Karma Insights

May 15th – 21st 2023 marks Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK, an event which has been running since 2001 and has become one of the world’s most significant observances for raising awareness of mental health conditions and removing the stigma.

This year, the theme is anxiety – an issue that Mental Health UK has estimated over 8 million people in the UK are experiencing at any one time.

CBD oil is a very unusual supplement, in that it has a vast array of mechanisms through which it works in the body. In fact, a whopping 65 molecular targets have been discovered for CBD alone, and they just seem to keep on coming. While all of these play vital roles in the effects CBD has (explaining in a nutshell how CBD can affect so many different things), it’s perhaps the interaction with the endocannabinoid system that has the most over-arching impact.

Most people enjoy a drink from time to time, and why not? Just like coffee, cannabis and the many other drugs out there, it’s part of human nature to want to experience these things and the altered states they produce. Providing you’re old enough, taking care of yourself and are in a healthy place to do so, there’s really no reason not to. However, understanding our limits, and the limits where these substances become an issue, is vital for enjoying alcohol and anything else responsibly and safely.

I’ve been involved in film photography since 2020. I think, like everyone at the time, I was feeling like I had been shaken, rattled and rolled with no say in the landing.

I had just qualified as an intensive care nurse in March 2020 which coincided with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The prospect of being a brand new nurse was already pretty daunting but this was a whole other level. I’ll never forget my first shift on nights, being helped into layers of PPE by my new colleagues, my heart beating a million miles an hour, walking onto the unit feeling very much out of my depth.

Inflammation gets a bad rap, but it actually plays a vital role in the body. When you’re injured, or you get an infection, chemicals released from white blood cells enter your blood and tissues to increase blood flow to the at-risk area to help protect and heal.

In February 2020, I hit rock bottom. I found myself in a position where I wasn’t able to move around my house, let alone succeed at work. I didn’t want to be alive again. I took a week off work at the advice of my doctor. I was once again told I was at the point where I needed to take medication for my mental health. Twenty-four hours later, I binned them all.

At Karma Coast, as well as our passion for health and wellness, our roots are sunk deeply into music and the arts, and we firmly believe in the soul-healing power that comes with connecting through creating. The recently launched Karma Sessions are our way of sharing our love for music and its healing properties; bringing the community together, whilst showcasing some amazing local talent in the North East. In this same spirit, we’ve decided to launch a new section of our blog, chatting to local artists, musicians, and creatives, and sharing their stories with you. Our first guest is local artist Emilie Chartier, sharing about her connection to the North Sea, healing through creating, and the beauty in community.

When was the last time you felt stressed? With over 50% of the population reporting feelings of overwhelming stress in their daily lives*1, it’s probable that it isn’t too difficult to recall. Many of us are aware that prolonged periods of stress can have damaging effects, both mental and physical, but few of us understand why, or what to do with this knowledge.

So, let’s talk about it.

The Benefits of Cold Water Swimming In the North Sea Here at Karma Coast, we are firm advocates of wellbeing practices and using our natural

I’m not sure where to start really, I suppose it might be useful to ask the question “why did I think I needed CBD in my life?”

Well, I don’t recall thinking that I did actually but I do recall thinking that I was in physical pain every day in one form or another and I wasn’t happy about it. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t bed bound or struggling to get through the day, nothing that bad, It was just that 48 years of running around the planet at warp speed had taken its toll physically. I’m not the kind of person who can sit still you see, I’m always in search of an adventure, something, anything! (it turned out there was a very good reason for this, but we’ll come to that later).