How to Unwind After Work: 7 Proven Strategies

July 12, 2020

Whether you’re working from home or you’re back in the office, chances are you are spent at the end of the day.  Tension builds throughout the day, and we end up carrying it home with us.  You want to relax, but it’s almost impossible -- like you’re too stressed to de-stress.  Or maybe the only way you can unwind is with alcohol.  If this is you, I’m here with 7 proven (non-alcoholic) strategies to help you unwind after work.  

 

In this week’s article, I’ll share with you 

  • 7 proven strategies for unwinding after work
  • The reasons the strategies work
  • Ideas for how to incorporate them into your life
  • A checklist to make sure you’re implementing the strategies in your life -- after all, they don’t work if you don’t do them!

How Anxiety Affects Your Blood Pressure (And Other Effects of Anxiety On Your Body)

June 7, 2020

Why does anxiety raise your blood pressure or make your tummy hurt?  Every symptom of anxiety actually serves a clear biological purpose.  

When something happens that triggers anxiety, a part of your nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system is activated.  You’d think that being called “sympathetic” that it’d be a nice experience to have this system activated, but it’s not.  The sympathetic nervous system is otherwise known as your fight-or flight response and gets activated when it thinks you’re in danger.  It’s actually really helpful.  Imagine you’re checking your makeup in the rear-view mirror and suddenly get aggressively honked at.  You (ok, me) feel a jolt of fear that makes you sit up straight and get your car in the correct lane.  If that fight-or-flight response didn’t get activated, you’d just keep swerving all over the road.

When the fight-or-flight system is activated, and our bodies respond in a predictable way.  And this response is what causes the physical effects of anxiety.  Here’s what happens:

 

4 Steps to Stop Stress Eating

May 31, 2020

If I’m honest, I’m just like you, and sometimes I fall victim to emotional eating, too.  That’s why, in our pantry at all times, my husband keeps an emergency supply of what he refers to as “anxiety brownies.”  Being a psychologist, I’m loaded from head to toe with the world’s greatest mental health tips and strategies, so fortunately, I seldom need to grab those emergency anxiety brownies.  So I’m here today to share with you what I know and tell you how to stop emotional eating.  

 

HOW JUNK FOOD AFFECTS YOUR BRAIN

HOW YOU’VE TRIED TO STOP STRESS EATING BEFORE

SOMEONE FAMOUS TELLS US HOW TO STOP EMOTIONAL EATING

STEP 1 OF HOW TO STOP STRESS EATING: STIMULUS

STEP 2 OF HOW TO STOP STRESS EATING: RESPONSE
STEP 3 OF HOW TO STOP STRESS EATING: SPACE

STEP 4 OF HOW TO STOP STRESS EATING: CHANGE

ALL TOGETHER: HOW TO STOP STRESS EATING

 

5 Ways to Get Motivated After Work

May 10, 2020

There’s more to do than can ever be done, and sometimes that reality really sinks in and can be paralyzing.  We realize we can’t actually fit everything in, so we just end up doing almost nothing at all.  Plus, we’re just so tired by the end of the day that it doesn’t seem like we really can do anything.  Maybe it’s true that you can’t do it all, but I’m here today with 5 ways to get yourself motivated after work so at least you can do some of it.  

15 Coping Mechanisms That Are Keeping You Stuck

April 26, 2020

Hey, we’re all doing our absolute best to just get from day to day and from week to week.  And over the years, we develop coping mechanisms to help us do just that. Sure, not all of those coping mechanisms are healthy, and we know it.  Of course smoking and drinking and spending too much are helping us feel “better,” and we know they’re not actually fixing the problem. But today, we’re diving deep into 15 coping mechanisms that you might not even realize are keeping you stuck.  Have you adopted any of these habits?

9 Ways to Manage Anxiety Without Medication

April 5, 2020

Whether you’ve got occasional anxiety or it’s an all-day-every-day part of your life, having some high quality strategies for managing it is key to keeping it from taking over.  Medications can be helpful for some people in some situations, but some people prefer to keep things natural or don’t have anxiety that’s severe enough to warrant taking medication...and most people who take medications still have occasional anxiety.  So just about everyone who experiences anxiety needs a healthy repertoire of all-natural coping skills to maximize their wellness. Today, I’m bringing you 9 of my personal favorite strategies to manage anxiety without medication.  

Anxiety vs. Fear vs. Panic: How to Tell the Difference

March 29, 2020

Anxiety, fear, and panic are such similar emotions and experiences that we often assume they’re just the same thing. But actually they’re different, and knowing the difference can help you communicate better with your doctors, know what information to actually be researching on your own, and hopefully finally find the right strategies to manage your mental health. In this week’s article, I’m telling you the key differences between anxiety, fear, and panic. Plus, I put it all together in a chart in case you’re a visual learner like I am. Charts are the best.

The Secret to Living a Balanced Life

March 1, 2020

Psychological health and relieving stress, anxiety, and depression are all about balance.  It’s so cliche that I roll my eyes at myself when I say it to my clients. When we’re stressed, overwhelmed, or anxious, that’s an emotional cue that something is out of balance in our lives.  So we respond by shifting things around. Mental health problems arise (in part) from things being too far out of balance for too long. We’ll rebalance but we too quickly go back to the old patterns that got us out of balance in the first place.  Today, I’ll tell you the piece you’re missing to help you actually get things balanced in the long term.

18 Key Characteristics of the Conscientious but Critical Personality Type

February 16, 2020

Have you heard of the enneagram?  It describes nine personality types that are more based in spirituality and anecdote than science, but they’re an interesting description of how we think about the world, the choices we tend to make, our personal values, how we interact with people, and how we respond to stress.  

 

A lot of the articles I write are geared toward folks who are enneagram type 1.  In part, this is because enneagram 1s tend to think nothing is ever quite good enough so they’re always on a personal improvement quest.  They love a good self-help book and are addicted to researching how to do things. In my article today, I’m sharing with you the core characteristics of type 1s — from their strengths and weaknesses to their core fears and desires.  See if you relate here.