Life in the time of coronavirus. We are living through a remarkably stressful time, with global scope and interventions unlike any health crisis we have ever seen. With so many rapid changes occurring related to the COVID-19 pandemic, many people are understandably feeling anxious and stressed.
Anxiety
Start 2019 Off In A Healthy Way By Writing a Positivity Journal
Happy New Year! Let’s commit together to starting 2019 in a healthy way. I’d like to invite you to join me in writing a positivity journal for six weeks, from early January through Valentine’s Day. It takes just 5-10 minutes a day and offers the possibility of improving your mood by training your brain to focus on the positives in your life. Are you curious to see what changes could happen for you?
Anxiety is a Pushy, Self-Important, Exaggerating, Pain-In-The-Patootie
Anxiety can take a perfectly lovely, intelligent, capable person and turn them into a cowering, fearful mess. In fact, anxiety is infamous for its tendency to grossly over-exaggerate potential danger. To make its point, anxiety will hijack your nervous system and convince you that your life is in immediate peril, even when it’s clearly not. That’s just not nice. I think we can all agree that anxiety is a pain-in-the-patootie.
Good Psychology Reads: “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened” and “Furiously Happy”
There’s nothing quite like reading an author who really, really gets it. And if you’ve ever struggled with depression or anxiety, writer Jenny Lawson really, really gets it. She has made a living writing about her personal life with a great deal of emphasis on navigating life with mental illness.
Pause As You Exhale: A Mindful Breathing Practice
Check out this video blog with another mindful breathing practice: the “pausing as you exhale” breath. I enjoy teaching this breath for a couple of reasons. First of all, there are steps to follow as you’re breathing, and the steps help keep you anchored mindfully in the current moment.
A Mindful Breathing Exercise: Alternate-Nostril Breathing
Alternate nostril breathing from Jennifer Hartman. Check out the above video, my first ever video blog, where I teach you how to do alternate-nostril breathing. It sounds weird, I know, but it’s actually pretty cool. This breathing practice comes from yoga tradition and in the yoga world, it is touted to have all kinds of […]
Why Am I Not Exercising When I KNOW It’s Good for Me? The Motivation to Exercise
The results are in and the findings are clear: exercise is good for us. Yes, I know, right now, there is a decent chance you thinking to yourself, “Thank you, Dr. Obvious. We’ve known that for a long time.” Go with me for a moment! My job today is not just to peddle the idea […]
The Mindfulness Boost for Anxiety: The Power of Letting It Be
Over the past 10 years, I think I’ve become much more adept at treating anxiety disorders and wonder if the boost is due to adding mindfulness-based therapies into my repertoire. I have read about research demonstrating that mindfulness-based therapies are at least as effective as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in treating anxiety, with some suggestive evidence […]
