228 Results in Strategies

What is de-sensitisation and why is it important?

Everyone experiences phases in their life. A phase could be the period of your life when you are at school or the period of your life you are working in a particular job. Relationships have phases as well. There are phases where you might see or interact with a particular person regularly and phases where you lose touch. Change can be very, very difficult for autistic people. Therefore, transitions between phases can be problematic and it can take an autistic person a long time to 'settle' into a new phase. It can also be very difficult to transition back into a previous phase, which is what this article is about. This article was inspired by the partial lockdown we are currently in in the UK. I started thinking about how we've all had to adjust to this new life of quarantine and how it might be returning to normal. We will effectively have to return to a previous 'phase'. If you have read my book, 'What I have Learned about Life', you might remember that I wrote "I would probably never be able to go back to university again and that I would probably never be able to go back to a 'normal' type of job again". Even though I managed those experiences before, I have not done them for a long time. What I believe has happened is that, whereas I was [somewhat] de-sensitised to those experiences before, I am not now.

10 tips for learning online

The internet has given us amazing opportunities to learn anything we want without leaving home. However, learning from the internet is a bit different from learning in a classroom. Here are 10 things that help me learn information when I am using the internet: 1. A clear objective I find it difficult to learn unless there is a clear objective, goal or learning outcome. That's why I like tutorials that have clear titles, descriptions or opening paragraphs that tell me exactly what I am going to learn.

The 3 ways to connect with someone

I have often wondered why I get on well with some people and why being around others causes stress. When I thought about it, I realised that it was primarily to do with just three things!! I realised that there are three main ways that people can connect with each other and those people who I don't get on with are the ones who don't use any of these ways. I have also made a very good animation to explain this, which you can watch below! The ways can be thought of as levels:

Developing a tolerance level

Tolerance can be defined as the capacity to endure something that we find uncomfortable. For the purpose of this article, I will say that we can be tolerant of two areas: 1) Situations 2) Error I think that being tolerant to an extent is a good thing, but I think it's sensible to decipher your own tolerance levels.

What “putting yourself in another person’s shoes” really means

There is normally some confusion over the phrase, "to put yourself in another person's shoes." It is confusing because it can be taken in two ways:  Way 1) To imagine yourself in the other person's situation Way 2) To imagine being the other person in their situation A lot of people seem to do number 1, but number 2 is actually the better way to get close to someone. If this is confusing, watch our amazing animated film to understand:

How to help someone avoid masking

Masking is a word used to describe the behaviours by autistic people in order to 'hide' their autistic traits. As well as causing anxiety and exhaustion, another consequence of masking is that other people do not get to see the true person. This is a very sad situation to be in because it can ruin an autistic person's relationships. If an autistic person is never themselves around someone then it leads to the other person building up a false idea of their personality. This makes the other person have expectations of the autistic person that they are unlikely to be able to meet or maintain over the long term. In the end, the relationship is a great stress for the autistic person. In order to have a sincere and meaningful relationship with an autistic person, a neurotypical person could try doing some things in order to encourage the autistic person not to mask, and to help them "come out of their glass jar" a bit. Here are some strategies that I suggest:

10 ways to live in the moment

Living in the moment is a strategy that I use to reduce my anxiety. I didn't used to live in the moment but I can say with certainty that ever since doing so, life has confidently been a lot more comfortable for me. Here are 10 ways that I do this every day: 1. Focusing on what I am doing It’s often said that autistic people have an ability to ‘hyperfocus’ (deeply concentrate) on activities. If I am living in the moment then it facilities my ability to hyperfocus. I don’t think about anything other than what I’m actually doing right now. It enables me to create high quality work, get tasks finished and experience satisfaction! If I wasn’t living in the moment, this hyperfocus ability would not be utilised or appreciated (and it’s such an awesome ability to have!).

3 essential things to help your daily life

Olympic weightlifter Michaela Breeze provides some really motivating educational resources. I was watching one of her videos and came across one where she talked about overcoming the battles she faced in weightlifting. She mentioned 3 helpful ideas used in order to get over any obstacles or overcome plateaus in weightlifting. This was obviously helpful to me in my weightlifting, but it also made me think outside the box, and I thought about the way I face my challenges in day to day life. I could say that I use those 3 ideas in weightlifting and also to help me in daily life. Those 3 ideas are:

The Pockets Theory

In music theory, when a person is singing, their words are supposed to 'land' at particular points in the song. When their words don't land on these positions, the singing sounds 'off'. However, there is a 'pocket' around those exact points in which the singer can still sing their words, and the singing will still sound good. I thought this idea was very interesting and it made me think about how it can be applied to everyday life to make everyday life easier for us. Autistic people may be prone to being perfectionistic, wanting things to be very exact, correct and literal, i.e. they want things to land exactly on those particular points each and every time. Let's look at this in a diagram:

Investing in yourself

I have always been very cautious about spending money. My dad taught me from a young age the importance of saving. He would always say, "Are you sure you can afford that?" whenever I was considering purchasing something expensive. To this day, every time I spend money, I always have that nagging feeling in the back of my mind!! I am really glad for his advice because 1) I have learned the value of money and 2) I have managed to save money... however... saving is not always the best option. In fact, saving money can actually restrict us. I have learned that it can be better to invest money instead. This article is about the importance of investing, BUT I don't exclusively mean investing money, I am also referring to investing your energy, emotions and your time. It only recently occurred to me that there are so many other ways to invest in yourself. All these other ways will be discussed in this article: