We wish you a very merry and cheery Christmas and a Happy New Year with a moodeat turkey recipe specially prepared for you to help you cope with the Christmas Blues.

We know it takes a lot more than a moodeat turkey, but every little thing you do helps!

Remember to prepare it with a group of supportive friends and loving family members.

Setting up and running an evidence based clinical e-practice in the field of mental health is an exhilarating challenge!

In other fields of medicine, this may not be the case, but in the mental health world, evidence based practice is a relatively new development.

“Evidence-based practice” means we conduct our clinical practice based on evidence that we’ve acquired from clinical research. Similar to drug research, your doctor will usually prescribe medications that’ve been tested thoroughly through many trials, and have been proven to benefit your health condition. Once upon a time, your therapy could’ve been based on Dr. Ego’s clinical expertise, big name or great insights, but thankfully these days such practices are slowly becoming a nightmare of the past (although, drug companies still invest on armies of Dr. Egos “aka opinion leaders” to influence your local doctor’s prescription practices).

However, evidence-based practice is a fairly recent development in the field of mental health, and especially in the field of psychotherapy. The rise of behavioral therapy in the 60s, partly as a reaction to the psychoanalytic status quo, and later its marriage with cognitive therapy, have given us a remarkable new tradition of true evidence-based psychotherapeutic practice.

• How mood regulates food

One thing that determines our enjoyment in life is mood. Mood changes from day to day, moment to moment. We may be happy, energized, have optimistic feelings, take part in enjoyable activities, feel loving; but we may also feel unpleasant, moody, irritable, anxious, tired and even depressed. We’ve all come across these feelings and have experienced the enormous impact they have on our psychological and physical wellbeing. However, as people tend to favor positivity and happiness, we try to regulate our bad moods by engaging in certain activities and routines such as eating, exercising, smoking, drinking, socializing, playing games, watching TV, etc.