If you live with that constant background hum of anxiety, you’ll understand the feeling of trying everything — therapy, routines, productivity hacks — and still feeling slightly on edge.

So today we’re trying something different.

This is a Mother’s Day anxiety special, featuring:

• two anxiety techniques from my mother (Old Ma)

• two techniques from a Harvard-trained life coach

• and a conversation that includes orgasms, existential philosophy, and a surprisingly detailed death plan.

In other words: a fairly normal episode.

In this episode we explore four very different ways of dealing with anxiety:

1️⃣ Old Ma’s technique #1: orgasm as emotional regulation

2️⃣ Old Ma’s technique #2: contemplating death (memento mori)

3️⃣ The “Sanity Quilt” method from Martha Beck

4️⃣ The Perfect Day exercise

Some of these are more sensible than others.

The Sanity Quilt idea comes from Martha Beck.

Imagine a patchwork blanket where each square is a small activity that reliably calms your nervous system.

Not big life changes.

Just tiny stabilisers you can rely on when things feel overwhelming.

Examples might include:

• a quick walk outside

• dancing to one song in the kitchen

• lighting a candle

• listening to music

• texting a friend

• reading a few pages of a book

• making a cup of tea

• eating a tiny cheeseboard (personal favourite)

The idea is to build a toolkit of small things that help you regulate before you spiral.

The Perfect Day exercise asks a different question:

Instead of chasing big life goals, what does a good ordinary Tuesday actually look like for you?

You imagine a realistic ideal day — from when you wake up to when you go to bed.

Not a fantasy billionaire life.

Just the kind of day your nervous system would actually enjoy living in.

Because life is basically thousands of Tuesdays in a row.

• how worrying brains invent problems that never happen

• why modern life might be fuelling anxiety

• why remembering death can sometimes make life easier

• Old Ma’s surprisingly detailed end-of-life plan

If you want Old Ma and I to attempt to solve your life problems, send us your dilemmas.

Relationship chaos, family drama, existential crises — we’ll take it all.

DM your questions to:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

You can remain anonymous if you like.

Please follow the show, leave a review, or share it with someone who:

• worries about things that never happen

• enjoys slightly unhinged mother–daughter conversations

• or might benefit from a sanity quilt and a small cheeseboard

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Earlier this week I began testing the Flow Neuroscience headset — a device that uses transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to stimulate areas of the brain linked to depression.

In simpler terms:

I’ve started plugging my forehead into a charger.

This Friday Field Report is the week one update.

I talk through:

• What the headset actually feels like to wear

• The slightly alarming wet electrode pads situation

• Whether the electrical stimulation hurts (spoiler: mildly… but in a “strong skincare” kind of way)

• The surprisingly good therapy app that comes with it

• Why the behavioural therapy modules are actually better than a lot of therapy I’ve paid for

• Whether the experiment is making me feel even slightly more motivated

So far the results are… inconclusive.

But I do feel a bit more like “come on then, let’s be having you.”

Which is something.

One thing that genuinely impressed me was the built-in therapy courses.

The headset isn’t just about the electrical stimulation — the app includes:

• behavioural therapy modules

• mindfulness and meditation sessions

• sleep support

• habit-building exercises

• diet and lifestyle guidance

All delivered through a chat-style interactive course, which is surprisingly engaging when you’re struggling to focus.

It’s a bit like a choose-your-own-adventure therapy conversation.

The therapy format inside the Flow app — genuinely useful behavioural therapy exercises delivered in a way that actually keeps you engaged.

If I find similar tools that don’t require a brain-electrocuting headset, I’ll link them here. Ok so there's one called Youper but it's not available in the UK annoyingly. Abby - your AI therapist looks good. Or Wysa the app looks good too. Haven't tried any of them though so... just going off the App Store sales pitch!

I currently have around 200 unanswered messages across email, WhatsApp and DMs.

The longer I leave them, the more awkward the replies become.

Classic.

I’ll report back again once I’ve used the headset for the full three-week protocol to see whether it actually improves:

• mood

• motivation

• executive function

• anxiety

Or whether I’ve simply been mildly electrifying my forehead for no reason.

If you’ve tried anything that actually helped your mental health, motivation or executive function — send it my way.

DM me on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

We’re currently reading Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway inside the Actually Trying Book Club.

Join here:

https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial

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Today’s episode is about mental health, low mood, chronic anxiety, executive dysfunction, and a slightly alarming-looking headset that may or may not be about to change my life.

I’m trying the Flow Neuroscience headset — a non-invasive medical device that uses tDCS (transcranial Direct Current Stimulation) to stimulate the part of the brain linked to depression.

In simpler terms:

I am, apparently, going to start plugging my forehead into a charger.

And honestly? At this point I’m open to it.

In this episode I talk about:

• My long history of low mood, dread, anxiety, and general internal gloom
• Everything I’ve already tried:
• CBT
• EMDR
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
• medication
• exercise
• water
• sleep
• trying really hard not to lose the plot
• What the Flow headset actually is
• How it’s meant to work
• Why the NHS uses it
• The statistics that made me willing to strap an electrical device to my head
• Whether this is cutting-edge science or a sign that modern life has gone badly wrong
• Why our ancestors may have had lives that were more naturally protective of mental health than ours are now

A new Ask Guru & Granny segment on beauty, Botox, fillers, lipstick, tailored clothing, and why my mother believes a teaspoon of botulism could kill the human race.

So, as usual, it’s a mixed bag.

I’m starting the headset experiment now.

On Friday I’ll report back on:

• what it feels like
• whether it hurts
• what the app is like
• and whether I feel even slightly less like I’m permanently treading emotional water

The bigger results, apparently, take a few weeks — so this is just the beginning

If you want me and Old Ma to attempt to solve your problems, send them over.

DM me on Instagram:

• @rosehoneymorgan
• @field.notes.pod

And if I ignored your last one by accident, just bump it and send it again.

We’ve just started Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway inside the Actually Trying book club.

https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial

Please follow the show, leave a review, or share it with a friend who:

• is hanging on by a thread
• has tried everything
• or would absolutely try electrically charging their forehead if it meant feeling a bit more perky

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Last week I tested the internet’s favourite anti-doomscrolling trick:

turning your phone to gray scale (black and white).

The theory is simple: remove the bright colours that hijack your brain’s dopamine system and suddenly your phone becomes far less addictive.

Did it cut my screen time in half?

Well… not exactly.

But it did reveal some interesting things about how our brains react to colour, stimulation, and the endless scroll.

In this week’s Field Report we discuss:

• Whether gray scale actually reduced my screen time
• Why social media becomes weirdly less appealing in black and white
• How the experiment accidentally pushed me into a ChatGPT rabbit hole
• Why real life suddenly looked much more colourful and vivid
• A brief “Have We Lost the Plot?” anthropology segment on humans and colour stimulation
• The unexpected downside: trying to play phone games in grayscale

Plus:

Find of the Week

Appreciating colour again (and the joy of bold interiors)

Fail of the Week

Spending another two hours helping June solve a murder in June’s Journey

Join the Actually Trying Book Club

👉 https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial

Lucy’s interiors Instagram

👉 https://www.instagram.com/lucycollierinteriors

Follow the podcast so you don’t miss next week’s experiment.

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend who is also trying (and occasionally failing) to reduce their screen time.

Next week’s topic may or may not make brands even more nervous about working with me… but at this point the damage is probably already done.

See you then.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If your screen time is creeping up…

If your phone feels impossible to put down…

If the real world is starting to look a bit dull by comparison…

This week I’m testing a free, surprisingly simple method that claims to reduce doomscrolling fast.

No apps.

No discipline hacks.

No expensive “digital detox” retreats.

Just one setting change.

In this episode we discuss:

• How color and contrast hijack your dopamine system
• Why overstimulation can make the real world feel flat
• The “gray scale” method and how to set it up
• And why I realised I needed to fix this — urgently

I’m committing to a full week of gray scale to see if it genuinely reduces screen time.

If you try it too, let me know what happens.

The Instructions

To enable grayscale on an iPhone, navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters, then toggle "Color Filters" on and select "Grayscale"

To turn on grayscale on Android, go to Settings > Digital Wellbeing & parental controls > Bedtime mode and enable "Grayscale"

📲 DM me on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

I’ll report back with the results.

⭐ If this episode helps:

Follow the show, leave a review, or send it to the friend who says “I don’t go on my phone that much” but somehow knows every trend

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

📚 Book Club Free Trial : https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial

Next month’s book: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Link in show notes.

Join us so I can reject brands with confidence.

ANYWAY

I’m back from the front lines.

Four whole days.

Zero processed food.

Planned, chopped, cooked, washed up.

Repeated.

Never again.

In this episode we discuss:

• The emotional toll of planning three meals a day like a Victorian housewife
• Whether chopping board dinners are secretly genius
• Why cheeseboard dinner is an elite parenting hack
• The M&S “non-UPF” range (sausages, buns, ketchup — full review)
• Migraines, morale, and missing Biscoff
• Being dropped by my first big brand deal and spiralling publicly
• Whether I should sell my soul for a podcast editor
• And if early death from crisps is simply a trade-off I’m willing to make

The experiment verdict?

Did I feel superhuman?

No.

Did I feel morally superior?

Briefly.

Did I miss ready meals with my entire being?

Yes.

Cheeseboard dinner.

Elevated picky bits.

Zero guilt.

Highly recommend.

Everything else.

If you’ve cracked the code on eating well without turning it into a full-time job, tell me.

📲 DM me on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode:

Follow the show.

Leave a review.

Send it to a friend but pre warn them about which episodes are shite.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week I tried going ultra-processed-food-free.

I lasted one day.

Then I got violently ill.

Was it the chicken?

Was it soft play?

Was it karma for mocking chopping-board influencers?

Unclear.

This week is Take 2.

Because the real question isn’t “Is processed food bad?”

It’s:

How on earth are we supposed to avoid it if we can’t cook and don’t have a private chef?

• My catastrophic attempt at roasting a chicken
• Why I owe chopping-board people an apology
• Cottage cheese and berries (I’m still not convinced)
• The alarming bacteria situation on cutting boards
• The new M&S “UPF-free” range
• Why modern health advice quietly assumes unlimited time
• Whether there’s a realistic middle ground between crisps and grinding your own flour

I’m trialling:

• The single-ingredient chopping board approach
• The M&S UPF-free range
• And whatever I can manage without poisoning myself again

I’ll report back properly in Friday’s Field Report.

If you have:

• Healthy ready meal recommendations
• Low-effort meal hacks
• Or thoughts on whether I’ve lost the plot

Tell me.

📲 DM me on Instagram:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

I read them. I respond. I occasionally take your advice.

Private chef reel link : https://www.instagram.com/reel/CteX-QfMvkD/?igsh=cjR4bzNlOHM2eGU3

⭐ If you enjoyed this episode:

Follow the show, leave a review, or send it to a friend who owns a chopping board but still eats waffles daily.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s update is… brief.

After confidently declaring I would attempt a week of ultra-processed-food-free living, I made it:

👉 One day.

And now I am recording this hunched over a sick bowl in what can only be described as the pink fluffy gown of shame.

Is it norovirus?

Is it food poisoning?

Is it my body rebelling against actual vegetables?

We do not yet know.

What we do know:

• Cooking is dangerous

• My stomach muscles are shot

• The commitment to this podcast remains intact

Full debrief on Monday — assuming I survive.

—

📚 Join “Actually Trying” for the proper breakdowns (when I’m upright again): https://rosehoneymorgan.substack.com/freetrial

📲 Follow along for live chaos:

@rosehoneymorgan

@field.notes.pod

Like. Subscribe. Send electrolytes.

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