Practice Your Mental Health!

ACT Therapy Seattle | Musing Within The Happiness Trap

Talks at the Rubin Museum

In Memoriam: Philip Seymour Hoffman

Just over a year ago philosopher Simon Critchley met with Philip Seymour Hoffman for the final evening in a series of on-stage conversations called Happy Talk. In a delightful and searching dialogue, that in hindsight seems prescient, the actor wrestles with the concepts of happiness, love, and death with the same courage and compelling insight that he brought to his role

Desperately Seeking Happiness

Happiness is one of the most sought after and yet still elusive aspects of life. Happiness is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that everyone wants, but so few people can confidently claim to have discovered. The field of psychology has produced a science of happiness through a variety of studies that has led to a general definition of happiness as the “ability to sustain an overall sense of well being over time.” This ability generally requires a certain amount of emotional flexibility in the context of the many challenges that a person faces daily and throughout life. Modern Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps you achieve the happiness that you value most! Even one session with the right therapist will help you regain your emotional balance and sustain happiness.

Clarity Goes Beyond Just Knowing What You Want

If put on the spot, most people could probably assemble a list of the things that they want out of life. Answers may include things like more money, more happiness, more self-esteem or self-confidence, a better career, better fitness, etc. These are things it is pretty reasonable to want, but the problem is that answers like these lack clarity, which in turn provides a lack of focus which is detrimental to achieving results. It is better to revise a list like this for clarity. For example, better fitness. The idea is good, but vague. To improve clarity, consider what you mean by fitness, what kind of program and schedule are realistic, etc.

17 Ways to Create the Perfect Workday

For those who feel overwhelmed at work or wonder if there is way to be more productive while also being more relaxed, this article offers seventeen ways to take control of the workday to make every day more enjoyable. The first tip is to do less while accomplishing more. If there is too much going on at work, it is going to be difficult to be relaxed. To manage this, choose the three most important things that need to be achieved every day and focus on them. The next tip is to create a morning ritual that relaxes you. Also, it’s important to get up early enough that you don’t feel rushed.

A Little 3-Step Guide to Overcoming Fear

Fear is something that exists in most of our lives. Some may think that the best way to deal with the fear is to meditate on it and seek to control fear by being perpetually prepared for what they’re afraid of. That’s how Barrie Davenport used to think, but she found it to be a bad strategy for a variety of reasons. She found that the more she focused on her fears, the bigger they got. She found that she had formed a habit of fear-based thinking, where her brain was in a constant cycle of negativity. Even worse, with many fears that featured unpredictable variables, there really was no way to be prepared.

7 Unconventional Ways to Build Your Confidence

This article raises the question of what things we could be doing in our lives if we had an unshakable confidence in ourselves and our ability to perform these tasks. If the answer is that there are a lot of things we could do if we only had that confidence, the next question becomes how we achieve that level of confidence. Positive self-imaging is how, according to this article. Positive self-imaging is something a person can build for themselves, and the article tackles seven of the less common methods. The first is to take uncomfortable chances. This involves putting yourself in a situation that will force you to overcome new obstacles.

Self-Sabotaging: Why We Get in Our Own Way

This article explores the expression, “You are your own worst enemy.” Many people can relate to this expression, calling to mind personal experiences of procrastination, deliberate poor choices, or other self-destructive decisions that we question later. Psychologist and author Robert Firestone attributes these experiences to self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors perpetrated by something he coined as our “critical inner voice.” The critical inner voice is essentially an anti-self, or a mental part of a person that has turned against itself, formed by internalized criticisms from early life experiences. These criticisms may not even have been directed at the person with the critical inner voice, but perhaps criticisms that parents or caretakers had about themselves.

10 Steps to Create Inner Harmony

Although the world we live in is busy, the natural world still shows us spring and summer as a time of both renewal and growth. Since the rest of nature is doing it, it’s as good a time as any for us to renew the harmony in our own lives. One way to start is with a gratitude journal, which will help us to pay attention to the things in our lives we are thankful for. This turns our attention to positive things which, especially if done in the morning, can set the tone for the entire rest of the day. Another good place to start for achieving harmony is by creating a priority list.

5 Steps For Relaxing and Deep Meditation

Most people have probably heard about the benefits of meditation. Some people may have even tried it out, but experienced a certain dissatisfaction or sense that the meditation is not as deep or meaningful as advertised. This article provides a few tips to help improve meditation and achieve the gravity and satisfaction people look for. It is best not to eat a heavy meal or drink stimulating drinks like coffee before attempting meditation. It’s also helpful to acknowledge the fact that there will inevitably be noise and distractions. If you’re prepared for the eventuality, they will be less bothersome when they occur and this will help you to ignore them.

After the Honeymoon

This article has a pretty easy core idea to get across: marriage isn’t easy. Western culture today tends to romanticize marriage, and, indeed, romantic marriage is an idea that has grown more popular relatively recently, replacing in some places more traditional arranged marriages. While romantic marriages are the norm now, their romanticized nature often doesn’t prepare newlyweds for the realities of marriage. In fact, David Schnarch, the author of Passionate Marriage, writes that only marriage makes a person ready for marriage. While that may be true, Schnarch also writes that an accurate picture of what to expect can at least help newlyweds to better anticipate difficulties.

Smart Goal Setting

Many people have written about the importance of setting goals in life. Some people may wonder how this applies to them if they don’t have any goals and are more or less content with their lives. It’s true that many people may be in a good place and not want for much more than having enough money for their basic needs and a little extra to spend. The truth is, whether we think we have big goals or none at all, life is still goal oriented. Something as small as going to see a movie or baking a cake are goals and still require a level of effort to accomplish.

Turn Your Broken Dream into a New Beginning

Sheridan Voysey’s Christmas 2010 was the end of a dream. For a decade, he and his wife had been trying to conceive a child using special diets, fertility supplements, IVF treatment, prayer, and chiropractic sessions. After ten years, they had received news that his wife was pregnant. On Christmas Eve, they received the news that the pregnancy results had been a mistake. This is an emotional example, but most people have broken dreams by the time they reach adulthood. The point is that we can recover from harsh realities and turn them into something positive. The Voyseys found something called a Resurrection Year.

4 Reasons Doing Nothing is Productive

Many people in the world today fill their lives with “doing.” The sentiment is that if you aren’t doing five things, you’re not doing enough and therefore you are not good enough. The more things we can do, then, the better we are. While we’re so busy doing all these things, however, our relationships are suffering and we are losing sight of our purpose which we are born to explore. This is a problem that can be solved with perspective. Doing nothing, according to Keri Nola, actually is productive. For starters, doing nothing allows you to recharge your batteries. Rest gives us time to recuperate so that we can work more efficiently later.

Ways of Living an Authentic Life

The idea of living an authentic life is one that is used fairly frequently. However, what does it mean to live authentically? It means to harmonize our actions and words to our inner beliefs and values. What this means is that to live authentically is to live true to our actual self and not to how we think we ought to be. What this means then is that to live authentically, a person has to be in touch with their inner being. They need to actually know themselves. It’s important to sort through things that could be our beliefs and find the ones that truly resonate with the person we are today.

Part of realizing our authentic self is unblocking ourselves from the past, so to speak — turning off the tape recorder, and being grounded in the present moment. When we are grounded that we can be open, curious and accepting of ourselves and others.

Being authentic is much more than being real; it is expressing what is real. And clearly, what is real for me will be quite different than what is real for you. There is no value attached: it simply is what it is for each of us. If your sexual orientation, spiritual beliefs or chosen path is different than mine, we are both okay with it.

When we are both skillfully living from our authentic selves, our differences do not frighten or challenge us. There are no judgements. I honor the authentic you and you honor the authentic me.

5 Things to Do When You Feel Insecure

Most people have experienced moments of intense insecurity. This comes from viewing ourselves from an imaginary outside perspective and judging ourselves according to that view. These unsettling experiences of insecurity are unfortunately a part of life and so our goal to maintain ourselves is not to struggle to conquer the feelings, but learning how to control our reactions to these feelings. One way to do this may be to consider the insecurity as something beautiful. Perhaps look at it as humility, which is considered a great virtue. Another way could be to keep a collection, mental or even physical, of nice things that people have said about you.

Self-Confidence May Protect Men from Stress

People respond to stress in a variety of different ways, and men are no different. Some of the factors that influence a person’s response to stress are biological, physical, and psychological conditions. Testosterone is an example of a biological factor that can affect a man’s stress response. Men tend to exhibit specific traits depending on their level of testosterone, and it has been thought that testosterone levels might be be considered as a way to identify specific risk factors for stress. Samiuele Zilioli recognized this and conducted a study in which he measured the stress levels of 70 male college students before and after a stressful video game competition in which they were instructed to win.

Why We ‘Self-Medicate’ Our Own Depression or Anxiety

How do we know when a couple of nightly drinks make the dark turn towards alcohol dependency? When liquor routinely becomes the solution for stress, anxiety, or conflict, it’s time to take a serious look at the issue. Mental health problems are often self-medicated with a drink or trip to the bar. If you notice a pattern in yourself, or others comment on your use of alcohol, consider the “ endless cycle of use” you may not have been willing to acknowledge. Does your dependency nag at you, complicate your life, or shame you? If so, it’s time to get help.

7 Steps to Prevent Getting Stuck in an Emotion

Are you stuck in the pain of a break up? Do you perpetually grieve the loss of a loved one? How can you break through a tough emotion that won’t loosen its grip on your heart? Internally learning to accept the situation and practice patience with yourself will help you to heal. Be sure to take measures to get mentally and physically healthy. Bring any self-medicating habits under control and restore order to your life with a consistent, productive routine. Finally, embrace a new hobby or perspective while honoring your entire life experience, good and bad. Move forward, allowing old emotions to fall way and new feelings to come in.

Money Stress: Why We Use Money to Feel Bad About Ourselves

The American Psychological Association’s “Stress in America” survey revealed that work and money are the two leading causes of stress in Americans. We know that money needs to be managed, but many people may fail to realize that there are emotional aspects to handling money that are rooted pretty deeply in our pasts. Many people experience a lot of tense encounters with money before they are financially independent, ranging from parents arguing over money, seeing someone lose a job, or even experiencing poverty first-hand. These stressful memories can shape our attitudes and behaviors about money in our adult life.

Explore Alternatives | Evidence Based Psychotherapy in Seattle

A review of the psychological literature reveals that only a very small percentage of psychotherapy services in the United States are tightly linked to existing scientific knowledge. It is a really quite strange if you think of it. Would anyone want undergo medical surgery that was not based on a current scientific understanding of the body? Ask yourselr: just why should the mind and behavior be any different?

It is clear that this problem has multiple faces. Psychology and psychiatry have historically had a really hard time agreeing on what we even mean by mental disorders. Clearly, there is a proliferation of theories and approaches. Everyone seems to have some strange theoretical axe to grind. Managed care companies have strident practice guidelines; yet, it is infuriating that often such “guidelines” just come down to ways to reduce cost. The American Psychiatric Association has practice guidelines, but medications are so emphasized (no surprise) that as a broad public information service, they are not very useful.

This problem has multiple faces for psychology and psychiatry. Scientists have had a hard time agreeing on what we even mean by mental disorders. There clearly is a proliferation of theories and approaches. Everyone seems to have an axe to grind. Big pharma and managed care companies have practice guidelines but often they just come down to ways to reduce cost. The American Psychiatric Association has practice guidelines, but medications are so emphasized (surprise) that as a broad public information service, they are not very useful.

One certainly might hope that the government could get reasonable scientists together to say what is known. The fact that economic interests sometimes want a particular answer can make that difficult as well. But there are at least two government efforts worth noting in the area of psychotherapy, and fortunately both are exploring acceptance and mindfulness-based alternatives in the area of evidence-based care that give consumers a wider range of choices.

Psychological Suffering is Not Just About Pain

Clearly, suffering is a basic fact of life for humans. Yet suffering is not just about pain — psychological — or otherwise. It’s much more than that. Humans don’t just experience pain; they agonize over their painful memories, uncomfortable emotions, difficult self-evaluations. They worry and obsess about them, they dread them, they engage in all kinds of activities to avoid them. Naturally people want the suffering in their lives to be minimized. We all value feeling better, but not merely feeling better. A good life is much more than simply a lack of suffering. People want to live well and make the very best of their time on this earth

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is about easing the problem of human suffering, and it’s also about much more than that. It’s about reaching beyond suffering to the larger purpose of people’s lives and helping them get active in really living vitally. ACT is centered on such questions as “What do you really want your life to be about?” or “If you lived in a world where you could have your life be about anything, what would it be?”

The Problem With Language | Acceptance Commitment Therapy

Not too long ago, perhaps a couple hundred thousand years, an obscure primate species called “human” learned a new trick. We learned to relate events arbitrarily–we learned to have one thing stand for another. We acquired symbolic thought.

We’ve been bossed around ever since…

The comedian Emo Philips has a saying that captures the situation we are in: “I used to think my mind was my most important organ. Then I noticed which organ was telling me that.”



The human mind is arrogant beyond belief. Because our minds can talk about anything, and this organ between our ears thinks it knows everything. Our logical, analytical, predictive, problem-solving mind knows how to live, knows how to love, and knows how to be at peace.

Not.

Language and cognition sit on top of vast amounts of experiential, social, evolutionary, and spiritual knowledge. It claims it all, merely because symbols can refer to such knowledge (to a degree) and guide it (to a degree). It is such a powerful illusion — this thin veneer of symbolic thought claiming unto itself substance and power it simply does not have. Our mind’s claims are the metaphorical equivalent of paint claiming to be the house it covers.

5 Signs that You May Have an Anger Problem

Anger itself is not a bad thing, but the behaviors that can result from being angry can be. It isn’t unheard of for a person to not realize that their anger is a problem, while the people around them are well aware of it. This causes relationship problems, not helped by the fact that the person with the anger problem tends to end up getting what they want. This might work in a restaurant setting, where the anger results in better service and the staff’s opinion is not of particular weight to the person with the anger problem, but in a close relationship this behavior can be particularly damaging.

How Do You Manage Your Time?

Managing time can be hard and it may seem like we manage our time less than our time is managed for us by other people and circumstances that feel out of our control. If time management seems difficult, it may be easier to start with baby steps. Perhaps managing time at work is impossible, that still leaves some free time in which there is more control. Time management involves giving certain tasks priority over other tasks and expending effort on the prioritized tasks. In this way, the opposite of time management would be procrastination, or doing things other than those tasks which should have priority.

How to Fix a Relationship

We understand that the perfect union between two individuals is not realistic. Two people, no matter how well suited they are for each other, will not become a single entity and there will inevitably be some amount of conflict or lack of harmony. Though these problems arise, if the relationship is one built on love and appreciation, then the relationship is most likely worth saving. This article lists a few tips to help fix problems in various situations. For example, important things to do after a fight are to back away rather than continue on a destructive path, calm down, think about your real feelings and calmly communicate them, and then finally to drop it.

Why Chasing Success and Happiness is Making You Unsuccessful and Miserable

After feeling stuck in where he was in life, Alexander Heyne started his own business and began searching for success. He sacrificed many aspects of his personal life in order to achieve success so that he could later use that monetary success to fund important things in life like bills, a family, and dreams of seeing the world. Time passed and he realized that not only had he not achieved this illusive success, but he was a lot less happy than when he started. The next step was then to go looking for happiness, until he realized that maybe this active search for happiness may be key to the problem.

What to Do When You Don’t Like Your Job

If financial commitments weigh on you, then job satisfaction may give way to the need for a satisfactory paycheck. Still, there are things you can do to make work life more fulfilling. This article suggests helpful techniques for managing your attitude and the potential for making career changes. Focus on being successful at whatever you do, building skills that breed success. Start thinking positively about your job, trying techniques like meditation and new routines to bring enjoyment to your current position. More importantly, don’t give up on future career choices. Maintain hobbies and continue to seek out dream job opportunities. Keep an open mind and visualize the possibilities.

Why “Having it All” Isn’t the Best Goal

Working parents wrestle with the pressure to "have it all". The constraints of a career and the needs of a family send us scrambling in so many directions that having it all often leads to having it all fall apart. Priorities should be set to reflect the seasons of our lives. Someone else will always do more, but do you want to chase their "all" or your own? Define your own life and goals, then make the necessary sacrifices to achieve them. Be mindful too, that life is fluid, priorities change. Today’s SAHM may do exactly as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg suggests, and "lean in" tomorrow. The decision for balance is always yours. 

Blaming Your Parents Hurts You Most

In therapy, to explain why they aren’t successful or happy, some people blame their parents. They believe their parents are responsible for the way they feel and live their lives. Perhaps their parents were emotionally cold or critical, which explains their difficulties in relationships. They may blame their lack of success academically or professionally on the fact that their parents didn’t encourage them. Blaming their parents for their troubles causes them to become stuck in depressed, anxious, or angry feelings and prevents them from thinking about what they can do to make their lives different. Sadly, some of these patients use their lack of success or happiness as revenge against their parents.

The One Question that Kills Inaction

On a journey fraught with unexpected obstacles, we can become overwhelmed, frozen in place, and feel like we can’t take another step. Life’s circumstances can do the same thing, leaving us powerless, not knowing what to do next. Robert D. Smith, author of 20,000 Days and Counting, points out that even if we feel as though we don’t know what do do next, it doesn’t mean that we don’t actually know what to do. He suggests we stop and ask ourselves, “I know I don’t know what to do… but if I did know, what would I do?” When you believe you know the answer, he explains, this question will provide the answer every time.

Mindfulness Meditation Benefits: 20 Reasons Why It’s Good for Your Mental and Physical Health

Mindfulness meditation has been around for thousands of years, but academic research has only recently started to give us a better understanding of why it provides so many benefits. In so many aspects of our lives, from pain and disease management, to sleep, to control of our emotions, and many others, mindfulness mediation improves our lives. Defined as, “the nonjudgmental awareness of experiences in the present moment,” mindfulness can lower stress and decrease the levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. It can help students get better grades and help our troops to perform better and more quickly recover from stress. This article defines and explains many of the benefits associated with mindfulness meditation.

7 Steps to Right-Sizing the Fear of What Others Think

The author of this article claims to suffer from a condition called “Fearwot.” This is a potentially crippling condition that can interfere with decisions as small as buying shoes to ones as major as promoting her own business in front of a crowd. Fearwot is, more clearly explained, a fear of what others think. It’s a condition that perhaps more people suffer from than just the author. This is one of many potentially crippling fears that the sufferer, though intellectually aware they shouldn’t be afraid, can’t help. They can, however, use fearwot and other fears to illuminate a thought process to success.

Writing a Forgiveness Letter Can Change Your Life

Time will make emotional wounds hurt less, but, unfortunately, they take a little longer than physical pain. It isn’t uncommon for a person to mentally revisit emotionally painful events, perhaps just wondering if it still hurts, and finding that it is still a close and familiar pain. The pain brings with it, along with hurt and possibly betrayal, an informed plan of how things ought to have gone and what could have been handled better. In this respect, an eventual forgiveness letter is as much forgiving the other person as yourself for what you could have done differently.

The One Thing You Keep Doing That Will Forever Hold You Back

Barrie Davenport is willing to bet that 80% of what most people did this morning is the same thing they do every morning. She’s willing to bet that most people repeat the same political views, are bothered by the same things, and react to challenges in the same way every single day. Her point is that this consistency holds each one of us back. She claims that this consistency leads to mindless repetition which, in turn, leads to stagnation. The stagnation keeps us tethered down and it is a tether that we attach to ourselves.

How to Live a Meaningful Life

Izzy writes in to TheChangeBlog.com with a unique story. His is the story of someone who pursued the “American dream” to an extent that he felt he had checked the boxes in his career as a teacher: he had a nice car, a master’s degree, and a decent resume. But he lacked a sense of purpose of fulfillment. He felt his life as a teacher was more about an image of himself he felt he needed to create than about actually helping children. In a quest to find the meaning and purpose that he still felt his life lacked, he decided to pursue a dream: to become a ninja.

The Problem with Narcissistic Parents

Stress in America recently performed a study and the results showed that the Millennial Generation (currently aged 18-33) report the highest amounts of stress out of any generation. This could be for a wide variety of reasons, including our society’s current focus on multitasking, the hard economy, or maybe just increased competition to be the best at school and work. Another reason could also be Narcissistic Parents. Narcissistic parents are parents who immerse themselves in the activities of their children to feed their own ego. They encourage their children to be the best because they use the accomplishments of their children to prop themselves up to their own peers.

How to Overcome Perfectionism

While perfectionism may be a trait that it is easy to admire, particularly in a culture where the media regularly uses technology to erase imperfections from photos and sound, people who are perfectionists know how difficult it can be. Not how difficult it is to be “perfect,” no; they know how difficult it is to have a compulsion to be perfect and to need to achieve perfection or else not be able to do something at all. This article provides a few sayings to take the edge off of a perfectionist compulsion. The first is that perfect is boring. Flawless may describe a good diamond, but very few stories are about a flawless day.

Stress Health Effects: 10 Scary Things It’s Doing to Your Body

Constant stress, meaning constant pressure that leads to feelings of anxiousness and being overwhelmed, can have dangerous effects on a person’s health. If the thought of having a peaceful mind isn’t enough incentive to de-stress, consider some of the negative affects that allowing stress to build can have. For instance, animal studies at Wake Forest University have shown that stress can help cancer cells survive against medication. Specifically, the study showed that when mice were exposed to the scent of a predator, medication was less effective at killing cancer cells. In addition, a study at Yale University has shown that stress can actually shrink the size of a person’s brain.

Healthy Intimate Relationships Begin with Positive Parenting

According to a study at the University of California, Davis, performed by April S. Masarik, the success and satisfaction of adult relationships can be determined before a person reaches adulthood. Children who grow up with warm and supportive relationships are more likely to have positive relationships as an adult. The study followed 265 children into early adulthood, assessing their relationships with their parents and family members. This information was then used to determine how their earlier relationships affected their intimate relationships in their adult life, Masarik believes that having a warm relationship with parents taught the children to be emotionally invested in their relationships.

Taking Control of Your Happiness by Debunking Misconceptions About What Happiness Is

Although positive psychology, or a psychological focus on the effects of being positive, has grown a lot in the last few decades, society still brings a lot of pressure to the individual on what it means to be happy. Climbing the corporate ladder, making a lot of money, and having a lot of things are still guideposts that many people carry with them on what it means to acquire happiness. As this consumer and technological lifestyle increases, however, so does the rate of depression. The good news is that our minds are malleable, and it is possible for us to rework what it means to be happy in order to increase happiness in our lives.

If At First You Don’t Succeed—It May Be Time to Quit

Psychologist Margaret Wehrenberg writes that the biggest mistakes she’s made in her life involved struggling to make something work despite all evidence that it wasn’t going to happen. Things in the vein that others may relate to include staying at an intolerable or poor job hoping for a raise from a boss you know won’t give it to you, or spending years trying to resuscitate a dying relationship. Often, as this happens, the advice your hear is to keep trying. But just as it is important not to give up on goals too easily, it is also important to realize which battles can be won.

Motor and Cognitive Difficulties Found in Suicide Attempters

Depression carries symptoms of both cognitive impairment and executive dysfunction. This means that people who are depressed often have a hard time thinking clearly, making decisions, and even remembering things. Elevated dysfunction increases the risk of suicidal behavior. This has been known for a while, but it wasn’t until recently that studies began to compare the cognitive and psychological functioning of people who attempt suicide to those who don’t. John G. Keilp at the New York State Psychiatric Institute recently made this comparison in a study of 80 depressed people with no history of suicide attempts, 72 depressed people who had attempted previously, and 56 people with no suicidal history or depression.

10 Tips for Dealing with Surprises and Unexpected Events

Life is full of surprises and every day we meet a few of them. Generally, the surprises are minor things, but there are occasionally unexpected life-altering events that we have to deal with. Whether the surprises are good or bad, most people are more comfortable living their lives in a routine for the sense of control that it gives them. This can lead to difficulty coping both with good and bad surprises. The first tip for dealing with surprises is just acknowledging the surprises are part of life and are unavoidable. Whether you like them or not, they cannot be stopped.

Why it is Good For You to Feel Negative Emotions

According to Dr. Lisa Firestone, the best thing to do when confronted with strong negative emotions, such as being let down by a friend or partner, or having an argument with a child, is to stay with the pain. We expend more energy trying to avoid pain than we would just facing those feelings. In addition to the real possibility of making ourselves feel worse trying to avoid pain, it also creates a defensive habit that can lead to hurting others unintentionally. Facing emotionally challenging situations also makes us more emotionally adaptive and people who face negative feelings often end up feeling more refreshed the next day.

Losing Hope for Sleep Can Hike Suicide Risk

A new study from Dr. W. Vaughn McCall, the chair of the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University, shows that when people lose hope of having a good night’s sleep, their risk of suicide spikes. McCall notes that this study reaffirms what he had previously established, that hopelessness about sleep is separate from other kinds of hopelessness. The new study also links to other studies which indicate that nightmares and insomnia increase suicide risk. The effect is so great that insomnia can apparently double the likelihood of suicide in people already at risk.

Midlife Crises Affecting Men and Families

Studies have shown that across the globe, there is a dip in happiness that comes with midlife. This dip is fortunately often followed by an upswing of satisfaction with life, but the dip can still be a crisis. Midlife is a time when a typical person is burdened with responsibility, often for both their parents and their children, as well as a lack of mentorship. A person at midlife will begin to feel as if they’re on their own, as well as having to face the loss of their youth and the roles and opportunities that were afforded by youth.

Is Your Pride Preventing Your Happiness?

Some people choose to “tough things out” when they’re feeling down, weary, or depressed rather than seek medical attention. While some people may look at this trait as admirable, Dr. Clifford Lazarus sees it simply as unnecessary and prolonged suffering, as well as missed opportunities to feel better sooner and possibly learn something about themselves in the process. It is particularly concerning when people don’t seek help when they are fatigued, down in the dumps, or have trouble moving, sleeping, or finding enjoyment in previously pleasurable activities. It’s worse if there are mood swings or thoughts of death. These symptoms can be caused by metabolic conditions that need treatment.

Your Facebook Profile Could Determine Mental Illness

A new study from the University of Missouri reports that the regularity and content of Facebook posts could be an insight into your psychological state and possible mental health issues. The researchers studied more than 200 college students, measuring their levels of extroversion and support of strange beliefs, and then asked them to print out their Facebook activity with the option to omit portions of it. The researchers gained information into their psychological state by what the students chose to conceal. Students who showed signs of social anhedonia, a condition where a person experiences less pleasure from communicating with others, tended to post fewer photos, communicate less frequently on Facebook, and have fewer Facebook friends.

Coping with Chronic Stress

Experiencing stress is a natural part of the human condition. Stress is something that is programmed into us like an internal alarm to let us know of potentially harmful situations so they can be noted and addressed. Dr. Beth NeSmith calls it the body’s “arousal response to a perceived threat.” The response involves releasing adrenaline and cortisol into the body, the former elevates heart rate and increases blood pressure, while the latter limits bodily functions not necessary to handling the stressful situation, such as digestion and reproductive drive, until the situation is resolved. Stress is not only limited to potentially harmful situations, however.

10 Warning Signs You are Addicted to Suffering

Writing from experience, Liz Seda explains that some people may become so used to tragedy and suffering in their lives that they begin to relate to it and internalize it as a part of their identity. They may grow so comfortable being miserable that they are unable to escape their misery. More, they may not even realize it. She provides ten signs that may indicate a person has grown too comfortable with their suffering. The first is being inconsolable, even in the face of clear evidence that something is not as bad as it seems. The second is believing that a person cannot control their feelings and so accepting all feelings of misery passively.

Drama Belongs in the Theatre

Greg Malouf believes that people identify with the drama that plays out in their lives, when the reality is that the drama is not real. Maleouf describes drama as bound up by illusion, based on perceptions, becoming personally defeating because of our lack of sophistication about our emotional lives. He writes that drama is not an illusion in that things aren’t actually happening to us, but a closer examination of all the things happening may show that a lot of them are not very important. Giving voice to everything creates a life of noise, creating the illusion of happenings, when we might actually have more time and fewer important events going on than we’d like to think.

Massage: One of My Favorite Stress Management Techniques for Good Reason

Elizabeth Scott has always enjoyed getting massages and also enjoys the idea of them being a part of a stress management plan. In her experience, massage has been an excellent short-term stress management tool, but she has since wondered what the actual benefits of massage are compared to other stress managements practices and whether or not a massage carried long-term stress benefits. Research into some studies published in various journals brought good news. One study showed that a massage lowered a subject’s perceived level of stress, which also resulted in lowered heart rate and even lowered blood pressure. Another study showed that a Thai massage can increase heart rate variability, pain threshold, and body flexibility.

Ways to Manage Every Day Trauma

Every day we are faced with micro traumas. Not large scale traumas such as in war or assault, but little disappointments and painful moments. Such things can include crime, diseases or debt. These little stressors can even trigger old wounds that can invade your present self. But it is possible to face these micro traumas and be able to move through them for a stress-free life. Your past influences how you manage stress, and even if you feel removed from your past traumas you should seek therapy to deal with how they may be affecting you today.

Will This Year Be Different from the Previous Year?

The year 2012 is behind us and we are all facing a brand new year, full of possibility. But sometimes the question is asked, “Will this year be different than the last?” While we all have ideas and hopes for a new year, the potential largely depends on ourselves. What you think and what you do shape your personal experience. New Years resolutions don’t always work out because a resolution is the same old movie you play in your mind. This year, play a new movie in your mind and make the changes you envision for yourself. You have the power to make 2013 a totally different year!

Maintenance CBT Reduces Risk of Relapse for Panic and Agoraphobia

Panic and agoraphobia routinely exact a debilitating affect on daily life for those who suffer from them. While there are many treatments available, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been shown to have a marked impact on the prevention of relapse and remediation of symptoms of panic (it is important to note) more so than medication alone. Encouraging is the finding that after the cessation of medication, a well conceived maintenance program informed by CBT therapists has the most successful prevention of relapse. Any gains made during treatment are significantly less likely to be sustained without such a maintenance program. So for all those suffering from panic and anxiety, including CBT in your long-term treatment plan is crucial for your success.

5 Ways to Feel Less Isolated When Facing Change

There are many ways in which people deal with their stress and emotional pain. One response is to keep it to yourself and put on a happy face for those around you. Whether you are trying to bury the pain or just prefer to face the problems on your own, it can put you in an awkward position if you find the feelings of stress and pain lingering and are unable to resolve them. You may suddenly feel isolated, since you find yourself with a problem that you can’t solve and no one around you even knows that you’re struggling. This article provides a few tips on how to deal with this isolation.

Conflict with an ADHD Child From a Father’s Perspective

Most of the research on children with attention-deficit hyperactive disorder and the family conflict that arises in their household as they reach their teen years has been based on self-reports from both the child and the mother. Clarisa Markel, from the Human Development and Applied Psychology Department at the University of Toronto, recently led a study on how both mothers and fathers rate the level of conflict with their ADHD child. The study is an attempt to address the lack of research on the father’s perspective in this situation. Specifically, the study focused on whether each parent believed that the conflicts that arose were instigated by the child or not.

Identifying and Treating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

When a lot of people think about obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) they often think of movie characters, or other people they may have seen, without understanding exactly what the disorder is or how it functions. People afflicted by OCD are receiving faulty messages from their brains. While a regular person receives messages that tell them to lock their car door, for example, a person with OCD receives similar messages that tell them to lock the car several times. Obsessive compulsive disorder can manifest in several ways but the basic idea is that the obsessive actions are caused by anxious thoughts that revolve usually around safety, sanitation, profanity, or violence.

Your 4-Step Guide to Happiness

For a way to lift someone out of depression that doesn’t involve medication, there is a growing body of research that suggests therapy alone can help to alleviate depression. This isn’t limited to typical therapy, though that is the best way to go, but cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) applied for six months has also been shown to reduce symptoms of depression in about half of people who weren’t responding to medication. CBT focuses both on thinking and actions and so part of it involves exercise, which has been shown to improve moods with more than just serotonin.

Becoming More Aware of Depression and Bipolar

Tom Wootan, the CEO of Bipolar Advantage, writes that we only see what we have been trained to see. In terms of the bipolar community, he means that doctors see only a disease, family and friends see only behaviors, and the afflicted see only pain. His point is that there is a lot more going on with depression and bipolar disorders than any one perception, or even the sum of the three impressions. Being trained to see the bigger picture of bipolar can lead not only to a deeper understanding of the disorder, but also better functionality for those who have it, more comfort for everyone, and the recognition of potential value of the disorder.

Are You Parenting Like Your Parent?

Whether they are good or bad, the traits of our parents live on in most of us. They may sometimes show through in moments of passion where we find ourselves behaving in a way that is not like our usual self. This can sometimes be a good thing, when we see the traits that we admired in our parents manifest themselves unexpectedly, but their negative traits will often linger within us as well, particularly those negative traits that caused negative emotions within us as children, such as fear, frustration, or misery. Fortunately, negative traits or programming can be overcome once the traits and their cause are identified in our behavior.

Achieving Success Requires Patience and Persistence

American journalist Hal Borland once wrote: “Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing Grass, I can appreciate persistence.” In order to achieve big goals, people need to display the same patience as a tree. Just as trees take many years to grow into the large, impressive plants that they are, an important goal takes time to accomplish and requires sustained nourishment over that time in the form of studying, self-improvement, and consistent work toward the goal. People also need the persistence of grass, which can break through concrete to live or can grow on rocks. Like grass, a person needs to persist in their goals no matter what obstacles block the path.

Culture Stigmatizing Mental Illness Must Change

After a second student from Northwestern University passed away during the fall semester, one by suicide while studying abroad, professors Christina Traina and Laurie Zoloth have written in about the stigma surrounding mental illness that impedes the prevention of such tragedies. The Centers for Disease Control report that suicide is the third most common cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 24 and the second most common for people between 25 and 34. Nearly every person who attempts suicide is suffering from an underlying issue such as depression. If the stigma around mental health issues can be raised, action can be taken to address mental illnesses before tragedy strikes.

Why Generosity is Good for You

A 2003 research study at the University of Michigan shows that the positive effects of practicing generosity include improving one’s mental and physical health and longevity. This means being generous can fit in with exercising regularly and keeping a healthy diet as something that can prolong a person’s lifespan. Another study from the same university that tracked 2700 people over a ten-year period showed that people who regularly performed volunteer work had death rates 2.5 times lower than those who didn’t. Being generous is also a confidence builder and a repellant of self-hatred as it allows the generous person to distract themselves from their critical inner voice while also providing an argument against it.

How Gratitude Combats Depression

According to Dr. Deborah Serani, studies show that consistent positive interaction, particularly positive interactions that involve gratitude, both increase happiness and decrease depression levels. So while the holiday season may also be a season of gratitude, it can be emotionally important to try and practice gratitude throughout the entire year. Dr. Serani shares seven of the best techniques researchers have found to combat depression, including gratitude visits. A gratitude visit is simply delivering gratitude in the form of a letter or email to someone whom you are grateful to but feel you have not appropriately thanked. Another technique is to write down three good things that have happened throughout the week.

Light at Night May Lead to Depression, Brain Functioning Problems

A recent study at Johns Hopkins University found that being exposed to bright lights for an extended period of time causes higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can eventually lead to brain functioning problems and even depression. The study was conducted on mice, which are similar to humans in that both humans and mice have light-activated cells in their eyes which have been shown to have an effect on brain regions associated with mood and memory. One of the researchers also noted that previous studies have been done on humans that has proved light affects the limbic system of the human brain.

Earnings and Yearnings: Get Out of the Groove

Philosophers and psychologists have long searched for the best method of dropping bad habits and setting up commendable habits in their place. New York Times writer Charles Duhigg has assembled what is known about habits and distilled them into an easy model in his book, The Power of Habit. A key element of the habit breakdown is the insight that while habits can be strong and hard to shake, they can also be fragile if approached from the right angle. Habits consist of a cue, a routine, and then a reward, yet the focus of most people concerning their habits is actually on the routine rather than the reward.

Nine Secrets of Courage from Extreme Fear

Everyone has to deal with fear, and the way fear is responded to can determine how we live the rest of our life. If we spend all of our time avoiding fear, we probably won’t get any better at handling fear when it is unavoidable. Jeff Wise’s new book explores the neurological underpinning of our fear response to better understand how fear can be mastered. In this article, he shares nine things that he found helps to increase courage. Studies show that physical fitness can curb the effects of fear, as exercise can ease depression. Thus skydivers with a lower body fat percentage take less time to recover from elevated stress levels.



• Anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful situations.
• But in some cases, it becomes excessive and can cause sufferers to dread everyday situations.
• This type of steady, all-over anxiety is called Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
• Fear is a vital response to physical and emotional danger—if we didn’t feel it, we couldn’t protect ourselves from legitimate threats. But often we bristle with anxiety about situations that are far from life-or-death, and thus hang back and avoid the vital life with mindless oblivion.
• When we get clear about the nature of fear, we recognize this as a vital response to physical and emotional danger—if we didn’t feel it — register this in some way . . . we couldn’t protect ourselves from legitimate or ominous threats. Yet it is clear that we often fear situations that are far from life-or-death, and thus hang back for no good reason.

Bystanders to Violence: The Child Witness

A child bystander to violence, unlike an adult, is held hostage by violence almost every time they witness it because they are helpless to stop it. Dr. Lynn Somerstein is of the belief that domestic and public violence are so prevalent that the witnessing of that violence is a public health problem for children and that a family who exposes their children to violence is guilty of neglect and abuse, even if the child is not physically harmed by it. There are three categories of effects that violence has on children. The first is behavioral and emotional, the second is cognitive functioning and attitudes, and the final category is longer-term.

Bouncing Back: How You Can Help

There are many disasters and tragedies that occur across the world that undoubtedly leave survivors traumatized. The good news is that most of the survivors will rebound fairly quickly from trauma, even when it is severe. In recent years, post-traumatic stress disorder has been given a lot of attention in the media. It is a disorder that can haunt survivors with flashbacks of a traumatizing event and disrupt their sleep and concentration. With the focus on PTSD, however, the resiliency of human nature may be overlooked. Research shows that about 8-20% of people who experience a traumatic event will develop PTSD.

Changing My Mindset Changed My Life

Henri Juntilla learned how to change his entire life by practicing Aikido. Aikido is a Japanese martial art, but the change it brought was a change of self-awareness. Juntilla realized he had a mindset of seeking approval from the instructor without actually enjoying the activity. The change of mindset occurred when Juntilla got tired of seeking permission and approval for his actions and instead took responsibility for them by fully committing, right or wrong. It can be exhausting constantly trying to figure out what someone else wants. Letting go of that effort first helped to improve his martial art and then helped to improve his life.

Self-Care: An Antidote to Stress

If a person neglects themselves to meet the needs of others too frequently, it can have a negative effect on their physical, emotional, and mental health, with symptoms such as stress, irritability, and exhaustion. This can also lead to feelings of anger or resentment towards those whose needs are being given higher priority. All of these things are signs of a life out of balance, and a good way to get things back on track is to simply put more emphasis on self-care. A person who attends to their own needs is more likely to have the energy to help others.

Instant Success and Instant Coffee

Unlike instant coffee, making big changes in our lives takes a lot of time, hard work, and dedication. The internet, newspapers, and magazines are full of advertisements appealing to our desire for quick results, whether it be to get rich, improve concentration, be more likable, or to achieve our dreams. In the same way that no athlete got to the Olympics without training and no linguist learned a language by taking a pill, we are unlikely to achieve our goals without determination, willpower, and discipline. These attributes give us staying power, or the ability to continue to work towards our goals over an extended period of time.

Anxiety and Depression: Our Internal GPS System

Most people look at anxiety and depression as a warning of poor mental health or even as a disorder. From another perspective, however, anxiety and depression can serve as a sign that we are ready to change the world that we have created for ourselves mentally. Rather than suppress the feelings, we can investigate them to find and understand the reason for them. These feelings can act as a sort of internal GPS system, in that we experience feelings like anxiety and depression as our body’s way of keeping us on the right track and working for our greater good.

What’s Wrong with Infidelity? Marital Counseling in Seattle

The Wall Street Journal has reported that in the years from 1991 to 2006, the number of unfaithful wives under the age of 30 has increased by 20 percent, while the number of unfaithful husbands has increased 45 percent in the same timeframe. Other studies show that between 30 and 60 percent of married individuals in the United States will cheat at some point in their marriage. According to an article in Psychotherapy Networker, 35 to 55 percent of people who have had affairs report being happy in their marriage at the time of the affair. The article suggests that more couples are mutually agreeing to take alternative approaches to sexual fidelity.

The Power of Mindset and Getting Your Body Healthy and Fit

Fitness professional Sam Kappel writes that the first thing he coaches someone in is developing their mindset around their goal. This helps them overcome the obstacles that can get in the way of these goals by committing them to their goal. Accomplishing goals, whether fitness or otherwise, is a journey to be taken in baby steps. Part of developing the right mindset for a goal is to create mini-goals or benchmarks to be met along the way. Applying an award system to whatever mini-goals or benchmarks are set, as well as to the final goal, helps prevent discouragement and adds extra incentive.

Don’t Take Vacation From Your Good Habits

A lot of people share a similar experience when it comes to developing good habits such as eating healthy and exercising regularly. The scenario involves being careful to maintain a healthy and productive schedule during the week and then to take breaks from the good habits on the weekend. This can develop because we feel that we owe it to ourselves to take a break from our good habits because we did so well in keeping them throughout the week. Our bad habits become a reward for successfully following the good habits, which then become a chore. This behavior devalues our good habits.

Do You Play the Blame Game in Life?

According to Mike Bundrant, the director of the iNLP Center, the blame game is where a person blames other people and his or her environment for the the things wrong with life. Playing the blame game means being inactive in life and allowing the quality of life to depend on what everyone and everything else does to it. Being inactive means not taking control of life and not taking necessary steps to improve it by coming up with solutions to redress the bad things that happen. Instead of playing the blame game, Bundrant advises that people take charge and take proactive steps toward a better life.

Why People Worry All the Time

People who seem to worry all the time suffer a condition, though not a disorder, called generalized anxiety disorder. Some worry about everything conceivable and others have one worry that preoccupies them throughout the day. Dr. Fredric Neuman explains that some patients worry because they are trying to anticipate danger. He has a parable of two cavemen that shows the benefits of worrying as well as explains why so many people worry today. The short version is that worrying is good for our survival as a race, but it is important to focus that worry on things that ought to be worried about.

The Inner Voice that Drives Suicide

Dr. Robert Firestone made the link between suicide and a destructive inner voice in 1986 after interviewing a woman who had recently attempted suicide. She described how the voice had goaded and instructed her through the suicide attempt. Since then, the inner voice has been identified in suicide attempts across the world. Robert Firestone and his daughter, Dr. Lisa Firestone, collaborated to create the Firestone Assessment of Self-Destructive Thoughts (FAST) scale to determine self-destructive tendencies in a patient and later the Firestone Assessment of Suicidal Intent (FASI) scale. The FAST scale was used in a 2001 study of both Pakistani and American psychiatric patients and showed a high correlation between self-destructive thoughts and suicide attempts.

All about Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is an illness that occurs in approximately one percent of the population. In America, nearly three million people are diagnosed with it. About one third of those diagnosed will attempt to commit suicide and 10% will kill themselves within twenty years of diagnosis. Very few of them will reveal their intentions to anyone. Schizophrenia causes an impairment in those suffering from it that affects their ability to rationally evaluate their surroundings and interactions, leading to delusions and hallucinations that mirror the distortions in their ability to interpret reality. Their resulting behavior may seem bizarre but is consistent with their abnormal perceptions.

Depression, Stress Linked With Brain Shrinkage—Here’s Why

While previous research has shown that stress and depression can lead to a decrease in brain mass, researchers at Yale believe they’ve found a reason why. Their goal was to test a hypothesis that stress causes a loss of brain synapses. They found that a genetic switch known as GATA1 is connected to several genes vital to forming brain connections and believe that if those connections are not formed, brain shrinkage can result. In addition, rodents with an activated GATA1 switch displayed signs of depression, showing that the activated switch and the the resulting disruption in the connections involved in emotion and cognition that it causes may also lead to depressive symptoms.

Rat Study Gives Insights Into Relieving Schizophrenia

Scientists at New York University were performing an experiment on rats to study a schizophrenic trait of being unable to process competing streams of stimuli and identify relevant information when they stumbled on a discovery. Rats with brain lesions exhibit schizophrenic symptoms once they reach the equivalent maturity of a twenty-year-old human. Rats expressing these symptoms were not able to adjust to the experiment, but in their “adolescence,” even rats with lesions are able to adjust to the experiment normally. The surprising discovery was that rats with brain lesions which had been in the experiment as adolescents were still able to adapt to the experiment in their maturity, bypassing the onset of schizophrenic traits.

Dr. Hart