health

What a bloody mess!

This post is about periods. It is personal and somewhat more visceral than the things I usually write, so if you don’t like descriptions of blood and gynaecological issues, you might want to skip it. It does feel a bit uncomfortable to share something that feels quite private, so I have waited a while to click post. But I want the information to be out there for other people to find, and to encourage research about the impacts of hormonal contraceptives on women’s wellbeing, so I wanted to share my personal experience. And I figured that I wanted to support other people who have spoken out, like Caitlin Moran and Naga Munchetty.

I’ve never had easy periods. Since being a teenager I’ve had marked PMS the day before, with aching belly and back, tearfulness, labile mood, moments of anxiety and irritability, as well as an increased risk of migraine. Over the decade since having children (which my Mum had always told me was the end of her period pains) they got worse. I would often experiencing clusters of sharp “spike” pains as my period approached, which seemed as if they sent needles from womb to bowel and could double me over in pain, and make it impossible to get comfortable, but were thankfully intermittent and would rarely stick around for more than a few hours. During the actual period days I would get disconcerting numbness in my upper legs, as well as abdominal pains which were almost disabling on the first day of my period, and would often transmit through my lower back. They were also associated with changes to my energy level, appetite and mood. Doctors didn’t seem to think this was a medical issue, and the only medication I tried led to cramps so severe I was curled foetal on the floor for an hour, so I never took a second dose. By trial and error I learnt that heat around my midriff seems to help, so at times I would need to retreat to bed, or my last resort of sitting in a hot bath for hours on end. When it comes to medication Ibuprofen helps the most, but I often need to combine it with prescription strength co-codamol to manage the first day.

I never really thought about how my periods compared to other women, or whether my experience was normal or a condition like dysmenorrhea or menorrhagia. I guess I just accepted that I would always have period pains, and tried to schedule my life so I didn’t put anything important on the day my period was due or anything that might need a level head the day beforehand. I’d been brought up that periods were something private, that you didn’t talk about with others, so I generally tried not to complain about it. This was reinforced by a head of year that would make me run around the school field if I asked to be excused from class in secondary school when my legs went numb and the level of discomfort prohibited me from being able to sit in the classroom. She said exercise was good for period pains, which may be true, but I suspect she just wanted the overweight girl to stop complaining and get extra exercise.

After having twins I had heavier periods with more marked blood clots, so I joked to my husband about bleeding for two. I become anaemic a few times, perhaps because I’m vegetarian and my iron stores were depleted by the twin pregnancy and never fully restored. I don’t know for sure, but I was told to take vitamins with iron every day, and have done so reliably for several years now. On the good side my periods were always as predictable as clockwork, and using a menstrual cup has helped a lot with the discomfort and length of my periods, as well as reducing the risk of embarrassing leaks (and being more ecologically sound). As a result the pain rarely lasts after the first day or two, and the period itself is short and usually tails off after three days. That gives me 24 good days per month, and only two days that seriously interfere with my functioning. I can normally manage to do some work even on the worst days if I take painkillers and wear soft warm clothing around my abdomen, but my functioning is definitely reduced and given the choice a warm bath, or a duvet day is better.

However, in 2017 I mentioned my heavy periods and the fact I get marked period pain to my GP, who suggested I try a hormonal IUD, telling me these much reduce bleeding and stop it altogether for a large proportion of women. I had previously tried the Mirena in 2002, long before having children, but had found it uncomfortable and asked for it to be removed after a few weeks. However this time the GP said it would be much more comfortable since I had carried twins and delivered them naturally (albeit prematurely) so I agreed to give it another go. After a ridiculous delay of nearly a year to find an appointment when it could be fitted at my GP practice, I found a sexual health clinic and booked an appointment during June 2018. My GP had prescribed a Mirena and a Jaydess, and I had collected both and took them to be fitted. There was no mention of potential side-effects in any of the conversations I had with the GP or the clinic where it was fitted, although I was told to take a painkiller just before it was fitted, as they said “for some people it isn’t a comfortable process”. I think I had also read that there might be some cramps whilst my body adjusted to it.

The first problem was the fitting. It hurt. Enough to make me considerably uncomfortable. It was a right-to-the-nerves-at-the-core-of-my-being-do-not-pass-go pain that was different to ordinary pain, of which I’m normally pretty tolerant. The nurse and care assistant tried to make conversation to distract me, but the pain meant I kept losing concentration and wasn’t really able to talk properly, and I felt like I was going to faint at several points. It hurt being dilated. It hurt being measured. It hurt when the nurse tried to fit the Mirena and removed it when it didn’t fit correctly, and then it hurt when he inserted the Jaydess. He said my cervix spasmed, and that the whole area is very near the vasovagal nerve and can be very sensitive. But once he had finished and removed the speculum I had high hopes that I’d done the hardest part. As I drove home the painkillers kicked in and the pain settled to much like the level of period pains.

However, that period pain feeling stuck around in variable intensity for much of the time I had the Jaydess in, which ended up being nearly four months. I also had aches and spike pains throughout the month, to the point I needed painkillers on more days than not. There were times it felt painful to stand, or that I couldn’t sleep for the pain. I got hot flushes. My boobs ached for three weeks out of every four, to the point they were tender to the touch and hurt if I took my bra off. There was severe bloating and intermittent nausea, and a feeling like having a perpetual bug of some kind. I had loose bowels and painful stomach cramps after eating that meant I couldn’t enjoy food. I had lots of headaches, and a kind of aching in my bones and joints (particularly my hip joints) that made me feel old and unwell. My hair became really greasy, to the point it was visible by the end of the day, and looked awful on day two, when previously it was fine for two or three days and I never had to think about it between the times I went swimming. I got painful cystic acne on my face, shoulders, back and bum. Not in huge numbers, but there was always a new zit or two visible in the mirror each day, they took several days to rise to the surface of my skin, and it increasingly felt uncomfortable (when prior to the IUD I’d only get a couple of visible spots per month, and they were never painful).

It also changed my mood. Like the worst examples of how I had been on the day before my period before, I found myself on the verge of tears about anything sentimental or sad, and my feelings felt less rational and less within my control. I had patches of acute anxiety, and generally lower mood, with greater irritability. That may have been compounded by the fact I had weird dreams and disrupted sleep, and would often wake in the night with stomach pains, cramps or aching and find it hard to get back to sleep. And to cap it all my periods were longer and heavier than before, with a shorter gap in between, leaving me only one week of feeling relatively good, and even that was characterised with lots of low level aches and pains. A minor additional problem was I couldn’t reach the coil’s strings to check it. I don’t know if that is my short fingers or inflexibility, my slightly retroverted cervix, or whether they were clipped a bit short. But it was a bit unnerving to be told to check it and not to be able to.

Weirdly, I was prepared to tolerate all that for month after month on the basis that it might get better over time and reach a point where the side effects disappeared and the promised effects appeared. They had told me to stick with it, and that things would get better, and I was determined to do so. But the symptoms seemed to get worse month by month, rather than reduce or resolve. The final straw was that my vision started to blur. I noticed that I couldn’t see the TV properly from the sofa, and was moving forwards to sit on the floor closer to the screen. I couldn’t see the road signs or number plates when driving until much closer to them than usual. And anything at a distance seemed fuzzy and indistinct. That made no sense, given I’d just had an eye test that said my vision was fine only a couple of weeks before I got the IUD. In fact, my prescription had not changed for over a decade, and I’d been wearing the same contact lenses and glasses for as long as I could remember. My eyes started to feel dry in the evening, and my contact lenses also started to feel uncomfortable, after being almost unaware of wearing them for most of the last thirty years. I read online that levonorgestrel can affect your eyes. So I went back to the optician. He said there was nothing overt wrong that he could measure, except that my astigmatism, which had previously been below the level at which they correct it, had markedly increased and I now needed toric lenses to compensate for this. He didn’t think it was related to the Jaydess, but the sudden change seemed very strange.

Looking up the side effects of Jaydess/Mirena made me realise quite how many I was experiencing, and how this wasn’t typical of the official reported level of side effects, or the miraculously lighter and easier periods I had been promised. So I phoned the GP, who tried to get me to persist, promising it would settle, and really didn’t seem to listen to or appreciate the level of discomfort it was causing. After nearly four months I insisted it was removed. That actually went pretty smoothly. I managed to get an appointment with the one female GP with an interest in contraception. She listened and said it didn’t seem to suit me and agreed to remove it on the spot as I had not had unprotected sex in the prior seven days (to be honest, it had been a pretty effective contraceptive in that it put me off sex altogether for the entire time that sharp anchor of metal was inside me). The removal was equivalent to having a smear test. The awkwardness and discomfort of the speculum, then one second of that direct-to-the-vagus-nerve pain and it was done. Afterwards mild aching that was relieved by analgesics. So I figured it had gone pretty well. Again, there was no warning from the GP or in anything I was given to read of any symptoms likely to appear because of the artificial hormones disappearing from my body.

However, that mild aching came and went for the next few days, and then I started to get cramps and traces of dark brown blood as my period approached. That developed into a fairly typical PMS level of discomfort, but the volume of blood was still very small and much darker than usual. Typically my periods arrive quite quickly after the PMS and cramps, with two days of moderately heavy flow (about 40-60ml per 24 hours) and the bleeding then tapers off during the third day (making a total volume of about 80-120ml shed during the whole period). Hence the use of a femmecup, which can normally see me through the night, or through a working day, without any problems. However this time around my period started slowly, but then on day three there was suddenly large volumes of thin bright red liquid blood like the stuff they squirt around for a horror b-movie. At times it filled the 30ml of my menstrual cup in under an hour and if I didn’t catch it, this unusually liquid blood then leaked out onto my clothing or bedding spreading obvious bright red stains. No form of sanitary protection helped. I had more leaks and mess in that two days than in the last decade of periods combined, and had to change enough clothing and launder enough bedding to run the washing machine twice (both times having to interrupt it to add more items after the wash cycle had started). I’d estimate I bled 250ml of this thin bright red blood over 48 hours – that’s seven times the volume of an average woman’s period, and more than double my usual total in a very short period of time. It was incapacitating because of the need to empty the cup so often and the risk of embarrassing leaks, but it didn’t hurt at all. I just felt a little nauseous and faint, which might just have been a reaction to seeing so much blood. And no matter how careful I was it kept creating crime scenes for a low budget horror movie.

It would have utterly freaked me out, and perhaps even sent me running to A&E, except that I found other reports of similar bleeding after the removal of Mirena on the internet. Thankfully after the second day of flooding it petered out. I’d guess I bled near 300ml in total, which is ten times a typical period and nearly the amount I donate from my veins when I give blood as a donor. I really think they should warn women about that, as that much blood without warning has the potential to be pretty traumatic.

By then I had read about the “Mirena crash” and was prepared for massive emotional symptoms that might spiral me into a depression, but thankfully they were not too bad compared to what others report – perhaps because (like any review site) it is only the more extreme experiences that motivate people to write about them, or perhaps I’m normalised to some hormonal symptoms, or because the Jaydess uses lower doses of hormone, or because it had only been in for three months. I did have increased emotional lability, to an extent that was very out of character for me and created a couple of protracted emotional confrontations with family members about minor things I would normally have let pass without comment. Plus for a week or two I was in a generally more negative headspace. Possibly the most disconcerting element was patches of free-floating anxiety; I’d get a sudden sense of having remembered something I should have done, or had done really badly, or that had made someone else react really negatively to me, or foreboding about something terrible happening, but without anything to pin it to. And then, gradually, it settled back down to more or less how things had been before. The breast ache, abdominal pain and cystic acne dispersed and I went back to the prior level of period pain I had been having for the decades before.

About 18 months ago I finally saw an endocrinologist who tested lots of things and didn’t find anything he needed to treat, but referred me on to a gynecologist. Whilst I hadn’t had symptoms I’d associate with menopause, like hot flushes or cessation of periods, loss of libido or vaginal dryness, she seemed particularly swayed by the fact I was 45, had missed one period (albeit with timing that seemed related to other stress/health issues) and had experienced anxiety, minor memory issues, and joint stiffness (though the latter has been present since an RTA in 2015), and concluded the underlying cause of all my symptoms was probably perimenopause. She recommended I try HRT – even though most of the symptoms I reported had been the same throughout the prior decade, and many had been fairly consistent since I was about 15 years old. I was cautious, given the one ingredient in the HRT is the same as the hormone used in the coil, but I didn’t have any better options and decided to give it a go.

I went onto HRT just as the nation went into lockdown for the coronavirus pandemic, so it was hard to pick out what was the result of the acute anxiety I felt at that point and what was side effects of starting the meds. Subsequently it has been hard to unpick the impact of the HRT from the impact of pandemic lifestyle changes. When I weigh up the positive and negative changes I have observed, it is a fairly close-run contest, but overall I think it has more benefits than costs, particularly in my mental state. On the good side, I have less marked emotional swings prior to my period, and my anxiety has reduced. My periods are slightly less heavy, and there has been a small reduction in pain. On the down side, my skin is now very dry and I seem much more prone to heat rash in my armpits and groin, and thrush-like discomfort. I’ve also put on some extra (and very much unwanted) weight – but I’ve been much less physically active as I haven’t been swimming or to the gym. Given the risk of stroke, I decided I’d rather be on patches than tablets, but was closed to gynecology and none of the GPs felt able to review my HRT since the female partner left. However, I kept pushing and eventually did get the patches, and they seem to have continued the positive effects whilst they have reduced the heat rash (and risk of stroke). I can also slightly extend the days I use the first type (which don’t have negative effects) and shorten the other type. And I have returned to predictable as clockwork menstrual cycle.

Whilst clearly everyone’s experiences of health conditions and treatments are different (and I’ve known several colleagues who raved about Mirena) there are some wider themes that I think are more universal. I’d say my experience of putting up and shutting up is probably quite typical, in that lots of women just get on with things. We are taught not to moan. Women’s reports of pain are taken less seriously, and conditions like PCOS and endometriosis are massively underserved with unreasonably delayed diagnosis and limited treatment options. Medical research treats men as the default, and sees women as innately skewed by our hormones. The funders setting priorities and the people leading the research are more often male, so they don’t give women’s health issues the same level of priority. Contraception is seen as a problem women must shoulder the burden of, and menopause something shameful we must hide and suffer in silence (Davina McCall’s TV program on this topic captured it well). These issues really aren’t things men would be expected to tolerate. I was really struck by the furore about the few awful cases in which people had blood clots after receiving their covid vaccination, and how the probability was a fraction of that caused by the contraceptive pills millions of women take without the same level of public or professional concern. Women’s health is too often forgotten and devalued. No wonder periods and contraception are so poorly addressed, and so many women suffer in silence. So I’ve broken my silence, and I hope I can encourage you to break yours, because talking about this stuff will show that it exists and impacts millions of people.

Coping in a time of coronavirus

Are you finding it hard to adjust to the impact of Coronavirus policies on daily life? If so, you are not alone.

If you aren’t too saturated with top tips for wellbeing type posts, I thought I should share a little bit of basic advice compiled from my knowledge as a clinical psychologist and what I have read on science twitter, in case others are also struggling with the impact of social distancing and experiencing changes to their daily life that are causing high levels of anxiety.

Note: This blog is mainly targeted at those people who are staying at home and trying to comply with social distancing, rather than those of you who are doing the kind of essential work that has to continue to involve direct contact with others. If you are in that group, I’m incredibly grateful to you, but I don’t feel skilled enough to provide specific advice. If you have greater knowledge than me and would like to improve this blog (particularly in terms of the physical elements, which I appreciate will change as the situation and our knowledge base evolves) please let me know and I can fix things.

So, with that said, on with the blog.

It is a worrying time for many people, and there is a real threat that we have very little control over, and a lot of misinformation on social media. However, there are things that we can do, and you are not alone – we are all facing this together. So this is my very simple advice of where to start to ground yourself and remain as psychologically healthy as possible in these challenging times.

First the physical health stuff:

1) Do everything you can to remain safe and protect those around you. First and foremost: Get your vaccination when it is offered. Don’t be put off by scare stories about side effects, as a day or two of aches in your arm or a few hours of flu-like symptoms are a small price to pay to reduce the risks of a deadly disease. Staying safe also means following the latest guidance about lockdowns, masks and social distancing. This applies even after you have had your jab! It is still possible to get covid after you have been immunised, and whilst it is much more likely to be symptomless or very mild, you can still be part of the chain of transmission to others, especially with more contagious variants like the delta strain.

So what do we need to do? The government have put a focus on hand washing with soap for 20 seconds (make sure to wash between fingers, around thumbs and wrists and under fingernails if you have had any contact with someone who may be contagious), and remind us to cough or sneeze into a tissue or your elbow rather than onto your hands. There has also been a focus on cleaning surfaces – however the evidence of fomite transmission (droplets on surfaces) has been minimal, whilst the evidence for aerosols (tiny particles exhaled by an infected person that are airborne for several hours and accumulate in enclosed spaces) has become overwhelming. Thus the key prevention strategies are to wear a mask when entering shops or public indoor spaces, and to follow the rules about physical distancing. This means not greeting people with handshakes, hugs or kisses and standing or sitting further away from them than we would previously have done. Minimise your face-to-face social interactions with people outside your household bubble, and try to ensure you only interact with larger groups of people in a safe way – ideally outdoors or in a well-ventilated space. Unless you work in an essential role this means avoiding crowded events and places, not meeting up in large groups, and trying to remain 6 feet away from others, especially anyone outside of your minimum necessary network. Wear a well-fitted mask in any enclosed space apart from your home – try not to put it on and take it off more than you have to, and avoid touching the mask except by the strings.

2) Be aware that Covid-19 is potentially dangerous, so it is really worth preventing contagion if possible. Even if you are not concerned about the impact of covid on yourself, each of us interacts with people who are older or clinically vulnerable – whether that is elderly parents or grandparents, people with chronic or acute medical conditions (eg cancer, heart disease, diabetes, immune disorders, physical or learning disability, obesity, asthma) whether we are aware of them or not. People we know might also be carers for individuals with these clinical vulnerabilities. In fact 3.7 million people in the UK are regarded as clinically extremely vulnerable, and many of them remain very anxious about the risk of catching covid, even if immunised, despite the fact that the official advice to shield has been lifted.

Covid is worth avoiding as even if you are not in a vulnerable group you can pass it on to others, plus – even within the group that are considered to have had only mild symptoms – it makes some people feel like a very bad flu with aches and serious chest pain/breathing problems, and can lead to weeks or even months of tiredness or recurrent symptoms in some people known as “long covid”. However, for many/most people it may not be obvious that you are ill at all, let alone with a serious condition.

If you test positive, or if you have a dry cough or fever, or if you lose your sense of smell or taste, or if you feel suddenly exhausted/weak, you need to get rested and to self-isolate to prevent spread of the virus. You must also minimise risk of transmission until you have been tested if you have had contact with someone else who has subsequently tested positive for covid, to break the chain of transmission. If you have school aged children you will be asked to complete lateral flow tests twice a week, but be aware these are not as reliable as other tests and can lead to both false positives and false negatives.

3) Take extra care over social distancing if you have an existing health condition or are elderly, or if this applies to anyone else in your household or if you are interacting with or providing services to someone vulnerable (as well as older age this could include more serious medical conditions like cancer, but also ones that are not normally seen as a big impairment to daily life like asthma, heart disease or obesity, particularly in combination). Ensure you have enough medication, and keep taking preventers if you are asthmatic. If you are in a high risk category and there is a high level of prevalence in your area, then where possible have deliveries dropped off without interpersonal contact. If you need to interact with others or use shared facilities, wash your hands and surfaces that others touch frequently (eg door handles, railings, keypads, taps, etc) with soap or sanitiser regularly and wash your hands after using them.

4) Remember that viral load may be important in how severely people experience the virus, and ensure that you take precautions when caring for a dependent with possible coronavirus, or if you think you have it, even if the symptoms are mild. A mask is particularly important in this situation, along with good ventilation, careful handwashing and ensuring you avoid physical contact, which can be challenging with a loved one or small child. Anyone ill or who knows they have been exposed to someone who definitely had Covid-19 should stay separate from the rest of the family as much as possible. This needs to be for at least 7 days after testing positive if you have had no symptoms, or for 7 days after you stop having symptoms. Where someone is ill but needs care use PPE such as a well fitted mask and disposable gloves, use as much ventilation as possible, and keep washing your hands.

5) Although the government are telling us to act as if covid is no longer a problem, we don’t know if there will be additional waves of new variants of covid, or whether future variants will break through the protection offered by immunisations. Covid is also still causing preventable deaths and lasting health impacts for large numbers of people, as well as causing large numbers of people (including health and care staff) to self-isolate. Combined with the impact of Brexit and chronic underfunding the NHS is creaking at the seams. We need to ensure that the NHS can catch up with the level of need for other conditions, and is ready to cope with an increase in demand if required.

Politicians and NHS managers need to act to grow the capacity of the NHS by addressing the funding and recruitment issues. However, each of us can play our part by reducing our risk of spreading the virus or adding to NHS demands in other ways. This means we should aim to slow the spread of coronavirus (by getting immunised and using sensible precautions) so that the rate of people requiring hospital treatment doesn’t exceed NHS resources, and lower the baseline demand for NHS services. We can do this by avoiding preventable reasons for requiring hospital care. This means taking care of your physical health and existing health conditions (eg taking preventative medication/inhalers, following dietary advice for diabetes or high blood pressure), being mindful to reduce risk of accidents (eg drive slowly in built up areas, be extra cautious to avoid falls and injuries) and improving your respiratory and cardiovascular health (eg give up smoking, increase exercise, eat healthily, and attempt to lose weight if you are obese).

But importantly you need to care for your psychological health too.

6) Connect with loved ones (physically if you are in the same household and nobody has symptoms, but virtually or with social distancing precautions otherwise) so that you do not feel alone. Hug your kids or your partner if you are together, or speak to them as frequently as possible if you are apart, and listen to how they are feeling. Check in with people who might be isolated and with those who have been bereaved or have had serious ill-health, traumatic experiences, or have lasting symptoms from covid. Keep in touch with your relatives and usual network via phone, social media, email or video chat. Make the effort to speak to your colleagues even if you are all working from home, keep in contact with your friends even if you can’t gather in person. Confide in the people that you trust.

7) Acknowledge that what we are going through is tough, even if you feel lucky not to be having to deal with it face on like those working in health and social care or doing supply chain or deliveries. Trust your own gut about what level of potential exposure to the virus you feel comfortable with, and don’t let anyone make you feel bad if you don’t want to go back to face-to-face work or social events. Change is challenging, the perceived threat is intangible and unknown, so it is hard to reason with the anxiety it provokes, and uncertainty is stressful. The changes imposed on us to manage the outbreak take away some of our comforting routines and our expectations of the immediate future, and it is normal to worry about the impact on ourselves and loved ones. It is absolutely normal to feel shock, denial, anger, fear, grief, or a mixture of feelings and for these feelings to ebb and flow or change unpredictably (think about the Kubler-Ross stages of grief). You might find yourself literally shaking and/or crying at the idea of having to do something you don’t feel ready for, or you might feel nothing at all. Be kind to yourself, and give yourself time to adjust.

8) Manage your own anxiety. First and foremost, breathe (there are some good little graphics and apps about). Then make sure that you take care of yourself by doing all the basic things that we need; eat, sleep, exercise. Try to avoid increased use of alcohol or drugs, including smoking. Give yourself a routine. Confide your feelings in those you trust, or seek out support if you need it. Join in online mindfulness or therapy groups, or – if the anxiety is becoming a problem for you – seek out personal therapy from a suitably qualified professional. If you have a garden or safe outside space, get out there and appreciate the elements. If you don’t, try to sit near a window and let some fresh air in as often as possible, and leave the window open when the weather isn’t too cold. Exercise and relaxation are both important. The former can burn off negative neurochemicals and produce more positive ones, and the latter can help you to soothe yourself (so indulge in a long bath, or listen to a relaxation video). Likewise sex (or masturbation) is good for our neurochemistry, can maintain intimacy in a relationship through a stressful period and/or help you to sleep.

9) Limit news consumption and stick to reliable sources. If you are feeling anxious you might want to learn everything about Covid-19, but whilst this can bring some temporary relief, too much focus on the potential threat can be counterproductive and increase your anxiety. So try to limit how much time you spend on news sites or social media, and ensure that you check the sources of what you do read as there are many seemingly plausible articles and posts that are not true doing the rounds. The BBC, World Health Organisation, official government sources or a trusted newspaper (for me that means the Guardian or the Independent) are probably more trustworthy than celebrities, social media influencers or some politicians. Don’t get your information about the outbreak from social media unless you have personal connections with medical/epidemiology experts and are very skilled at evaluating the quality of the sources and understanding the limitations to individual studies. If covid content makes you anxious but you like connecting over social media, you might wish to use your preferences to tune out posts using terms like “pandemic”, “coronavirus” and “covid”, so that you can focus on more positive content.

10) Keep busy. Give yourself small goals and structure your time into small chunks, rewarding yourself for small achievements. Be mindful about what you are doing, and give it your full attention. Don’t let yourself ruminate, or slouch about in your pajamas all day. If possible, make sure that you sleep when it is dark and are awake for natural daylight. Stick to routines of mealtimes and maintain as many of your normal activities as possible. If you are unable to work or have less work to do, see this as an opportunity to do things you wouldn’t otherwise have time for. Try to find enjoyable activities or those that keep your mind occupied, whether that is arts/crafts, reading, gaming, sorting/tidying, decorating, programming, writing, making or listening to music, watching films/telly or learning something new (there are loads of fab free courses online).

11) Turn your focus towards the practical things you can do. For me that means trying to increase my cardiovascular fitness and lose some weight, because my pre-existing conditions mean I’m at greater risk, and my lack of fitness compounds this – so I’ve been trying to run up and down the stairs first and last thing each day, and each time I feel particularly anxious. This gives me a sense of doing something positive and it can be rewarding to see yourself making progress. You can choose an activity that suits your starting level of fitness, get out and walk or cycle or there are fantastic exercise videos of all sorts on youtube, so why not try some zumba or yoga or calisthenics. Or improve your living environment, or create or improve a garden or vegetable bed. These kinds of things will give you a tangible feeling of achievement and improve your quality of life.

12) Be kind to others. Manage your anxieties before you speak to children, answer any questions they might have and help them to feel safe and loved. Try to be kind and patient if children are off school, and don’t put too much pressure on them to do academic work until they are in a calm enough emotional state to do so. Listen to loved ones and empathise with their experiences, even if they feel differently or are responding in a different way to you. If there is a spate of panic-buying (whether of toilet rolls, fuel or fresh produce) try not to buy more than you need, so that others can get some of key items too. Thank delivery workers, supermarket staff, carers and other essential workers, and don’t pass on frustrations about lack of stock or delayed/cancelled deliveries to them as they are doing their best. Reach out and make connections to those who might be lonely. If you are young and healthy try to be particularly considerate towards those who are not – keeping in touch with older relatives and friends or those with disabilities and/or health conditions whilst keeping them away from contagions. Join neighbourhood networks or the NHS volunteers list. Leave a note with contact details for vulnerable neighbours in case they need help with shopping or collecting prescriptions, or someone they can speak to on the phone or through the window if they feel isolated. Donate to food banks and local charities if you can afford to do so. Shop with smaller companies and local traders where possible.

13) Take time to be grateful for what we have. If you have people who love and care about you, appreciate them. If you have pets that share your life, pamper them. If you can access nature, take time to enjoy that. If you have had the opportunity of education and can continue to learn, value that. Remember that we live lives of relative plenty. Most of us have relatively secure places to live in locations with relatively good health services to fall back on if we need them. Many of us have meaningful work to be involved in, and live in developed nations with some form of social security to fall back on and/or within networks that would support us in a crisis. So although there are greater challenges in our daily lives due to the pandemic (or Brexit and an inept/corrupt government), we still have a lot to feel grateful for. Focusing on the positives helps you put the challenges into perspective.

14) Know that we’ll solve this in time. So many brilliant people are working together to address this new disease. Health care professionals are doing brilliant work all around the world. Scientists are hard at work exploring faster and more effective tests and treatments. New drugs are being developed at a faster pace than ever before, and well-established medicines have been found with positive effects on disease severity/duration. Uptake for immunisations has been good enough to massively reduce mortality. We have tests to show who is contagious. Immunised people (and those who have had covid) are less likely to be a vector for transmission, so rates of infection are likely to fall over time. Air filtration devices are being tailored to removing the aerosols that increase risk of transmission in indoor spaces. Advances are being made all the time.

15) We all know the death rates and current numbers of people infected. The negative stories are spread far and wide, but some good things will come out of this too. Pollution has been reduced by the decreased travel and factory activity, saving lives of vulnerable people, especially in the developing world, as well as helping the environment. Reduced car journeys might mean reductions in accidents. Political recognition of changing public perceptions should lead to greater investment in health and social care, as well as increased funding for medical research and response-readiness for the future. The pandemic has also shown that all nations face the same threats, and all people are the same, so (with the exception of some racist idiots) it has increased international cooperation and the knowledge that we are all interconnected. This has the potential to allow greater collaboration on international issues in future. Mass working from home has shown that it is possible for more people to work remotely, meaning there are likely to be reductions in travel and more adjustments for people who need it available in the future. It has also highlighted the value of essential workers in supply chains and delivery as well as in health and social care, raising their status and priority in public perception. The economic impacts have shown the value of universal health coverage, social safety nets, and minimum income guarantees. It has reduced the mindless consumerism of recent years, and made us conserve resources and reduce food waste. So hopefully we will come out the other side having learnt some important lessons and can genuinely build back better (and not just use this as a vacuous slogan to cover for government inaction).

Solve for happiness: Some thoughts on big data/AI and mental health

We are hearing a lot about the use of big data at the moment, mostly that it has been an underhand way to manipulate people politically, that has been used by those with no ethical compunctions to get people to vote against their own best interests*, and in favour of Brexit and Trump. Cambridge Analytica and AIQ seem to have commercially exploited academic research and breached data protection rules to try to nudge political behaviour with targeted messaging. Whether or not that was successful is up for debate, but to the public the narrative is about big data being bad – something technocrats are exploiting for nefarious reasons. I can understand that, because of the associations between gathering data on people and totalitarian political regimes, and because of concerns about privacy, data protection and consent. There is increasing awareness of what had previously been an unspoken deal – that websites harvest your data and show you targeted advertising, rather than charge you directly for services, and the new GDPR means that we will be asked to explicitly consent to these types of data collection and usage.

But what about the potential for big data to do good? I know that DeepMind are doing some data crunching to look at whether AI algorithms can help identify indicators that determine outcomes in certain health conditions and point doctors towards more effective treatments. Their work to identify warning signs of acute kidney injury was criticised because of breaches to data protection when they were given access to 1.6 million medical records without individual patient consent, but whilst the data issues do need to be sorted out, the potential for projects like this to improve health and save lives is undeniable. Computers can look through huge amounts of detailed data much more quickly and cost-effectively than humans. They can also do so consistently, without fatigue or bias, and without a priori assumptions that skew their observations.

Research often highlights findings that seem counterintuitive to clinicians or human researchers, and that means that using the data to generate the patterns can find things that we overlook. One example I read about today was the fact that admitting offending behaviour does not reduce the risk of recidivism in sexual or violent offenders (in fact those who show most denial offend less, whilst those who demonstrate more disclosures and shame are more likely to reoffend). But this is also true about telling people they are being given a placebo (which will still produce positive placebo effects), using positive mantras to enhance self-esteem (which seem to trigger more negative thoughts and have a net negative impact on mood and self-esteem) or about expressing anger (rather than this being cathartic and leading to a reduction in anger, it actually increases it). Various fascinating examples are listed here. There is also the well-known Dunning Kruger effect, whereby ignorance also includes a lack of insight into our own ignorance. As a population, we consistently overestimate our own ability, with people in the bottom percentiles often ranking themselves well above average.

I often refer to the importance of knowing the boundaries of your own competence, and identifying your own “growing edges” when it comes to personal and professional development. We talk about the stages of insight and knowledge developing from unconscious incompetence to conscious competence, and finally to unconscious competence where we can use the skill without conscious focus. Confucius said “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” And it may well be that when it comes to solving some of the big problems we are limited by our own frame of reference, what we think of as relevant data, our preconceptions and our ability to build complex models. Using giant data sets and setting technology to sift through and make sense of them using various paradigms of AI might help open up new possibilities to researchers, or find patterns that are outside of human observation. For example, certain medications, foods or lifestyle traits might have significant impact on certain specific health conditions. I am reminded of a recent article about how a third of antidepressants are prescribed for things other than their primary function (for example, one can seemingly help with inflammatory bowel disease that has very limited treatment options). A computer sifting through all the data can pick up both these unintended positive effects and also rare or complex harmful side-effects or interactions that we may not be aware of.

What difference could this make in mental health? Well, I think quite a lot. Of course many predictors of mental health are sociopolitical and outside of the control of the individual, but we also know that some small lifestyle changes can have very positive impacts on mental health – exercising more, for example, or having a healthy diet, or getting more sleep, or using mindfulness, even just getting outdoors more, learning something new, doing something for others, or spending more time with other people (and less time on social media) can have a positive impact. There are also many therapy and therapist variables that may make an impact on mental health, for people who engage in some form of talking therapy, although variance in outcomes seems to actually boil down to feeling heard and believed by a therapist who respects the individuality and cultural context of the client. And of course there are many medical treatments available.

So is there a way of using big data to look at what really works to help people feel happier in their lives? I think the potential for apps to collect mass data and test out what makes impact is enormous, and there are a proliferation of apps in the happiness niche and more that claim to help wellbeing in a broader way. They seem to have found a market niche, and to offer something positive to help people make incremental life changes that are associated with happiness. What I’m not sure of is whether they reach the people that need them most, or if they are evaluating their impact, but presumably this is only a matter of time, as real life services get stripped back and technology tries to fill that gap.

I think there is huge need to look at what can make positive change to people’s wellbeing at a population scale, and I think we need to be tackling that at multiple levels. First and foremost, we need to make the sociopolitical changes that will stop harming the most vulnerable in society, and encourage greater social interconnectedness to prevent loneliness and isolation. We need to increase population knowledge and tweak the financial incentives for healthy lifestyle choices (eg with much wider use of free or subsidised gym memberships, and tax on unhealthy food options). And we need to invest in preventative and early intervention services, as well as much more support during pregnancy and parenting, and in mental health and social care. But I can also see a role for technology. Imagine an app that asked lots of questions and then gave tailored lifestyle recommendations, and monitored changes if the person tried them. Imagine an app that helped people identify appropriate local sources of support to tackle issues with their health and wellbeing, and monitored their impact when people used them. As well as having a positive immediate impact for users, I’m sure we’d learn a lot from that data that could be applied at the population level.

*I think the evidence is strong enough that the demographics who voted for these people/policies in the greatest numbers are the very people who have come out the worst from them, so I am just going to state it as a fact and not divert into my personal politics in this blog, given I have covered them in previous topics about Brexit, my politics, “alternative facts”, Trump, why and what next, the women’s march, and Grenfell and the Manchester bomb.