Don’t let the news control your anxiety

By Ian Smith of the Wellbeing Practice in Poundbury

This year Mental Health Awareness week is from May 15-21 and the theme is anxiety. One in 10 people will suffer from anxiety in their lives and it is most common in the 35-59 age group. When feeling stressed people will often say, ‘It’s just my anxiety’, this can however present itself in many ways. The most common types of anxiety and those talked about most often are: n Obsessive Compulsive Disorder n Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome n Generalised Anxiety

TURN OFF THE NEWS: You can’t control it, so don’t let it control you

Disorder n Phobias n Separation Anxiety n News Anxiety n Health Anxiety

News anxiety is part of our everyday lives. Most of us can identify with checking our phones, listening out for news headlines about situations that we cannot control. It can bring about feelings of hopelessness and social isolation. It is important to remember that YOU are in control of these things. What can you do? Firstly, turn off the notifications on your phone, avoid listening out for the news and stream your favourite tracks instead. Spending more time around friends and family will reduce the feeling of social isolation and you will find yourself challenging your thinking. Turn it off, you can’t change the news, but you can be proactive in how you let it affect you. n Wellbeing Practice will be celebrating Mental Health Awareness week by holding a free workshop on managing children’s anxiety and offer new creative therapy sessions details and booking are on our website: wellbeingpractice.co.uk

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Wraxall

Wraxall is unique among Dorset parishes in that it has no recorded public rights of way. However, it does have an unpaved, unwanted, unloved, unclassified county road, Wraxall Lane, which is, in places, in worse condition than any of the right of way you’ll have used so far if you’re doing these walks.

Start at the ancient church, which is usually open. The graveyard is worth a look too, particularly the tomb just behind the church,

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WALKING IN DORSET with retired Dorset rights of way officer Chris Slade

which has a cluster of skulls carved on it. Then walk down the road a short distance and cross a ford (there’s a bridge next to it) to enter Wraxall Lane. The first part is easy going and there are lovely view of the countryside to the north, however, once you’re past the farm and going downhill it’s very rutted and muddy so you’ll be glad that you’re appropriately shod and carrying a stick. My dad once told me that it was in much better condition when he used to ride horses along it in the 1930s. At the worst bit join a road on your left, heading downhill to the north, over a stream, which is the parish boundary, into Cattistock parish where you soon join a Tarmac road that takes you northwest for half-a-mile then turns left down over a bridge back into Wraxall. Continue along the road through Lower Wraxall, past the church and up the hill, missing the first junction but turning left at the second which takes you down to Higher Wraxall where the ancient Manor House is being refurbished. There are some stables too, but the clock on them is wrong.

Then walk back up the road, turn right and soon you’ll be back where you started, having walked about three miles.