Dr Santie van der Merwe

Author: santiepsych

  • Resilience – Part 5

    Keep your finger on the pulse Understanding how you affact yourself and others is a key facet of building resilience. Changes and challenges that we experience at work or as part of our lives make many of us feel like life is chaotic and out of control. So, they obviously influence us on an emotional…

  • Resilience – Part 4

    Tickle That Funny Bone Make time to see the humour in things. Babies start smiling at around six months of age. We also like to believe that our pets, especially dogs, can smile. It makes sense that monkeys and baboons can laugh, but few people will believe that rats apparently laugh too. We as humans,…

  • Resilience – Part 3

    Give Negativity a Knuckle SandwichCultivating optimism is key to building your resilience. My friend gave me some strawberry popcorn seeds. These are the most beautiful dark, ruby coloured pomegranate seeds – just smaller. Being a keen gardener, I planted them immediately and after a couple of very long months, I finally harvested my first crop.…

  • Resilience – Part 2

    Get to grips with your emotions.Take time to understand yourself and your feelings. My colleague told me that the work-from-home situation caused her stress and anxiety. The sudden change to a home office took her away from valuable daily interactions with everyone at the office. Figuring out how all the technology works for someone that…

  • Resilience – Part 1

    The process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, or significant sources of stress. Flexibility and adaptability will have you rolling with life’s punches. In the engineering world, resilience refers to the ability of an object or structure to spring back into shape after it was exposed to severe force or pressure. In…

  • Feeling Good and Functioning Well

    What is Wellbeing? This succinct definition covers the components of mental wellbeing as perceived primarily by positive psychologists. It includes subjective/hedonic/affective wellbeing (feeling good) as well as psychological wellbeing (functioning well). There are many things that influence our wellbeing, including external conditions such as income, employment, and social networks as well as personal resources such as health,…

  • Hypertension

    Symptoms High blood pressure usually has no warning signs or symptoms, and many people do not know they have it. Measuring your blood pressure is the only way to know whether you have high blood pressure. Did you know? In South Africa more than 1 in 3 adults live with high blood pressure and it…

  • Stress

    Stress is an inevitable part of our everyday lives. A little bit can be positive, but too much stress takes a toll on the body and mind. The goal isn’t to eliminate stress (that would be impossible) but rather to reduce it where possible and take time to recover from the stressors of daily life.…