Adults
Social Anxiety: Common Symptoms and Coping Strategies
We’ve all experienced moments of shyness. They can arise unexpectedly but don’t typically present as a serious obstacle to social interaction. According to the Social Anxiety Institute (SAI), shyness is classified as a “personality characteristic.” Social anxiety, on the other hand, is a disorder. The SAI characterizes this disorder as displaying “a significant amount of…
Read MoreAnxiety Coping Tips: 12 Ways to Calm Your Mind and Body
Anxiety Coping Tips: 12 Ways to Calm Your Mind and Body. “I can tell when it starts. My body begins to tingle as if ice is running through my veins. I start getting dizzy. My heart begins to race, my breathing becomes shallow…” “The first sign is when my vision becomes blurry. I can’t see…
Read MoreFrom Panic Attacks to Agoraphobia: How It Happens, How to Cope
From Panic Attacks to Agoraphobia Imagine… A person is leaving their house. Out of the blue, they get cut off by the most horrifying beast they’ve ever seen. It attacks them mercilessly. They barely make it back into their home. After they recover and feel better, the person peeks out of their front door. Everything…
Read MoreSeeking a Quieter Mind? 10 Ways to Stop Mind Chatter
Today’s the day your commitment to meditation is about to become a reality. You dim the lights, turn off your cell phone, burn some incense, and get comfortable. But within seconds of closing your eyes and trying to focus on your breathing, in creeps the first mind monkey. Mind monkey? What’s a mind monkey? “The…
Read MoreCBT and Depression: What Makes CBT So Effective?
“I want that report on my desk, today!” Your boss demands, standing in the doorway of his office. “I don’t have time for you’re excuses; just get it done!” He disappears back into the adjacent room. You pause a moment, looking over the paperwork on your desk, then the computer screen. A deep sigh. Will you…
Read MoreWinter Gloom Making You SAD? It Could Be Seasonal Affective Disorder
It’s January. You’re standing at a window, gazing out onto the bleak scenery, and with every passing moment you feel less and less inspired to leave your house, or even get dressed. Perhaps you watch a bird rise into the dreary, cloud-covered sky, ascending through each layer of lackluster gloom until you can hardly see…
Read MoreWhat is Night Eating Syndrome and How Can You Cope with It?
It’s 1:38 in the morning. You’re eyes are wide open, staring into the darkness. A long sigh. You’ve been tossing and turning for the past 15 minutes, unable to get back to sleep. As it so often happens, you finally sit up, swing your legs out of bed, and make your way to the kitchen.…
Read MoreNew Year’s Resolutions: How to Make Them AND Keep Them!
Often people make New Year’s resolutions to change specific aspects of their lives, starting out enthusiastically and with much hope, only to end up failing to reach their goal. The end of the matter turns out worse for them than the beginning. Their failure leaves them frustrated and disheartened, increasing their anxieties rather than alleviating…
Read MoreOvercoming Anxiety and Worry with Mindfulness
Overcoming Anxiety and Worry with Mindfulness In Pali, the term is sati; in Sanskrit, it’s smrti. British scholar Thomas William Rhys Davids translated this as mindfulness. Sati is literally translated as “memory,” but it’s rarely used alone. It appears constantly in the phrase “mindful and thoughtful” and generally refers to a presence of mind which…
Read More5 Steps to Improving Your Emotional Intelligence
Improving your emotional intelligence. For those of us who were in high school before the 1990s or so, a GPA above 3.5 and SAT scores 1400 and above were seen as solid indicators of intelligence and, to some degree, that person’s potential for success in life. Colleges weighed these two quantitative pearls when considering admissions,…
Read MoreLearn How You Can Take the Stress out of Problem Solving
Learn How You Can Take the Stress out of Problem Solving “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” ― Albert Einstein For many of us, this quote helps to quantify how much time is spent on the identifying, thinking…
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