The good news is that you're already living the dream life. The bad news is that the dream in question isn't being had by you but by someone else. Welcome to the world of the quantum leap.

Can visualising negative events make you happy? You wouldn't think so, but the stoics did, and they were right.

Introducing a philosophy of living that connected with me in a way that my work and practice in psychological theories and therapies didn’t.

One of the most effective ways we can manage unhelpful thoughts is by using a psychological tool called ‘defusion’, a technique from a mindfulness based approach to helping anxiety called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Defusion is probably the most powerful psychological skill I've learned and has helped change my life more than any other intervention I've used. In this article I will describe what defusion is and then outline four practical defusion exercises that can help you to manage anxiety, and more specifically anxious thoughts.

We can use intentions to change the way others perceive us, decide how we will treat others, and shape our actions in specific situations.

Recent research investigating the effect of mindset on health has demonstrated how beliefs and attitudes can change the way the body responds to physical and mental threats, and have a direct impact on our wellbeing. Studies by Harvard University psychologists Alia Crum and Ellen Langer have demonstrated that changing the way we think about an experience can change what is happening in our bodies. The research is both remarkable and surprising, and will make you think twice about your beliefs. When I first discovered the research it completely changed the way I thought about my own anxiety.

As a university lecturer I was responsible for the personal guidance of a large number of students. Many of them would come to talk to me about their hopes and fears, and quite a few of them shared their personal struggles with anxiety with me. However, there was always one type of task that seemed to strike fear into nearly all students, even the most capable and seemingly confident ones – the dreaded class presentation. Any task or assessment that involved standing up in front of the class and presenting, be it as individual, or part of a group, caused high levels of panic amongst many in the class.

Visualisation is sometimes called imagery, mental rehearsal, or mental practice, and it refers to the creating or recreating of an experience in the mind. The process involves constructing or recalling from memory, pieces of information stored from experience, and shaping these pieces into meaningful images.

Panic attacks can last from anywhere between thirty seconds to thirty minutes and can be so distressing sufferers sometimes have the feeling they are losing control or about to die. The experience can be one of extreme agitation, terror, fury, or immobilisation, accompanied by extreme symptoms of the fight, flight, or freeze response; racing heart, rapid breathing, trembling, shaking, nausea, numbness, tight chest, difficulty swallowing, and hot flushes or chills. Episodes can return in waves, are frightening and often exhausting.