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Hello again everybody and welcome back to BEDA 2018. CRYING Today I wanted to talk about crying. As a child, I have memories of getting very emotional at things and getting upset to the point of breaking out into tears on a regular basis. I should point out that it wasn’t I who had a problem with this – I was quite alright that if I was upset I could cry and it would be okay. It was other people and society in general that seemed to have a problem with it. I was told so often by people that I would be seen as “soft” or that I was being “girly” in some way and that crying as a “man” was a sign of weakness. Even people who were close to me seemed to have this attitude (mostly males sadly) but I couldn’t understand it. How was I weak by getting upset? If something was worrying me or had got me that sad that I felt like crying, was this not okay? In what way was crying a “girly” thing to do – don’t all people cry at some point? Even in my young mind, I was questioning t...

Hello again everyone and welcome to the fourth part of my BEDA challenge. MY RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD So far this week I have spoken quite openly about my struggles with caffeine and alcohol. Now I’m going to talk about another thing I have had a problem with in the last few years – FOOD. Even though food is a necessity for all of us, it is something that can cause a great many problems, from over-eating to under-eating, from not making healthy choices to eating at the wrong times. I have faced so many problems of my own with food and my diet in recent years. A lot of it, I believe, is related to my troubles with anxiety and depression, and the need to have control over something in those dark times (it was in fact the complete opposite and it was loss of control over food masquerading as having control.) Here are just some of the problems I faced. ·          Not eating breakfast because of being “too busy” or “late” in the m...

Hello again everyone, and welcome to B.E.D.A 2018: Day Three. CAFFEINE Today I’m going to talk about something that was the subject of one of my first ever posts way back in 2015 – CAFFEINE. I am going to split this into three sections; THEN – What it was like when I was drinking caffeine QUITTING IT – My journey to giving it up NOW – What it feels like now I’m completely off it THEN Looking back to where I was less than four years ago, I would say that I was, like a lot of young people, addicted to caffeine. I was getting through so much of it every single day. On average this is how much I was taking per 24 hours ·          Between 1 and 3 cups of tea (I’m British, what do you expect?) ·          1 or 2 energy drinks ·          1 latte (once or twice a week) ·          An entire 2 li...

Hello again everyone, and welcome to day 2 of my BEDA challenge. ALCOHOL Today, I wanted to talk about something super important that I don’t think I am open enough about, either online or in real life – ALCOHOL. Just over a year ago, I stopped drinking alcohol, and currently have no intention to ever drink again. Here are just a few reasons why. I WAS USING IT AS A COPING MECHANISM I was using drink and my weekly drinking sessions to try and cope with the stress of being at uni because I thought that getting drunk and forgetting my problems was a way to help me. I realise now that this is 100% wrong for me. Rather than make my problems better or helping me to deal with being stressed, alcohol did in fact make things worse. Because of hangovers, I missed key meetings and was less productive. By stopping me doing what needed to be done, drinking made me more stressed. I WAS GETTING MORE DRUNK, AND DOING SO MORE OFTEN Looking back, I was in a dangerous ...

Hello everyone, and welcome to April (have we seriously entered the fourth month of 2018 already). WELCOME TO BEDA 2018! As you’ve probably already seen from the title and the header picture, this is part one of a month-long blogging challenge called BEDA (Blogging Every Day in April). I’ve attempted so many of these challenges in the past and failed, but that just makes me more determined than ever to complete it this time around. Each post is going to be in three parts. One – This will be the main content part of the post and I’m going to be covering quite a few interesting subjects over this challenge, some of which I haven’t really blogged about before. Two – Inspirational or motivational quotes on the light-up message board I bought for myself recently, along with a bit of explanation as to what that particular quote means to me. Three – Last year, in April, I counted down my favourite songs from 2007 (a decade on) and this year, I am doing the same again...

Hello again everybody and welcome to another edition of Music Mondays. As usual this will be the 10 songs I’m listening to right now. TROYE SIVAN – My My My TROYE SIVAN – The Good Side I said a month ago to look out for Troye Sivan’s new music in 2018. Since then, he has released two brand new songs which I cannot stop playing. His talent is unbelievable and both of these songs are on their way to being massive hits. SIGRID – Strangers Here is Sigrid, recently awarded the BBC’s Sound of 2018. Previous winners include Sam Smith and Adele, so expect big things from this wonderful artist. TREVOR MORAN – Sinner PALOMA FAITH – Guilty ED SHEERAN – New Man BUSTED – Air Hostess Who doesn’t love a bit of Busted, right? YEARS AND YEARS – King Y and Y are one of my favourite new groups of the last few years. This is such an addictive track, don’t you think? MAROON 5 ft CHRISTINA AGUILERA – Moves Like Jagger THE VERVE – The Drugs Don’t Work T...

Hello again everyone, and welcome to today’s post. Throughout this month, I’ve been talking about my goals for 2018. This week I want to focus on what I hope to achieve with this blog over the coming year, starting today with the number of views I would love to get. I have split this into three separate goals. BREAK MY MONTHLY VIEWS RECORD For a long time my best month in terms of views was October 2015 with 772. Last October, that record was broken when I hit 802 in that month. Now, I want to break that record again at some point this year. In fact, due to the large number of posts I have put up this year already, that record may be about to fall by the end of this month which would be UNBELIEVABLE! BREAK MY YEARLY VIEWS RECORD Another of my personal records that I want to break in 2018 is my overall yearly views. At this stage, 2016 has been my best year with 4,246. So, I guess my aim would be to have over 5,000 views on this page in 2018 to break t...