Body-Mind Connection
These articles highlight the connection between body and mind.
Remember to Breathe
One of our new members over in the Reconnection Club recently posted an introduction in which she said she was reminding herself to breathe. There was a time in my life when such a thing would have struck me as bizarre; isn’t breathing automatic? Why would anyone need to remember to do it? But the more I learn about breathing, the more I come to understand that not all breathing is automatic Survival breathing is …
Why You DON’T Need to Stay Positive
My old doctor’s office handed out a brochure called 7 Tips for Healthy Living. One of those tips was “Keep a positive mental outlook.” I like that they linked physical and emotional health, but I’m not sure they got the details quite right. We’ve all heard of people who bring joy to everyone around them with their sunny outlook, yet succumb to cancer in the prime of their lives. And there’s also the cliche about mean old people …
Fat On the Inside
No one has ever called me fat. A boy named Howard called me “bean pole” and “Mother Goose legs” in the 5th grade. I was skinny and my legs were long, in case the Mother Goose reference confused you. (It still confuses me. I thought Mother Goose was an old woman who was not particularly tall. Tell me if I’m wrong.) But I’ve never been called fat. Not even once. Unlike millions of other people, I bear …
Facing a Scary Diagnosis
“You have cancer.” Nobody wants to hear those words, but this year over 1.5 million people in the U.S. will become members of a club none of us wants to join. Being diagnosed with cancer, Parkinson’s, ALS, or any other dreaded condition can knock you to your knees. The emotional impact can’t be overstated. Kenya McCullum writes about how to navigate the emotional landscape of a frightening diagnosis. It’s worth a read if you or …
8 Ways to Treat Yourself Right
Have you ever thought of volunteering in order to feel happier? I’ve definitely heard this idea from clients who are feeling stuck and miserable. “I tried volunteering, but it didn’t make me feel better,” they tell me after the fact. This doesn’t surprise me. You can’t give water from a dry well. We all need to fill the well somehow if we want to be generous and kind to others. Recently I came across an …
Emotions and Heart Health
In my post, Emotional Regulation is Nonsense, I wrote about why it’s more important to control your behavior than to try to control how you feel. Recently I learned about a new study indicating that trying to control your emotions — especially so-called “negative” ones — can actually harm your health. You can read it for yourself at http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-05-stress-heart.html. Note that the article (along with the title of the study) specifically states that it’s EFFORTS …
Do You Feel Younger Than You Are?
The year was … well, never mind. I was in college, and I was having an unusually candid conversation with one of my college professors. He was forty-three at the time, and he remembered sitting on a hill with his friends when he was twelve, back in the country of his birth. He told me he hadn’t changed since then; he was exactly the same young, bewildered boy he had been… only now he had …
Want to Be Productive? Get Lazy
When it comes to getting things done in life, I find that rest is at least as important as activity. For example, sometimes I don’t feel like writing a blog post. Other times, I write two or three in a single sitting. When I’m resting, I do nothing. When I’ve rested well, I can do twice as much. See? It all evens out. There’s no doubt in my mind that there are seasons in this …
Tips for Quick Stress Relief
This week I’m excited to share one of the most thorough and practical articles I’ve seen on stress and how to deal with it. I had never heard of using your senses to fight stress, but it makes sense. That’s just one of a panoply of ideas presented in the article. Most of my stress comes from my own thoughts, rather than what’s happening in the present moment. I learned from this article that focusing …
We Are Not Brains
As a mental health counselor, and as a human being, I’m tired of hearing about the human brain. Nowadays you can’t discuss depression, anxiety, resilience or even a bad day without someone bringing up brain chemistry. A counselor can’t swing a box of Kleenex without hitting a professional training on “The Neurobiology of Narcissism” or “The Angry Brain.” It’s as if we’re all just walking, talking, jiggling gray matter ruled by chemicals — mindless, soulless …
Conquering Couch-Potatoism
Are you sitting down? You might want to stand up for this. Earlier this year there was a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine that looked at what happens to people who sit too much. The researchers concluded: “Prolonged sitting is a risk factor for all-cause mortality [death], independent of physical activity.” Turns out the more you sit, the sooner you die. Yikes! Gym Workouts Aren’t Enough I don’t know about you, but most …
Reactions to Pain
This is a guest post by Isabel Spradlin, LMT. Remember the last time you stubbed your toe really hard? What was your first reaction? If you were me at that moment, you woofed out some air and then bent over, not breathing, trying to wait out the blinding surge of pain. If you were me, you used that moment of breathlessness to blame yourself or whatever was around you. You spent some quality time of …