1. Typos

We’re all human, but typos give the impression of having a low attention to detail. Or worse, you get the wrong word altogether. Bottoms! 

2. Repetition

We’ll ensure you don’t say ‘ensure’ too many times in your content, ensuring your readers don’t get sick of being ensured.

3. Dodgy formatting

Would you eat a plate of food you dropped on the floor? Maybe at home?! Would you read content that looks a mess? Probably not.

4. Word count

Do you love reading stuff that takes ages to get to the point? We don’t either, but we’re great at condensing content without losing the meaning.

6. Punctuation disasters

Too much punctuation, is – often – distracting, and (totally) unnecessary. Having too little in a long long long sentence like this one is no good either. Just a natural amount.

7. Consistency

From your tone of voice and layout to the range of sentence flows you’re using, consistency creates familiarity and trust.

1. Avoid cliches

Let’s face it, cliches can be awful. Especially corporate ones.

Things like ‘let’s take this offline’, or ‘touch base’.

Cringe.

2. Write conversationally

When people write or speak in a formal way, it’s often a power thing. So if we hear a super formal tone – whoever it’s from – matching it helps us stay on a level playing field with them. But we don’t necessarily enjoy the interaction.

Whereas when we speak more conversationally and relaxed, it’s a much more equal, human connection.

We can all be a bit guilty at times of writing quick goodbyes. But they can give the impression that we’re too busy – or can’t be bothered – to say a genuine cheerio.

• Regards
• Best
• Albert

(Hopefully) no-one speaks like this in real-life interactions 😬

We always encourage people to write something they’d actually say out loud, even if they’re in a hurry. A good quick check is to ask yourself:

• Does it still sound as professional as it needs to?
• Does it sound authentically like me?

Go with whatever works for you – just something a bit less robotic, a bit more you. For me it might be:

• Speak to you later 🙂
• Have a good afternoon, let’s catch up in a bit

4. Don’t be scared of an emoji

Also, try using the odd emoji or two where it feels right or if other people are – even if you feel reluctant at first.

There’s some good research out right now suggesting people feel more connected using emojis in written messages. After all we communicate facially before we do verbally in the real world.

Get in touch

So that’s how not to write like a robot. Need help with some of your digital content, tone-of-voice guidance or any other copywriting? Send us a message and we’ll get back to you.

1. Things to steer away from

Inflexible or rigid thinking tends to lead to extremes in any walk of life. This is just as true for eating behaviours that influence our mood. Let’s start with the most obvious example.

Dieting!

If weight loss is your goal, it’s more sustainable to go about it steadily. It takes longer but it’s associated with less extremes. You know the sort – ‘it’s fine to eat everything in sight right now if I eat as little as possible for the next few weeks’.

These on-off behaviours usually come about because we’re not feeling in control enough. But they ultimately make us crave more control – which is a well-stocked larder as far as anxiety is concerned!

One of the best therapists I’ve worked with taught me to tell people diets don’t usually work in the long run. Lifestyle adjustments – definitely – but not diets. At least, not as we usually use them for, which for most folks is to lose weight quickly.

Fasting

This has become more popular in the recent years. Though unless people stick to it rigidly, it tends to lead to more overeating at some stage. In clinics, we almost always encourage people suffering with eating disorders to steer clear from fasting, and instead:

• Eat little and often, driving out those hangry food moods
• Eat more fibre and protein, smaller amounts of fats and even less sugar

Our biochemistry loves these rules. It’s a bit like renewable verses non-renewable energy. When we eat ‘renewables’ (like nutritionally-dense foods) rather than ‘non-renewables’ (like high fat/sugary foods) there’s way less ‘pollution’ (like anxiety or anger spikes).

Abandoning the fast seems to help with longer-term weight loss too. Whenever anybody inevitably overeats during a fasting regime, the body stores as much as it can as fat – trying to prepare for the next long cold winter, if you will.

Focus on timing

‘Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper’ is what my supervisor taught us as students. It certainly helps no end when I’ve recommended it to clients, for weight loss or for better emotional regulation.

Here are a few more timing tips:

• You’ll probably need more food after exercise.
• A small protein-rich snack 2-3 hours before bed helps you sleep.
• It takes about 3 days to change a behaviour, 3 weeks to change a habit and 3 months to change a lifestyle.

You might have noticed more medical doctors have been writing recipe books over the last few years, with a big emphasis on eating varied foods for gut health. It’s really important for brain health too, almost like a lift/elevator taking the nutrients upwards.

Eat all the food groups

A lot of diets demonise certain foods groups. Fats are nigh-on eliminated or carbohydrates are cut down, so we lose huge amounts of weight in mere weeks. But our bodies need fats, especially foods like avocados, packed with a ton of nutrients. And our bodies need carbs.

We might not need a carb-heavy meal after work if we’ve been sat down all day though. And this example of bringing in a bit more flexibility gives us more control over our food intake – rather than rigid, strict, harsh rules.

This is a great one, and it’s really effective for people suffering from disordered eating. The theory here is that if people deny themselves what they want, they’ll probably end up overdoing it later. And it seems to play out this way for most. Keep it modest though!

I noticed how out of all the blogs I’ve written so far, this one had the most info to include. So using headings is super effective at breaking up chunks of text.

Another useful tactic was stripping sentences right back to the bare essentials. This is always one of my favourite editing tricks because sentences usually come out more readable.

Also, any idea was passed through a threefold checklist, keeping the content as evidence-based as possible. It passed the test if it was:

• Backed up by another therapist
• Supported by high-quality research
• Effective for multiple clients I’ve worked with before

Pain moves both ways

I used to run a psychological therapy clinic for people suffering with long-term physical pain. There’s the obvious connection to spell out here – physical pain can be both stressful and depressing. But experts are now discovering this relationship isn’t as one-way as people used to think.

The way our body’s electrical wiring works when we’re anxious or depressed creates extremes – being super highly charged or really depleted. And physical pain can get stuck at certain points in our bodies when this happens.

A lot of people I saw in the pain clinic had symptoms of hypermobile joints, but barely any were diagnosed. The current and best quality research shows hypermobility is still pretty misunderstood, even by the specialists who diagnose it. Being diagnosed as hypermobile myself, my own physio from APPI has been crucial.

Stable vs moving

Almost everyone suffering with physical pain tends to overdo it a bit when they’re feeling alright again, then they inevitably crash when they can’t do anymore. It’s our own natural way to try and maximise our resources, but hypermobile joints can’t stand it.

I’m no physio, but a crucial bit of info here is the difference between two types of muscles – movers and stabilisers. The movers are all the big ones you can see – the stabilisers aren’t really visible and protect the joints.

When hypermobile people go for this boom-and-bust pattern of behaviour – our stabilisers keep shutting down until they’re almost in shut-off mode, then our big mover muscles take up the slack.

So people with hypermobile joints can know it’s not a case of fixing dodgy joints, like the way we’d fix a broken bone. It’s more about living with it effectively, by gradually sticking to bespoke exercises that work for each person.

Here are my new rules for living

• Regularity is key – little and often, avoid boom and bust
• Use recovery lots – cold water/compress, restorative yoga, deep-tissue/roller
• Prioritise mat work – isometric and pilates-based strengthening
• Only use low-load bearing cardio – freestyle swimming is the best!
• Avoid going beyond a joint’s range of movement
• Activate the stabilisers almost daily, before even thinking about the movers

Milestones

Using an evidence-based way of managing the condition myself has been the biggest achievement. Any health practitioner these days has to work in an ‘evidenced-based’ way. It’s not as dull as it sounds. It just means treating people with the most effective interventions – supported by the best research available at the time.

This is a problem when there’s not enough research, so guidelines don’t really exist – like with hypermobility. That’s why finding a practitioner who could bridge this theory-practice gap completely changed my game.

Before working with a physio and pilates-instructor who really knew about hypermobility, I was in and out of physio services a few times a year. Now, I manage it largely by myself, with the occasional top-up from my instructor – which is what’s recommended, rather than lots of clinic time.

• I can continuously swim again – just a few minutes wasn’t possible before
• I hike again for hours – this was really painful before, and I’d get stranded
• I can do push-ups again – before, just picking up iron pans was getting tricky

Also, talking about goals and how they’ve been reached is key. If people are buying something for their physical health, they want to be able to relate to it. This is where using people’s own success stories comes in handy.

Like most things, body work is a process and not an end point. Adapting it to fit my needs has been hugely rewarding – and writing about it has helped make it second nature.

Would you like a hand with your physio content?

1. Write how you speak

We’re all human – and we make better connections with people by being ourselves.

Do you ever read your writing out loud? This helps us make sure what we’re writing reflects our voice – rather than just our thoughts. Writing conversationally this way makes it easier for people to relate to us.

Plus reading aloud helps us to avoid skim reading when we’re checking through our writing – from mistakes and typos to clunky language. These are the sorts of thing which can throw readers off the scent.

3. Use pronouns

Writing pronouns like ‘you’, ‘we’ and ‘our’ makes writing more personable and conversational. It’s especially important for us all to relate to each other right now – using pronouns helps us to feel connected.

Contractions are also handy when we’re using pronouns:

• I will = I’ll
• You would = you’d
• We are = we’re
• They have = they’ve