When we receive referrals from the medical community of clients struggling with anxiety or panic disorder, one of the most common requests we get is for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. It’s highly popular — though I doubt if the majority of those who refer for such have any idea what they are suggesting.
Read moreAs many as 75% of all pregnancies result in a miscarriage before the woman knows she is pregnant. Once the woman has tested positive on a pregnancy test, there is still a one in five chance of an early miscarriage. Later in the pregnancy, while quite uncommon, miscarriage still occurs about 1% of the time though, for some women, it may repeatedly occur.
Read moreRead moreA life of feeling stalked.
Imagine what it would be like to live life constantly expecting a crisis to happen – always on the alert for some kind of threat or emotional trauma? What it would feel like to constantly scan the horizon seeking for sick people or germs – forever worried that they would make you sick or even just being around those people would cause you to feel sick?
Our emotions are powerful, born of countless unknowable forces and planted by childhood events we may never consciously recall. For many of us, they exist as shrouded mysterious urges we mostly focus on managing and suppressing.
But, it doesn’t have to be that way. They are in us for a reason: to be a dashboard that displays the state of our entire being. Learning to listen to and name the read-outs on that dashboard is essential to caring for ourselves and loving other people.
Read moreRead moreIn the years since, members of the medical community have continued to argue that MDMA doesn’t belong in Schedule I. Some recent studies, also approved by the DEA, have found that the drug could be an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder when administered under proper supervision.
HuffPost –
Read moreIn recognition of World Sleep Day and with the help of research firm KJT Group, Philips conducted a survey titled “Sleep: A Global Perspective” to help gain insight into the main sleep disturbances affecting people worldwide. They found that worrisome thoughts about work and economic or financial issues are the top two stressors keeping people awake at night. Speaking with almost 8,000 people across 10 countries, the research team gathered information regarding participants’ sleep times, wake times, daily routines, sleeping environments and perceptions of their work-life balance to determine the greatest obstacles in the way of developing healthier sleep habits.
Read moreScott Adams, creator of office comic Dilbert, explains why goals suck better than anyone I’ve come across:
“… you will spend every moment until you reach the goal-if you reach it at all-feeling as if you were short of your goal. In other words, goal-oriented people exist in a state of nearly continuous failure that they hope will be temporary.”
James Clear has written about this as well. James explains how setting goals reinforces our loser mindset:
“When you’re working toward a goal, you are essentially saying, ‘I’m not good enough yet, but I will be when I reach my goal’.”
Read moreThe Washington VA is one of the few places veterans can find a form of meditation called iRest, named for integrated restoration. It’s a trauma-sensitive meditation adapted specifically for military service members and veterans with psychological trauma.
In the hourlong sessions with a dozen other vets, Craig has learned how to unclench, easing his mind and his pain.
Read moreMuch of what Siegel wants us to consider can be condensed into a simple phrase: “what fires together, wires together.” The idea is that when a set of neurons are stimulated, they link up with all those other neurons that are simultaneously firing. Whether the groups of neurons that are linking make sense to us as observers on the outside is beside the point. Odd pairings can occur, strange juxtapositions of feelings and sensations that, outside of the experience of a particular individual, seem almost impossible to the rest of us. I’m reminded of a narrative in the old DSM-IV casebook that describes an individual who had come to associate sexual arousal with being covered in insects.
Read moreI sat at the end of the sofa. This is the spot I’d been in all night watching people move around the room, and listening to whoever chose to sit next to me talk. This is how I used to inhibit a party. Motionless and quiet, waiting for just the right moment to hurry home.
This was not just my way of dealing with parties. It reflected the way I dealt with much of my life. Too afraid to show the world who I really was, I’d try my best to stay quiet and still. Don’t say too much. Don’t laugh too loudly. Don’t let them know you are anxious. Don’t let them notice that you are different.
