So could you talk us through the steps then, please?

Yeah.

So D is for describe the situation as objectively as you can without blame or judgment.

For example, we might say, "I heard you say that," or, "The situation seems to be that." E involves recognizing and expressing your emotions, such as feeling excited or satisfied when our needs are met, or irritable, frustrated, or hurt when they're not.

We don't have to share these with the other person if we're not comfortable talking about our emotions, but it is helpful to recognize them for ourselves.

A is ask what matters.

What needs are important to you, and what needs might be important to the other person? And R is a reasonable request, asking for something specific that the other person is genuinely able to do and that is likely to help meet those needs.

And, and can you give an example of how that might work in practice?

So if I've got listeners who don't really know what values are, can you give us a little whistle stop tour of what we mean when we're talking about our values? Yeah.

Yeah, so I think of values as two aspects to it.

There's values and needs, and values are long-term directions that we care about.

So if you think about a compass, you can go in the direction of north, but you never get there.

And so it might be things like I care about autonomy, I care about fairness, I care about wellbeing, connection.

They're very broad ideas that matter to us in the bigger picture of our lives and things that we would want to stand for.

And if you perhaps look back on your life, you might think these are things that really matter to me.

And actually, since they've emigrated to a country where they work in private practice, and they are very, very successful and doing very, very well, interestingly, they've become... a much quite a different person and a much more interested in some of the wider things that I might be interested in because actually for them in that moment that financial security and feeling they'd made it financially was so overwhelmingly driving for them that they couldn't see anything else and actually they're weirdly they're a nicer person for the fact that they're working in what I might see as a less good system and so it was always wrong yeah wrong values for the place that they were in didn't actually make them a bad person.

Explain CBT to me and what that is and how it helps, please.

Yeah, so I think the first thing to say is that CBT is really, it's got a lot of evidence of being effective.

So it's one of the therapies that has had the most studies done about does it actually work? Does it make a difference to people after they've been through it? Do people tend to feel better? And it's one of the ones that does in a whole range of different conditions from anxiety, depression, also with lots of health conditions about adjustment.

And so it's very broad because it can actually help people with lots of different things.

And actually, over the years, CBT was, I think, first really became popular in the 80s.

And over the last few decades, it's evolved to be quite a lot of different parts.

And actually, you could meet several different CBT therapists who have quite a different approach.

So what can people do? What can people borrow from that process, Lee, to do at home themselves, to give themselves a few little handy hints and tips to motivate them forwards when they're feeling the types of things that we've spoken about already?

So what causes PMS, Lee?

Lee?Well, we don't really know the exact mechanisms, and it's not caused by one single factor.

Frontiers in Psychiatry gave us some key contributors, and these include sensitivity to hormone changes.

Hormone levels across the menstrual cycle are generally similar in women with and without PMS, but symptoms may arise from the way the brain responds to normal hormonal fluctuations, particularly changes in progesterone and its neuroactive metabolite allopregnanolone during the luteal phase.

Rapid changes in hormone levels may be more important than absolute levels.

One theory proposes that some women experience heightened positive physical, emotional, and social states during the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle, and that's from Medical Hypotheses 2008.

After ovulation, when fertility declines, these heightened states typically reduce, leading to a relative drop in physical and psychological well-being, a hormone hangover.

[laughs] Now, to finish off then, Lee, I wonder if you could tell us a bit about premenstrual exacerbations of mood disorders.

[laughs] What's your favorite way, Leigh?

Sounds amazing, Nick.

I, I really like getting outside.

I like to have a look at the sky, the s- the, look at the trees, maybe go for a walk or a gentle jog.

And ideally, I would go with friends so we can put the world to rights as we go.

I'm also in a choir, which I absolutely love, and it's an amazing way to feel part of something and to, to do something that genuinely brings me joy.

I also think saying no is really important, although knowing what to say no to can be hard.

How about you, Leigh?