in the day will affect your sleep at night.

Mindset & Solutions has a huge success rate of restoring good sleep, book to find out how.

We all suffer from stress and anxiety from time to time. Very often Stress & Anxiety are lumped together as the same thing, however they are not, in fact they are very different indeed. The same situation may cause ‘stress’ within one person and ‘anxiety’ within another.
It’s the mental and physical responses that show the differences between stress and anxiety.

Stress is the feeling of being under too much mental or emotional pressure. Pressure turns into stress when you feel unable to cope. People have different ways of reacting to stress, so a situation that feels stressful to one person may be motivating to someone else. How we deal with that stress is what can cause problems. When we are stressed, we are more likely to be exhibiting, anger, frustration, intolerance, impatience, sudden outburst, loud or aggressive communication etc. If left unresolved stress can often turn into Anxiety.

Anxiety is more of an internal expressions and symptoms of being unable to cope. Short term Anxiety can be useful and protective. Feeling nervous before an interview or exam may help feel more alert and improve performance.

However, if anxiety stays at a high level for a long time you may start to find it difficult to cope with everyday life. When anxiety becomes severe you may feel, powerless and out of control, nervous or anxious. If these feelings continue for a long period of time you may start to feel overwhelmed, and start to experience feelings of panic, if left untreated these feeling may develop into panic attacks.

There is a huge spectrum of symptoms that shows itself if someone’s experiencing some form of anxiety, ranging from, feeling tense or uncertain about a situation to being unable to breath during a full-blown panic attack.

Call to book a FREE initial consultation to see how Mindset & Solutions can help.

A panic attack is simply an exaggeration of the body’s normal response to fear, stress or excitement. It is a rapid build-up of over-whelming sensations: pounding heart, feeling faint, sweating, nausea, chest pains, breathing discomfort, feelings of losing control, blacking out or feeling like you’re having a heart attack, this can be an extremely frightening experience.

People begin to feel very scared and frightened of the panic attacks themselves and are forever living with the thought that an attack could arise at any given moment. Panic attacks do usually come on quickly and symptoms peak within 10 minutes, most attacks are between 5-20 minutes. Panic attacks can often occur whilst sleeping at night because the brain is on high alert due to poor quality sleep and an excess of anxiety.

A phobia is relentless dread of a situation or an irrational overwhelming and debilitating fear, the sufferer has created over something such as a living creature, a place or thing or feeling. They develop when a person has an exaggerated or unrealistic sense of danger about a situation or object. Individuals with a phobia go to great lengths to avoid a perceived danger which is much greater in their minds than in real life. Phobias are more pronounced than fears.

Call to book a FREE initial consultation to enable Amanda-Jane to create your bespoke 6 session therapy program to stop panic attacks.

Most of us have some form of light OCD or simply ‘quirky’ ways of doing things. However, OCD for some people it can be totally debilitating, taking up hours of each day. Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a condition where a person has obsessive thoughts and compulsive activity. An obsession is an unwanted and unpleasant thought, image or urge that repeatedly enters a person's mind, causing feelings of anxiety, disgust, or unease.

Symptoms vary greatly with each person, counting, tapping, actions, words, prayers. A physical action is created to help reduce the mental pressure created by the persons thought process. The more anxious a person becomes the more the OCD symptoms will show themselves.

Call to book an appointment to understand more at the FREE initial consultation.

Lots of clients come into the clinic feeling this way, they know they are not depressed, but something is not quiet not right, they’re not firing on all cylinders, life has become too difficult and an upward struggle. They have lost motivation, drive, ambition, and their sparkle. This could be for a number of reasons: relationships issues, workload, lonely, financial worries, boredom, poor sleep, challenging children, stress, the list is endless. Within a few sessions clients are able to feel brighter, happier, more motivated, taking control and enjoying life once more also looking into the future in a more productive and positive way.

Call took a FREE initial consultation, to help you get your sparkle back.

Self-confidence differs from self- esteem and are often lumped together as the same trait. Confidence is linked with the external world and how others see us; how we present ourselves and what we achieve. Self-esteem, however, is more about our own relationship with ourselves and how we feel deep down about who we are.
Self-esteem is the opinion we have of ourselves, this may be positive, negative or move between the two points.

When we have healthy self-esteem, we tend to feel positive about ourselves and about life in general. It enables us to deal with life’s ups and downs better. When our self-esteem is low, we tend to see ourselves and life in a more negative and critical light, finding it difficult or overwhelming to manage life’s sets backs or challenges. This negative thinking usually dictates how you live your life and the decisions you make and how you view others.

The beliefs you have about yourself often appear to be statements of fact, although actually they're really only opinions. They are based on the experiences you've had in life, and the messages that these experiences have given you about the kind of person you are. If your experiences have been negative, your beliefs about yourself are likely to be negative too. People continually compare themselves with those around them, highlighting our insecurities and often leads us to feel negative about ourselves and the way we live. We lose sight of the value of our own individuality and then feel inadequate and unsatisfied.

When low self-esteem becomes a long-term problem, it can have a harmful effect on our mental health and our lives. Today more than ever, we are finding low self-esteem or low self-worth often begins in childhood, teachers, friends, siblings, parents and especially social media have a dramatic upon us.

Self-confident people are generally more positive and believe in themselves and their abilities, whereas those with low self-confidence often have negative thoughts about themselves and their ability, which then leads to a downward spiral of under-achievement and disappointment. Self-confidence is about trusting your own judgement and feeling comfortable with your abilities and power, it enables you to recognise your full potential and be the person you want to be.

Confident people set realistic goals, learn useful skills and undertake tasks to get to where they want to be. Self-confidence is demonstrated in many ways; in your body language, your behaviour, how you speak and how you react to different situations.
Strong self-confidence can bring benefits to all areas of your life, including relationships, career, social life and state of mind.

Some people are self-confident in their work-life but not in their social life, we all differ. People feel comfortable with confident people as they are usually predictable, and their behaviour is reliable.
To build self-confidence and overcome low self-esteem is to change how we feel emotionally about ourselves.

Call or email to book a FREE initial consultation.

Destructive or negative thoughts and behaviours have a dramatic impact on all aspects of our lives, relationships, careers, health and well-being. There is a spectrum of self-destructive thoughts and behaviours, from mild too risky to fatal.

Negative Thoughts Negative thinking is a thought process where people tend to find the worst in everything, everyone, or about themselves, or reduce their expectations by considering the worst possible scenarios. Negative thinking tends to manifest into a pattern that can cause tremendous stress, worry, or sadness over time. People who are stuck in a negative thinking mindset typically see things only as either good or bad, there is no middle ground. When something bad occurs, they automatically blame themselves. If something goes wrong, they automatically think that the rest of the day will be a disaster. They feel that they have to be perfect, or they are a total failure, making any mistakes is taken badly.

The constant stream of negative thoughts in the mind will prevent any form of creative problem-solving. Negative thinking can often turn into self-destructive thoughts and behaviour, low self-esteem and low confidence. Negative thinking limits us and holds us back in achieving our full potential in life.

Self-destructive behaviour varies greatly, eating disorders, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, compulsive gambling, self-harming, overeating, not taking prescribed medication. Self-destruction can also take the form of self-sabotage or self-defeating behaviours, continually doing things or behaving in a way which are bound to lead to one’s own failure or downfall or break up of relationships.

With a little support, with tools and techniques you can learn to turn negative thinking and destructive behaviour into positive thinking and positive behaviour, it is a simple process, but it does take time and practice.

Mindset & Solutions programs are successful in stopping self-destructive behaviour, book a FREE initial consultation to understand how.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder caused by very stressful, traumatic, frightening or distressing event, either experienced or witnessed. PTSD can develop immediately after someone experiences a disturbing event or it can occur weeks, months or even years later.
Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.

Many people who go through traumatic events have difficulty adjusting and coping for a while, however, not every will experience PTSD, and over time and good self-care, they usually get better.

However, if the symptoms get worse or last for months or even years and interfere with your functioning, you may have PTSD- Post traumatic stress disorder. I have found with some clients the anxiety attached to these events can be resolved within a few sessions, putting things back into perspective and leaving the event behind in the past, enabling them to move forward with their lives.

Book a FREE initial consultation with Amanda-Jane.

Communication is key in all areas of our lives; it can be the most powerful effective tool we have or the most destructive. Using communication effectively can change the most broken relationship, finalise the best business deal, inspire the unmotivated and lighten the heart of the saddest person.  

So very often it’s not what we say, but the way we say it that makes the most dramatic impact on who we are talking with.  The quality of your life and your relationships   change when you communicate effectively.  

DISC Communication and Behaviour Personality Profiling Each of us communicates differently depending on our experiences, our emotional intelligence and our personalities. The DISC profiling gives a good indication on your prominent style of personality, your attitude to things, how you deal with situations, how you make decisions, your personal motivation, how much of a risk taker you are, how you communicate and lots more.  This profiling can help you understand your own strengths and developmental areas in ways to overcome conflict within situations or relationships. It teaches how to recognise how people communicate differently and what you can do to communicate more effectively. It also shows how your personality style changes under stress and during change.

When we communicate consciously in a more effective manner with different personality styles each relationship can be affected in a positive way immediately.  We can’t live in this world without creating relationships and to get the best out of each relationship we need to communicate in the most effective way possible and DISC has proven to be a fantastic tool to have both in business and socially.

Mindset & Solutions offers a stand-alone DISC Communication and Behaviour Personality Profiling.

Learn more about DISC Profiling‍