Healthy Mayo Messages

In April, isn't it easier? Because the blossom is incredible, but we don't celebrate it enough in this country. In Japan, the cherry blossom, or sakura, is a national obsession, and yet our seasons are just as good as theirs. It begins with blackthorn blossom in February, then fruit tree blossoms in March and April, then the incredible displays of hawthorn in May. Then comes the spring birds. The chiff-chaffs arrive first, then the swallows, the swifts and the house martens. To findout more tune into Teresa from Mental Health Ireland.

Patrick Cavanagh once wrote, to know fully even one field is a lifetime's experience. A gap in a hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane, a stream at the junction of four small fields. That, he said, is as much as any man can fully experience. It's a quiet kind of wisdom, an invitation really, to stop chasing the grand or far away. and instead root ourselves in what's already here. To find out more tune into Teresa from Mental Health Ireland.

Borrowing a line from W.B. Yeats's poem, The Second Coming, author Joan Didion titled her book, The Centre Will Not Hold, a phrase capturing the deep unease and societal disintegration of the 1970s. Looking around today, it can feel like those words still echo, conflict, division, uncertainty. And yet alongside the noise, there is another quieter story. To mark the UN's International Day of Happiness, the BBC ran a small experiment in Belfast. To find out more tune into Teresa from Mental Health Ireland.

In a forest, the whole really is greater than the sum of the parts. Plants are attuned to one another's strengths and weaknesses, elegantly giving and taking to attain exquisite balance. There is grace in complexity. Ecologist Susan Simard has spent decades proving just that. In her book, Finding the Mother Tree, she reveals that trees aren't lone survivors, but family members in a living network. To find out more tune into Teresa from Mental Health Ireland.

A snail's shell, the curve of a river bend, the full rising moon. Nature loves circles, and so does your brain. From the softness of fruit to the roundness of faces, evolution taught us curves mean comfort, safety, life. Sharp edges warn us, fangs, thorns, claws. So it's no big surprise that neuroscientists have discovered that our brains respond more positively to curved shapes than to straight lines or angles. And yet, our daily environments are full of straight lines, screens, doors, deadlines. To findout more tune into Teresa from Mental Health Ireland.

Doesn't sitting at your desk sometimes make you feel like you're turning into a sea squirt? It's not just a quirky metaphor, it's a reflection on how movement is critical to brain function. Sea squirts, in their larval stage, have brains to help them swim and hunt. To find out more tune into Teresa from Mental Health Ireland.

Do you know the feeling when you're running on empty, but you didn't realise it until someone else points it out? Maybe you snap at a loved one or find yourself staring at the ceiling at 3am, your mind racing through tomorrow's to-do list. Farmers in particular at this time of year are no strangers to pressure, but they may not recognise when stress is taking its toll. To find out more tune into Teresa from Mental Health Ireland.

Growing up in Ireland, it wasn't uncommon to hear an adult say, or count your blessings. It might have come as a gentle admonishment when there was excessive giving out, general moaning about the unfairness of our life as a young person. To find out more tune into Teresa from Mental Health Ireland.