Category: Articles
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Parental Anxiety
Stephanie Newman, PhD asks, Can Parental Anxiety Interfere with a Child’s Social and Emotional Development? Bullets: Overplanning for your child can backfire Rejection Can Be the Kindest Cut–and limits can foster healthy development Children Need to Learn How to Be Alone
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Food and Mood
The Los Angeles Times looks at the food-mood connection with a series of true/falses. Here’s one: Omega 3 fatty acids found in fish help depression: True At the NIH, Hibbeln has spent two decades studying the effects of omega-3 fatty acids on depression and other mood disorders. The evidence that eating fish high in omega-3s can help…
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Work Stress
Stressful job? Mental health days are a solution for many. One in five workers will take time off from work because of stress, and 93 percent of these employees report lying — most of them reluctantly — to bosses about the reasons for staying home…the top five cover-ups used for stress absences include the following:…
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Fear is Scary
Profiles in fear from the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Yael Levin used to be so afraid of insects that she avoided going outside. Visits to the park and backyard cookouts brought on extreme anxiety. “I would panic, have difficulty breathing and have to run away when encountering insects…” Link down. Here’s a page about fear of insects.
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Willpower Push-ups
Judith Beck offers tips about how to increase willpower. First three ideas: Specify your goal in behavioral terms. Not, “I want to be more physically fit,” but, “I want to go to the gym three times a week for 45 minutes.” Make sure your goal is reasonable. If you have been sedentary, you may need…
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Virtual Exposure Therapy
Virtual reality meets exposure therapy (Scientific American). Recently, some psychologists have successfully combined exposure therapy and virtual reality to treat fears of flying, heights and spiders, asking patients to interact with simulated environments that guarantee their safety…Now, a team of psychologists has completed the first clinical trial testing the treatment of cockroach phobia with augmented reality—a younger…
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8 Tips for Reducing Anxiety
Anxiety reduction tips from Matthew Edlund on the Huffington Post. Number one is nice and simple: Start with deep breathing. Stand up straight and breathe in to the count of four, out to the count of eight. Repeat for five breaths.
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Women’s Anxiety Increasing?
Why are anxiety disorders among women on the rise? One general practitioner—not a psychiatrist—estimates that one in five of the patients she sees now is there for anxiety issues, making it one of the most common reasons young women show up in her exam room. Megan Catalano, 34, of Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, is living…
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Anxiety, Insomnia, and Menopause
The WSJ draws a connection between anxiety, insomnia, and menopause. “Many of these women are told, ‘You feel bad because your husband is having an affair, or your youngest is in college, or you didn’t get that promotion. Take this Prozac.’ When what is really going on was fluctuating levels of estrogen…”