Blog

Whether you’re holding onto your current job for the salary, the comfortability, the location, the position title, or a different reason, the motivating factor behind your position is an important one. How you feel about your job and what propels you to continue working each day gives you some meaning to your life – it’s what we often talk about when we first meet someone, because we spend so much time at work that it, in part, reflects a little bit about who we are and what we’re about. If you are holding onto your job for the wrong reasons, this could be very detrimental to your health. Forbes Magazine states that 20% to 40% of people report hating their job – an alarming statistic, to say the least. Staying in a job that you don’t like raises many concerns, including:

No matter your circumstance, it’s always important to consistently challenge and improve yourself. Recovery is a wonderful time to focus on this, as therapy can provide the tools and support that you need. Forbes Magazine has provided several wonderful ways that you can become a better version of yourself:

Contributor Merylee Sevilla shared her experience with cutting family ties on Elite Daily: “I broke up with my parents and most of my family when I came out as gay. Growing up, I spent years and years unknowingly sacrificing my happiness and my mental and emotional health in the name of family. I believe I had to do anything and everything for them. And that’s because most of us have been trained to believe that turning our backs on family – no matter how bad or abusive they are – is reprehensible. But, that belief is severely flawed.” The idea of family is one that leads us to believe in connection, closeness, respectfulness, people whom we can depend on and trust, and more. If you have family relationships that are based on these premises, you likely have a good support system. While most of us try to uphold these critical components of a relationship, we cannot control the way our family treats us. Some of us may believe that holding onto family no matter what is best, but this is not always the case. A toxic family member can cause danger to our overall sense of well-being, safety, and recovery. There are several cases you should consider for terminating a family member from your life:

According to Psychology Today, gestalt therapy is “a client-centered approach to psychotherapy that helps clients focus on the present and understand what is really happening in their lives right now, rather than what they may perceive to be happening based on past experience.” With gestalt therapy, clients are asked to re-enact or re-experience them rather than simply talk about them in therapy. Therapists who use this form of therapy try to increase their clients’ awareness and expect them to use their own seeing, feeling, sensing, and interpreting through their experiences. The therapist emphasizes self-actualization, and self-respect, self-motivation, and self-growth can be added dimensions to the treatment. Gestalt therapy is process-oriented and client-centered, meaning that all focus is on supporting the client in realizing, learning, growing, making decisions, and more. Gestalt therapy helps to treat depression, anxiety, self-esteem, relationship issues, migraine headaches, back spasms, and more. Science Direct notes that gestalt therapy is holistic and experiential, and allows for increased choice and flexibility in every aspect of daily life. If you participate in gestalt therapy, your therapist may say:

Over time, we have developed different methods for treating mental illnesses, and this helped so many people because each person has a unique way of learning, of coping, and of expressing themselves. Psychodrama therapy has been known to help people improve their relationships and communication skills, overcome grief and loss, restore confidence and well-being, enhancing learning and life skills, and more. Psychodrama therapy can assist in a variety of issues, such as eating disorders, autism, trauma, addiction, attachment concerns, and more. Psychodrama therapy can assist people with anxiety by increasing their spontaneity – the more a person can act out distinct roles and take on different approaches, the more they can reduce their anxiety levels. However, because spontaneity and anxiety are opposing forces, the less spontaneity used, the higher the anxiety levels can rise. How does psychodrama therapy work? According to the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama, psychodrama “employs guided dramatic action to examine problems or issues raised by an individual or a group. It clarifies issues, increases physical and emotional wellbeing, enhances learning and developing new skills.” There are 5 basic elements of psychodrama: 1) the protagonist, which is the person selected to represent the “theme”, 2) the auxiliary egos, which are group members who take on the roles of significant individuals from the event, 3) the audience, which are group members who witness the drama, 4) the stage, which is the physical space in which the drama takes place, and 5) the director, which is the psycho-dramatist who guides participants throughout the phases of the drama. A 2016 study conducted by a researcher in Italy examine the benefits of psychodrama therapy on students with mathematics anxiety, and found that it significantly decreased their anxiety surrounding the subject. Participants took part in 10 group sessions each of 90 minutes that were held weekly over a period of 3 months. Psychodrama proved beneficial in helping the students with elevated levels of anxiety before taking a test, assistance with their memory, improved self-esteem and motivation to learn mathematics. Psychodrama doesn’t just help students, however. Studies have shown that psychodrama therapy can help adults with anxiety surrounding a situation because it allows them to act out scenarios or replay a situation that once caused them distress. In doing this, they can better express themselves and understand the situation from others’ point of view.

Addiction takes a toll on everyone, but teens are at increased risk. The long-term damages of addiction are widely known – significant anxiety, confusion, insomnia, mood disturbances, violent behavior, memory loss, learning deficiencies, hallucinations, and more, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Researchers have compared the brain’s reward response system in adult and teen rats, and may have pinpointed some differences for what places teens at higher risk. As adolescents are growing, so are their brains. As researcher Bita Moghaddam of the University of Pittsburgh, stated, “The brain region that is very critical in planning your actions and in habit formation is directly tapped by reward in adolescents, which means the reward could have a stronger influence in their decision making, in what they do next, as well as forming habits in adolescents.” Teens often exhibit risk-taking and impulsive behaviors, which is often in part because their brains are developing and thus placed at higher risk for making decisions that could lead toward addiction. Studies have also shown that adolescents are more susceptible to stress, mental illness, and addiction than adults, because they are still developing their decision-making and reasoning skills. The nucleus accumbens, the part of the brain that react with “happy” reward chemicals when doing things that ensure our survival such as eating, is even more reactive in adolescent brains as they form habits and learn that doing certain things produces more pleasure. If gone awry, this could include drugs, sex, and/or alcohol. To prevent adolescents from reaching addiction, we must make sure that as a community, we are educating and reinforcing messages against it. Reminding our youth of the dangerous consequences via academic resources and subjective experiences can help teens understand the true implications that addiction has. Secondly, referring our teens to help and other resources such as counseling can be beneficial in helping them work through something rather than lean towards addiction to cope. Lastly, serving as an example is one of the best ways to show teens both what it looks like to recover and to achieve sobriety.

Seeking treatment can be challenging, whether you have an addiction or a mental illness. Identifying the right time to seek treatment, along with recognizing the symptoms and overcoming the fear of stigma within healthcare can all be enough to stop someone from seeking help. By avoiding treatment, we are placing ourselves at risk for worsening our symptoms and never developing the tools that we need to overcome and manage them. One population that’s experiencing trouble with seeking help are Asian Americans, regarding eating disorders specifically. A preliminary analysis conducted by researchers at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF), involved an online survey of Asian Americans from late 2014 to early 2015 about eating disorders and other body image concerns. The study involved analyses of 212 participants, with approximately 77% of whom were female and an average age of 25. The study’s findings showed that:

There are a variety of methods used to treat depression, including cognitive behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, and psychodynamic therapy – medication in addition to one or more of these forms of therapy can also be beneficial. Science has shown that an alternate form of therapy involving magnets has been shown to protect individuals from the symptoms of depression. According to the Scientific American, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) isn’t a new form of therapy, but it does prove a viable option for defense against this mental illness. The U.S. News states that this is a form of brain stimulation therapy, which involves activating or inhibiting the brain directly with electricity. With TMS, a small electromagnetic coil is placed against a person’s head at a certain location, most often the left frontal cortex of the brain because that is shown to be less active in people with depression. There are two types of TMS: repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS). With rTMS, a wand is attached by cable to a wall outlet and the magnetic field travels through the hair, skin, and skull. Dr. Joan A. Camprodon, director of neuropsychiatry and neuromodulation at Harvard Medical School, told U.S. News in an interview, “The brain’s neurons act as a pickup coil and turn the field back into electricity, which forces the neurons to fire.” With tDCS, two wires with electrodes extend from the smartphone-sized device containing a 9-volt battery to the head. While both methods deliver electricity, each do it in a unique way. Harvard Medical School states that TMS is for people who have tried standard treatment methods and they haven’t worked. They do not suggest TMS for people with mild depression or newly diagnosed moderate/severe depression. No anesthesia is needed for this form of treatment. In a study that involved 301 men and women who did not respond to up to 4 antidepressants, 1 in 7 participants who underwent TMS got relief from their depression by the 6th week, compared to 1 in 20 who underwent what looked like TMS but didn’t wasn’t. With many different forms of treatment available, you must find what works best for you. If you haven’t sought out treatment yet, speak to someone today. By seeking help, you can determine what helps your depression the most and you can be on your way to a happier, healthier way of living.

Most of us experience negative script in our head; “I wish my arms were thinner” or “I don’t like my nose”. For some of us, these critical comments float right on by, and we give them no further importance or attention. For others, we cling onto these thoughts and soon enough, they grow into our self-esteem, our self-perception, and our overall self-image. Psych Central claims that 80% of women in the United States are dissatisfied with their appearance, and more than 10 million are experiencing eating disorders. Our negative self-talk can be detrimental to our mental, physical, and spiritual health, and here’s why: Body hate can hold you back from attending events, can consume your thoughts to the point of no longer enjoying the present moment, and can damage critical aspects of your relationships with others, such as intimacy with your significant other. If you are experiencing body hate, ask yourself these questions:

Whether you’re in recovery or not, you may be trying to formulate Valentine’s Day plans either by yourself or with others. Valentine’s Day can bring about a lot of stress and anxiety if you hold certain expectations about the holiday and how it should go. Many people enjoy going out to eat with their friends or significant other, while others may decide to host something at home or simply make a nice dinner for themselves. No matter your circumstance, gift yourself this Valentine’s Day with food that will boost your mental health and recovery.

Mental illness takes a major toll on Americans, with Newsweek claiming that 1 in 5 Americans experience a mental illness every year. Conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia lead to feelings of hopelessness, major mood changes, and delusions, all of which can make daily life hard to manage. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the average life expectancy in the United States is 77.9 years old, with the drop-in life expectancy being due to serious mental illnesses. Why does mental illness impact life expectancy so much? Mental illness doesn’t just affect one’s psychological condition – it impacts physical health as well. The NIMH states that serious mental illnesses cause people cancer, heart disease, stroke, pulmonary disease, and diabetes. Furthermore, individuals with a mental illness are twice as likely to smoke cigarettes, and to be obese, as compared to the rest of the population. Poverty is another contributing factor to mortality, with poor nutrition and healthcare leading up to further economic troubles. For those of us with mental illness, seeking support and working daily to take better care of our health is critical for a longer and healthier life. Dr. Weiden, professor of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois College of Medicine reiterated for The Huffington Post the ways those with serious mental illness experience earlier death. He stated, “People with severe mental illness are less likely to take good care of themselves, more likely to smoke heavily and have sedentary lifestyles, and have more difficulty than most negotiating the complicated medical care system to go for appointments and follow-up care. And primary care physicians are not well trained or compensated for the additional complexities involved in diagnosing or treating medial problems in the severely ill.” The shocking fact is that suicide is not the main cause of death for those with severe mental illness; it’s lack of support and appropriate day-to-day health management. This brings a call to action to those of us who have a mental illness, a call to action that we strive hard each day to take small steps towards improving our mental and physical health so that we may overcome our challenges and live a happy and fruitful life. It’s a call to action for our loved ones, to take better care of us and listen to our needs and concerns, to be someone whom we can rely on.

Medications are often used for people with mental illness because it helps them clear their mind and focus solely on their recovery. Some medications come with side effects, which can be particularly challenging, however. Side effects may include drowsiness, dizziness, confusion, irritability, nausea, and more. Medications work differently with each person, and not everyone needs medication. According to Mayo Clinic, the following are the most common forms of medications that individuals may take for their mental illness: