What You Need to Know About Alcohol and Anxiety
The relationship between alcohol and anxiety can be complicated. Many adults can safely drink in moderation. For others, alcohol may cause anxiety or aggravate pre-existing conditions. There are several reasons why alcohol tends to mess with your peace of mind. A lesser-known one is that it changes brain chemicals like GABA involved with regulating anxiety.
5 Ways to Combat Perfectionism
Striving for perfection isn't always good for you. If it's been taking over your life, here are some things that might help you out!
11 Things You Can Do to Cope With Coronavirus Anxiety
During this novel coronavirus pandemic, lots of emotions are running high. Anxiety is one that fits the situation but also feels overwhelming when it gets intense or out of hand. Here are some things to try to mitigate your anxiety response.
4 Tips for Self-Care While Social Distancing
Well, here we are, folks. Many of us are voluntarily self-quarantining, practicing social distancing, or have a mandated quarantine in order to help society “flatten the curve” of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Your day-to-day may now look very different, consisting of Zoom calls and Google Hangouts, or work may have dried up if you are in one of the industries affected by the closing or canceling. Maybe you are stuck at home...with your houseplants, your pets, your partners, and your kids for company.
10 Ways to Survive the Holidays
The holiday season is a stressful time for so many reasons: your crazy relatives, sleeping in your old bedroom again, all the food…you know what I mean. The key to surviving the holidays – nay I say, thriving through the holidays -- is to be like a Boy/Girl Scout – always prepared!
To help you prepare, I’ve created this list of tips you can use to survive any family interaction the holiday season can throw at you!
Signs You Might be Over-Stressed
Are you gearing back up for the new school year? Starting a new job with more responsibilities? A stay-at-home mom with 3 under 3? With all the excitement of starting new classes and meeting new people, stress can creep up on you or hit you all at once.
Let’s Talk About Talking. What is Talk Therapy?
I often get the question, “What is psychotherapy?” In essence it’s similar to mental health counseling or talk therapy. What actually happens in the process of this type of therapy is often misunderstood. As a therapist, I frequently hear about feelings of shame and weakness associated with coming to psychotherapy. Here I hope to reduce the stigma attached to seeking mental health treatment by highlighting some of the many benefits of psychotherapy.
It’s Not September Anymore…
...a quick note on suicide awareness
The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) designates September as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. You may be thinking at this point, “That’s great Erin, but it’s not September anymore,” and you’d be right. I wanted to get on the bandwagon last month, but schedules don’t always go as planned, so here is my September blog post delivered to you in October.
Coping Skill Are Stupid…
...and other lies depression tells you.
Last month I wrote a blog post about coping skills. I outlined what they are and gave you some basic ones to help you get started in building your “toolkit.” It’s not lost on me; however, that as necessary as coping skills are, the ones I gave you sometimes just don’t cut it. So today I’m presenting some different, more nuanced coping skills for one particular situation: depression.