I wrote a post at the beginning of the week entitled "Looking ahead to the walking retreat".  Now it's happening - Thursday morning 6.30am.  It takes some effort of will to emerge from the only-just-warm-enough sleeping bag, put on more layers of clothes and bring this little computer back to bed. I haven't used this one man tent - a Hilleberg Akto - on an expedition before and I'm still very much learning about headroom, storage space and other essentials. Same goes for this little Eee PC computer I'm typing into.

It's Monday morning. On Wednesday I plan to head up to the Fannaichs, a group of hills near Loch Fannich about 4½ hours drive north of Edinburgh - up into the 'real' Scotland. I'm feeling fairly nervous about it. Is this really the time of life for a 58 year old who has very limited experience of camping to be heading off into the wild for four or five days on his own?! Maybe it is. What am I doing this for ... and why am I writing in the blog about it?

The aim of this blog is to be helpful - for clients who come to see me, for fellow health professionals, and for other website visitors. It's pretty obvious that I may be able to offer something use

A GP friend recently asked me about taking folic acid supplements.

Here are details and links for twenty seven mainly March articles that I found interesting. Most of these articles (and many others) are also listed on the searchable Connotea

On April 9 I wrote "On the fine Authentic Happiness website, Seligman and colleagues discuss thr

In a post on 27 January I wrote about "savouring" - the appreciation of positive experiences. Savouring is, as it's name suggests, a sort of running the positive experience around in one's mouth, really tasting, valuing and enjoying it - a bit like slow, careful appreciation of a good wine. Bryant and Veroff, authors of the key current text on savouring (see below), draw parallels between the importance of being good at coping with negative life experiences and the importance of being good at savouring positive life experiences. Savouring well increases one's happiness, wellbeing and appreciation of being alive. On the fine Authentic Happiness website, Seligman and colleagues discuss three entwining roads to happiness and what they call "the full life". One of these three roads is maximising and appreciating positive emotions - very much the territory of savouring.

A recent study in the British Journal of Nutrition (Rogers, Appleton et al. 2008) throws doubt on the value of fish oil supplementation as a treatment for depression. The authors stated " ...

The UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is "the independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on the promotion of good health and the prevention and tr

Here are details and links for a couple of dozen mainly February articles that I found interesting. Most of these articles (and many others) are also listed on my searchable Connotea online database.

Barbui, C. M. D., T. A. M. D. Furukawa, et al. (2008). "Effectiveness of paroxetine in the treatment of acute major depression in adults: a systematic re-examination of published and unpublished data from randomized trials." CMAJ 178(3): 296-305. [Abstract/Full Text]
Blakely, T., M. Tobias, et al. (2008). "Inequalities in mortality during and after restructuring of the New Zealand economy: repeated cohort studies." BMJ 336(7640): 371-375. [Abstract/Full Text]
Bradley, R. G., E. B. Binder, et al. (2008). "Influence of Child Abuse on Adult Depression: Moderation by the Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone Receptor Gene." Arch Gen Psychiatry 65(2): 190-200. [Abstract/Full Text]