A new study finds that our emotional responses to everyday stressors impact our long term mental health. A Ten Year Study Dr. Susan Charles of the University of California, Irvine and her colleagues used data from two national surveys to examine the relationship between how people respond to daily emotional stressors and the state of their mental health ten years later. A major strength of…
Daily Minor Stressors Impact Long-Term Mental Health
10 Tools For Dealing With Holiday Depression
There has been a long standing myth that suicide rates increase over the holiday season. According to the Mayo Clinic, this is completely false. What is true is that the rates of depression and stress do increase. Here are ten solid tools to help you and deal if Santa also brings you some holiday blues. Keep your expectations balanced. You won’t get everything you want, things will go wrong, and…
To Clear Negative Thoughts, Physically Throw them Away
Bothered by negative thoughts? Clearing your mind of them could be as simple as writing them down and physically throwing them away, according to a new study, published in the journal Psychological Science. “At some level, it can sound silly. But we found that it really works — by physically throwing away or protecting your thoughts, you influence how you end up using those thoughts,” study researcher Richard Petty,…
Tips To Sleeping Like A Baby
There is an advertising-fueled medicine myth in America that a little pill can cure you. Sleeping pills are one of the more widely used meds prescribed to approximately 60 million people in the United States. However, these began coming under scrutiny when a British Medical Journal Online article in May triggered sleepless nights after reporting the association with some common sleeping pills to a four-fold increased risk of death—even…
How To Feel Good When Things Go Bad
Life’s twists and turns can be scarier than any rollercoaster ride out there. Without warning, a perfectly fine—even good—life can take a turn for the worse. Whether you are faced with a lost job, failed health, or personal rejection, such a blow can knock you off your feet. And you might find it almost impossible to get up, never mind feel good about moving on.…
Overwork / Underwork – Two Sides of Male Depression
Overwork and Underwork; two sides of worthlessness in male depression. How insistence on social connections can break through. The case of overwork Al commented: “I have never been a guy who can just take time off without feeling wrong and guilty. So I work 70 hours or more a week. It is killing me, I think, but what in the world would I do with the time…
10 Fast Fixes To Manage Stress
Stress is a normal part of life and usually comes from everyday occurrences: Here are the best ways you can deal with everyday sources of stress. 1. Eliminate as many sources of stress as you can. For example, if crowds bother you, go to the supermarket when you know the lines won’t be too long. Clear up the clutter in your life by giving away…
The Six Best Ways to Decrease Your Anxiety
We all know the uncomfortable feeling of anxiety. Our hearts race, our fingers sweat, and our breathing gets shallow and labored. We experience racing thoughts about a perceived threat that we think is too much to handle. That’s because our “fight or flight” response has kicked in, resulting in sympathetic arousal and a narrowing of attention and focus on avoiding the threat. We seem to…
How to Overcome Being Anxious About Being Anxious
Anxiety sensitivity is “the tendency to respond fearfully to bodily sensations associated with fear and anxiety.” Put simply, it’s “the fear of fear.” People who are prone to anxiety sensitivity tend to catastrophize, or automatically assume that the worst will happen. According to authors and clinical psychologists Margo C. Watt, Ph.D, and Sherry H. Stewart, Ph.D, in their excellent book Overcoming the Fear of Fear: How…
Five Things to Know About Anger
Anger is a frequently misunderstood emotion. People confuse it with aggression and violence, they think of it as mostly unhealthy, and they fail to recognize the times in their lives when their anger has been positive. To try and rectify those misunderstandings, here are five important things to know about anger. Anger is different from aggression Often, anger is confused with aggression. However, the two…