I find spending time outdoors, going for walks at local beauty spots or nature reserves and taking the time to admire things in nature really boosts my creative energy. At times when brain fog does start to set in, I do find taking myself outside to stretch my legs, a change of scenery and some fresh air really helps even if it's just 10 minutes.

I also find booking myself onto a training session at work helps too - because of the nature of the work, and format of the training sessions. It helps because it's a "safe" environment - we always draw up a contract at the start of the session that includes confidentiality, being non-judgemental, and respecting each other's differences and it helps to know I'm with like-minded people too. It also helps that we are guided to explore our own self-awareness, and set tasks to bring emotions to the fore. And then obviously it helps that because we counsel children through play, and the training rooms are always set out like our therapy rooms with a whole host of creative and arts and crafts materials, that when we are set tasks the expectation is that we will go off and find a sheet of A2 or A3 paper and paints, fingerpaints, pencils, crayons, glitter etc or clay/playdoh or a sand tray and figures and create some form of expression of what we are feeling/experiencing.

One thing I am starting to be a bit wary/concerned about is the impact of food, eating seems to just zap all my energy and cloud my mind, obviously carbs are the worst for this, it's no wonder the only times I feel like I can apply myself properly to things are first thing in the morning pre-breakfast and late at night when I should be going to bed. I've realised recently that I have some kind of low-level anxiety that is constantly running in the background even when I'm not thinking about things, and I eat (carbs) to calm this feeling down, but as soon as I get it calmer, I get the carb-related brain fog and often drowsiness that makes me still unable to apply myself to things, albeit in a different way.

It makes sense now, as my old therapist did say to me at some point during my treatment that she was surprised given my background that I didn't have some kind of anxiety disorder... well it seems that at some level, maybe I do ...so that's where I'm at, at the moment, needing to deal with the anxiety and things that drive it.