Distraction: An Impactful Parenting Tool

Parents are faced with a variety of different challenging situations from day to day. From managing the kids’ online activities to breaking up arguments to preparing meals that everyone will enjoy, the stress can add up. In these situations, it might feel difficult to deal with intense or painful emotions as they arise. Ineffective ways of managing a crisis may help in the short term, but they can end up making things worse. Use crisis management skills like Wise Mind ACCEPTS when you feel yourself reaching your threshold to Emotion Mind or if you feel your emotional temperature rising…

How Parents can Manage Emotional Vulnerabilities

Do you ever wonder why you sometimes find yourself acting up or lashing out from intense emotions? It’s possible that you’re being triggered by your emotional vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities are underlying factors that make it more likely for a person to act emotionally. Parents can be especially vulnerable to their emotions because they’re investing more time in their children and less time in themselves. When healthy self-care practices are neglected, it can leave people more emotionally vulnerable. Luckily, learning how to manage these specific vulnerabilities can help you avoid acting in irrational ways. Start managing your emotional vulnerabilities with the PLEASE skills…

Parenting Without Judgment

Do you ever find you’re hard on yourself as a parent? Do you tend to assume the worst about yourself when the situation unfolds differently than planned? Judgments are FUEL on emotional fire. Although you need judgments in order to stay safe, negative judgments may impact your self-efficacy and how you view yourself in the parenting role. In Dialectical Behavior Therapy, acting non-judgmentally is essential to avoid mistaking your opinions or emotions as facts. Take a vacation from judgment and parent effectively by adopting a non-judgmental stance. Let’s explore how you can identify your judgments and replace them with a non-judgmental, neutral stance…

Calm Your Mind With Mindful Breathing

Did you know that one of the simplest ways to calm your mind is something that you’re already doing every second of the day? That’s right—it’s all about your breath! When you feel intense emotions, your may instinctively try to slow down your breath. Being mindful of your breathing is as easy as that! Mindful breathing is a powerful yet underutilized tool that helps you calm intense emotions and bring awareness to your present moment. By mindfully breathing, you can create a relaxing effect on your mind and body. Consider these three types of mindful breathing techniques to promote a calmer mood…

3 Ways to Avoid a Winter Mood Slump

It’s mid January and all you can do is count the days until spring. Now more than ever, you’re longing for warmer days and you just can’t kick those winter blues. If it’s proving difficult to trudge through these chilly days, you’re not alone. You can boost your mood by incorporating these three helpful techniques…

3 Foods to Help Manage the Stress of the New Year

A new year is a time for new goals. It’s a time to plan for self-improvement and aspire to achieve more in the year ahead. You may aim to learn a new skill, be more present, lose weight, etc. With all of these new goals comes new stress. This year, take a nutritional approach by integrating foods that help with stress reduction. Fuel your body with foods that help you work towards your objectives without suffering from as much stress. Below are three foods to incorporate in 2021 that help manage stress…

GOODBYE 2020!

Many people are taking stock on the past year it comes to a close and we get ready to ring in 2021. I’ve heard people say 2020 was “crazy” or “horrible” or “the worst” year. In many respects, this is true. The pandemic sideswiped our stability, knocked us off our game, stole family members from us and basically forced us to rewrite our visions and redo our schedules. It makes sense that we are sad, that we have FOMO, and that we grieve for all we have lost or for what could have been. The pain is real and deserves to be acknowledged and felt. Without pausing to acknowledge our feelings, we might get stuck in them and worse, bring them forth into 2021. Here are 3 ways that you can effectively say GOODBYE to 2020 and welcome in 2021…

Lessons From 2020 to Carry Into 2021

There is no doubt that 2020 has been a year of adjustment. We have learned valuable lessons collectively as a society, and on an individual level as well. Whether they involved finances, social engagement, emotional health, or work, they taught us valuable insights that we may not have otherwise gained during a typical year. As this year begins closing behind us, let’s recognize the valuable lessons learned that we can apply for years to come. Here are three important lessons from 2020 that will be beneficial in 2021…

Prioritize Your Gut Health for Optimal Well-Being This Winter

As we enter another few months of colder weather, shorter days, and an unfortunate rise in COVID cases, it’s essential that we continue to implement wellness strategies to nourish both our mental and physical health. Gut health is imperative to overall wellness—especially to your immunity and brain function. The gut is often referred to as the “second brain” as it communicates with the brain, and it is the home of nearly 80% of your body’s immune cells. How can you best take care of your gut health? Here are some helpful tips…

3 Ways to Avoid Holiday Self-Punishment

After a delicious Thanksgiving meal with loved ones, does your mood feel lower? Are you hit with negative feelings that weigh you down? The holidays are a time of celebration and enjoyment; so why is it that once the festivities have ended, we’re met with a sense of sadness or regret? It’s more common than you’d think to experience post-holiday self-punishment. After the thrill of a positive experience, we’re susceptible to succumbing to negative emotions. Avoid punishing yourself and stop getting stuck in negative feelings by following these simple steps…

How to Deal with Life's Uncertainty

Is life’s unpredictability getting to you? We’re in the midst of uncertain times. Between the implications of the coronavirus pandemic and the election results, many people are feeling understandably uneasy. We’re not sure what the future will look like and that uneasiness is causing us distress. When we feel fearful or overwhelmed, we have a natural tendency to go into fight (criticize, yell, get into arguments), flight (run away physically or mentally), or freeze (shut down or isolate) mode. This occurs because our minds and bodies are perceiving the uncertainty as a threat. While it’s okay in the short-term, it can take its toll on our bodies in the long-term. Chronic stress can cause us to feel fatigued, to experience anxiety or depression, and to suffer from sleep issues, among other things. It’s not healthy to be in this mode more often than necessary. Luckily, you can escape the constant state of stress and combat the unpredictability. Here are some quick tips and suggestions to give your mind and body a breather...

How to Cope with Election Anxiety

It’s possible that you’re facing election-related stress. With November 3rd just around the corner, most Americans are understandably anxious. The uncertainty of who our next president will be has everyone on-edge. The first step to coping with any kind of anxiety is to acknowledge how you’re feeling. Recognize that you are feeling increasingly nervous, or more easily frustrated, or more emotionally volatile. Next, develop ways to address the impact of your emotions today, before the election, and after the election results are announced as well. What can you do to remain emotionally resilient in the days ahead? Here are some helpful tips…

Fostering Teens' Emotional Resilience

Does your teen have trouble adapting to change or bouncing back from challenges? Teenagers don’t have it easy during a pandemic. Their lives were already full of physical, social, and emotional changes every day. With the added stress of COVID-19, it’s understandable for teens to struggle with changes or setbacks. A mistake as small as spilling their glass of water or a problem as big as doing poorly on a math test could negatively impact their mood for the rest of the day. In today’s world, it’s more important than ever for teens to cultivate emotional resilience. It will help them deal with life’s changes and challenges without all of the emotional suffering. Share these helpful tips with your teen so that they can cope with adversity effectively…

Ways to Control the Chaos while Keeping your Cool

Have your emotions felt out of control lately? It’s hard to be your best self during a pandemic. Trying to keep the family calm so that you all get along is a major undertaking—let alone keeping your own emotions in-check. Though it would be nice, you can’t ever have complete control over how you feel. The best you can do is to develop better emotion regulation skills so that you’re not feeling emotionally drained by the end of the day. Here are some DBT-inspired tips and tricks to manage an endless list of to-do’s while maintaining your composure…

The Inside Scoop About Online Therapy

Have you ever wondered what online therapy is like? Like many businesses lately, Mindsoother transitioned to telehealth, or online therapy. Therapy sessions are conducted via Zoom so that clients continue to receive the support they need, especially during these stressful times. The pandemic and its repercussions have caused many people to experience heightened negative emotions. When our lives are upended, it’s normal to feel more anxious, upset, or frustrated than usual. That’s where therapists can help. Like anything that’s new, online therapy may seem daunting at first. The therapists at Mindsoother are here to ease your worries! The Mindsoother team answered some commonly asked questions about online therapy sessions. Learn about what it’s like to practice online therapy from the therapists themselves…

Improve Family Dynamics Using Dialectics

Has the pandemic taken its toll on your family? Constant family time can strain family dynamics, even in the most agreeable of families. Spending 24/7 with the same people makes it more likely for conflicts to arise. Are you tired of arguing with your partner or pulling your hair out over your kids’ bickering? Take a dialectical approach. When you think dialectically, you acknowledge that two opposing ideas are both true; then, you find balance between those ideas in order to be most effective. Are you ready to make family time less stressful? Let’s learn about dialectics and how you can apply it to your family dynamics for calmer days ahead…

Using Dialectical Thinking to Manage Emotions

Dialectics are two opposing forces, feelings, or situations that happen simultaneously. For example, quarantine is hard AND we will get through it. By thinking and acting dialectically, you can keep your emotions calm AND you can look through a new lens to see two truths in a situation. Dialectics is the foundation of DBT. It teaches us that there is an opposite of everything and we tend to be most effective when we find balance between opposites. In DBT, it is particularly important to balance the idea of acceptance and change. However, it’s very difficult to stay in a neutral or calm emotional state lately if you use the word “but” often or if you tend to discount positives with negatives. Manage your emotions more effectively and keep your cool by practicing dialectics! Here are some tips on how to think and act dialectically right now…

Why Bad Habits are so Hard to Break

Do you wish you could break a bad habit, but you don’t know how? Habits like nail biting, procrastinating, smoking, or spending too much time online often impede on our daily productivity. They make us frustrated with ourselves and in the end, they do us more harm than good. Don’t keep wondering why you simply cannot stop your bad habit. You can break the cycle of negative behavior and save precious time. Explore these three helpful tips to learn why it is so difficult to break these bad habits and discover what you can do to make a change today…

The Amazing Benefits of Therapy Online

Over the past four weeks, we’ve learned that traditional in-person therapy isn’t the only effective way for us to lend support, insight and comfort to you. Online therapy works too! Simply spending dedicating time together, being with you face-to-face for 45-50 minutes, and continuing our dialogue can be effective as an in-person therapy session. If you are considering seeking mental health support right now, challenge any negative assumptions or beliefs that you have about online therapy being “not good enough” or “second best.” During COVID-19 and social distancing, our practice’s individual, family and group therapy sessions are 100% online. We believe that now, more than ever, we all need caring, compassion, support, and strategies and we are here to provide that for you 7 days a week. Interested in learning more about how online therapy works? Read more…

Rewire your Brain for Improved Well-Being during COVID-19

As humans, our brains are wired to respond to internal and external triggers so that we have the proper response to keep us safe. If we sense danger, our brains automatically shift into FIGHT OR FLIGHT mode. Panic and fear automatically trigger your brain’s threat detection, so during COVID-19, your system might go into overdrive. This is okay in the short-term, but it can take its toll on your body in the long-term. It is not healthy to be in fight or flight mode more often than necessary. Luckily, you can rewire your brain so that you’re not constantly overwhelmed by anxious or fearful thoughts or you’re not stuck in a state of mind that makes it tough to think clearly. Improve your physical and emotional well-being during this stressful time with these helpful tips…

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