Emotional Health & Psychology Articles

Article / Updated 05-22-2024

With household names like Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Megan Thee Stallion going public about their struggles with anxiety and depression in recent years, mental health is finally becoming less taboo. It wasn’t long ago that any deviation from the norm was treated like a shameful secret: Mental health conditions were ignored, waved away, or handled in private — and often inhumane — ways (think lobotomies). The ongoing lack of visibility into these struggles served to perpetuate the myth that mental health issues were pretty rare — and that the few people who did struggle were somehow to blame for their condition. Today, we know mental health conditions are actually incredibly common: According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience a mental illness. And that number is growing: the stress, fear, grief, isolation, and uncertainty of the global pandemic led to an increase in mental health issues — particularly among young adults — according to the CDC. Of course, that’s a conservative picture: In cultures, professions, and communities where mental illness stigma remains alive and well, addressing your own struggles has consequences — anything from social ostracization to losing your job. Meanwhile, a lack of access to affordable health care and unbiased information creates additional barriers for those most in need of support. And, when left untreated and unacknowledged, one person’s poor mental health can create a ripple effect that impacts their loved ones. When we look at the toll that untreated mental illness takes on our society, it’s safe to assume we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. It’s a complex, sensitive, and crucial issue — which is why awareness remains so important. What is a mental illness? According to NAMI, mental illness refers to a wide range of conditions that affect “a person's thinking, feeling, behavior or mood.” Waking up on the wrong side of the bed, it is not — while symptoms can ebb and flow, mental illness is partially defined by the impact it has on day-to-day functioning and personal relationships. If you or a loved one are in emotional crisis, dial 988 for the national 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. The Lifeline is a free and confidential emotional support service for people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, across the United States. The Lifeline is comprised of a national network of over 200 local crisis centers, combining custom local care and resources with national standards and best practices. Following, are some of the most common types of mental illness. Anxiety disorders Anxiety disorders can manifest in a number of ways: from racing thoughts or risk-averse behavior to an upset stomach. Anxiety disorders are the most common — and the most treatable — form of mental illness, impacting more than 40 million Americans over 18. They include: Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) Panic disorder Agoraphobia (an extreme fear of large crowds, open spaces, leaving one’s home, or being unable to escape) Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Social anxiety disorder Check out our many Dummies books on Emotional Health & Psychology. Mood disorders While anyone can experience a mood swing, the highs and lows are more severe, persistent, and disruptive for those living with mood disorders. There are a variety of mood disorders, each with their own diagnostic criteria and symptoms. A person with bipolar disorder may experience drastic swings between high moods (mania) and low moods (depression), while a person with major depressive disorder experiences the lows — changes in sleep and appetite, persistent feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness, lack of motivation, inability to focus or make decisions, and feelings of emptiness — without the highs. Mood disorders include: Major depressive disorder (MDD) Persistent depressive disorder (also known as dysthymia) Bipolar disorder Substance-induced mood disorder READ MORE: Depression For Dummies;Bipolar Disorder For Dummies Psychotic disorders Psychotic disorders make it difficult for a person to discern between reality and delusions or hallucinations. These disorders are characterized by distortions in one’s thinking and perception. Disorders include: Schizophrenia Schizoaffective disorder Brief psychotic disorder Delusional disorder Substance-induced psychotic disorder Other mental health conditions include eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, personality disorders like borderline personality disorder (BPD), developmental disorders like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and dissociative disorders like depersonalization disorder. Treating mental health conditions It’s not easy living with a mental health condition, but there are several options to make life more manageable. Some of the most popular include: Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) teaches common sense principles that help people break out of unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors. It’s thought to be the most effective form of therapy for a number of conditions, including anxiety, addiction, depression, eating disorders, social anxiety, and personality disorders. Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) is a form of CBT. While DBT also helps people recognize unhelpful thinking and behavioral patterns, the primary teaching is mindfulness techniques that help patients regulate their emotions in a world full of suffering. It works best for people who have trouble controlling their responses to strong emotions. READ MORE: DBT For Dummies Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) uses mindfulness to help people build their interpersonal relationship skills and manage anxiety related to said relationships. READ MORE: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy For Dummies Mindfulness is more than the buzzword du jour — it’s a great way to manage anxiety, addiction, and even everyday stress. Mindfulness is the practice of being aware of — and accepting — the present moment. Meditation is one of many ways to cultivate this skill. READ MORE: Managing Depression with Mindfulness For Dummies; Managing Anxiety with Mindfulness For Dummies; Meditation For Dummies, 4th Edition When all else fails, medication could be the missing link. A psychiatrist can help determine if psychiatric drugs would be a beneficial form of treatment.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 04-30-2024

There’s a lot to know about personal boundaries. But that doesn’t mean you need to wait until you understand all there is to know before you get started. The following are simple, actionable tips to help you start setting boundaries, along with specific actions you can put into practice immediately for some quick, powerful wins that instantly improve your boundaries. And if you’re wondering whether boundaries are even necessary, you can find the answer here too.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 04-12-2024

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-22-2024

All humans have variations in the way that they think, feel, and experience the world — this is neurodiversity. Neurodivergent conditions such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia (and dyspraxia, and dyscalculia, and many others) have been part of our human family for a very long time. This Cheat Sheet offers a glimpse into understanding the big, bold, beautiful world of neurodiversity.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 02-26-2024

Understanding and diagnosing attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, begins with knowing the three types of ADHD and recognizing that they can be exhibited through secondary symptoms as well. To cope with ADHD, explore a number of treatment options and how you can approach them for better results.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 02-22-2024

Take this opportunity to explore new opportunities and make the most of the decades ahead. Keep your finances, your living arrangements, and, most importantly, your health in peak performance. To get started, you may be interested in finding a new job, getting a handle on your finances, and trying your hand at yoga.

Article / Updated 10-23-2023

Just as the aim of mindfulness isn’t to relax the body, though this sometimes happens, so the aim of mindfulness isn’t to calm the mind, though this sometimes happens too. Your mind is like the ocean – occasionally wild, and at other times calm. Sometimes your mind goes from thought to thought without stopping to rest. At other times, your thoughts come slower and have more of a space between them. Mindfulness isn’t so much about changing the rate of your thoughts, but about noticing the thoughts arising in the first place. Listen to your thoughts with mindfulness Everything man-made around you was originally a thought in someone’s head. Many people consider thought to be all-powerful. All your words, all your action and activities – everything is motivated by thought. So, being aware of the kind of thoughts going through your mind makes sense. The brain easily gets into habitual patterns, as your thoughts travel their paths within the brain. Each time you have a particular thought, or carry out a particular action, you slightly increase the chance of having the same thought again. Through repeated thinking or action, the connection between neurons strengthens. If you aren’t mindful of these thoughts or actions, you may have all sorts of negative, untrue, unhelpful thoughts or behaviors that influence your life without you even being aware of them or questioning the truth or validity of them. Mindfulness encourages you to watch your thoughts, emotions and actions; then you’re better able to notice unhelpful thoughts and question their truth. Use mindfulness to make better decisions Every moment of every day you make decisions, whether you’re aware of them or not. At some point, you’ll decide to stop and do something else. More significant decisions you have to make have a bigger impact, and a ‘good’ decision is highly desirable. All that you do and have at the moment is partly due to the decisions you made in the past. Awareness of your body can help you make better decisions – a gut feeling is a signal from your belly telling you what to do and has been found in some experiments to be faster and more accurate than logical thinking. Research shows a mass of nerves in the gut that’s like a second brain. This intuition is routinely used by top CEOs of corporations to make critical decisions. Come to your senses through mindfulness One of the key ways of becoming more mindful and of calming the mind is to connect with your senses – sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. People’s use of the word ‘sense’ shows they appreciate and value being in touch with our organs of perception. You know innately the value of connecting to your senses if you want to make a sensible decision. What is the benefit of purposefully connecting with your senses? Well, if you aren’t paying attention to the stimulation coming through your five senses you’re only paying attention to your thoughts and emotions. You’re not aware of anything else. Your thoughts are mainly based on your experiences from the past, from memory. You may imagine something new, but on the whole, your mind reworks past experiences, or projects ideas into the future based on your past experiences. Emotions are also very much influenced by your thoughts. So, without paying attention to your senses, you’re stuck with your own thoughts and emotions based on the past instead of the present. By purposefully connecting with one of your senses, say, touch, you begin naturally to calm your mind a little. In mindfulness you can begin by focusing on your breathing. Focus on your belly stretching or your chest expanding or perhaps the movement of the air as it enters and leaves your body. By focusing on a particular sense, in this case the sense of touch, you’re focusing your attention. Rather than your mind wandering wherever it pleases, you’re gently training it to stay on one object, namely your breathing. By coming to your senses mindfully you are Training your attention to focus. Being kind to yourself when your mind wanders off. Realizing that you’ve a certain amount of choice about what you pay attention to. Understanding that you can deliberately choose to shift attention away from thinking and into the senses. Calming your mind. Create an attentive mind with mindfulness Attention is essential in achieving anything. If you can’t pay attention, you can’t get the job done, whatever the job is. Mindfulness trains your attention by sustaining your attention on one thing, or by switching the type of attention from time to time. There are several types of attention: Narrow attention is focused and sharp, like the beam of a laser. You may use this type of attention when chopping vegetables or writing a letter. Wide attention is more open and spacious, like a floodlight. When you’re driving, ideally your attention is open so you’d notice if a car moved closer to you from the side, or if children were playing up ahead. Outer attention is attention to the outer world through your senses. Inner attention is an awareness of your thoughts and feelings. Observer or witness awareness is your capacity to know what type of attention you’re using. For example, if you’re drawing a picture, you’re aware that your attention is narrow. If you’re walking through the countryside, you’re aware that your attention is wide.

Article / Updated 10-23-2023

Feeling and expressing gratitude goes a long way toward alleviating your stress in daily life. Intuitively you know you should feel and express gratitude, but you may put it into practice less often than you think. You may look at exercise in the same way: You know you should do more of it, but you just don’t. Sometimes you need to be reminded and encouraged. Keeping a journal makes it more likely that you’ll be aware of the importance of gratitude and express gratitude more frequently. Here’s what to do: Find a time when you have a few moments to yourself and think about four or five things in your life right now for which you are thankful. This could be on the train on your way to work, on a coffee break at your desk, or at any quiet moment when you can step back and reflect. Here are some things you might be grateful for: Your health Your friends Your children Your relationship Your skills and talents Your home Your job Your life itself Add to this list and come up with additional aspects of your life for which you can feel grateful. For some people, carrying out this exercise daily may work best; for others, once a week may be enough. If you’re a good journal-keeper, you may want to jot down these objects of gratitude. Either way, try to make this exercise a regular part of your day or week. Acknowledging those parts of your life for which you should be grateful is important; expressing gratitude to others is the other part. Too often we feel gratitude but fail to express it. Our hearts are in the right place, but we don’t communicate our gratitude to the other person. This communication can take the form of a simple thank you or a more elaborate expression of gratitude. It can be in response to a specific behavior or a larger pattern of behavior on the other person’s part. It can be something that happened recently or something that goes way back. It can be someone you know personally or someone you only know of. It can be a close connection, such as a family member, or someone more remote, such as a mail carrier, an author, or your child’s teacher. These days, you have plenty of options for delivering your message. The vehicle for your gratitude could be a face-to-face meeting, a phone call, an e-mail, an instant message, a text message, or perhaps even a letter. Don’t wait for next Thanksgiving.

Article / Updated 10-20-2023

Maybe you’re wondering whether you’re codependent. It may be hard to tell at first, because, unless you’re already in recovery, denial is a symptom of codependency. Whether or not you identify as codependent, you can still benefit from alleviating any symptoms you recognize. You will function better in your life. Recovery helps you to be authentic, feel good about yourself, and have more honest, open, and intimate relationships. Like most things, codependency varies on a scale from minimal to severe. When you’re under stress, symptoms flare. Some individuals show only slight symptoms, while others have all of the typical characteristics Some traits and examples may sound foreign, while you can relate to others. The severity of codependency varies depending on a number of things, such as the following: Your genetics Your culture, including your religious beliefs Your family’s dynamics Your experience of trauma Your role models Your addictions or use of drugs Intimate relationships you may have or had with addicts If you’re codependent, generally symptoms show up to some extent in all your relationships and in intimate ones to a greater degree. Or codependency may affect your interaction with only one person — a spouse or romantic partner, a parent, sibling, or child, or someone at work. Codependency may not affect you as much at work if you’ve had effective role models or learned interpersonal skills that help you manage. Maybe you weren’t having a problem until a particular relationship, boss, or work environment triggered you. One explanation may be that the parent has a difficult personality or the child has special needs, and the couple has adjusted to their roles and to one another, but avoids intimacy. The spectrum of codependency is illustrated in the figure below. The horizontal vector shows how opposite codependent personality traits can manifest in a relationship. Individuals may reverse roles. For example, you may be the pursuer in one relationship and a distancer in another, or flip back and forth in the same relationship. In an alcoholic marriage, the sober spouse may scold and blame the irresponsible, needy alcoholic, who behaves like a victim. Then their roles switch, and the alcoholic dominates and controls his or her partner. Sometimes the spouse who acts needy or “crazy” gets well, and the self-sufficient, invulnerable partner breaks down. Both the disease and recovery exist on a scale represented by the vertical vector here. Codependent behavior and symptoms improve with recovery, described at the top, but if you don’t take steps to change, they become worse in the late stage, indicated at the bottom. As you get better acquainted with the symptoms and characteristics of codependents, you may see yourself. If you feel overwhelmed by the thought of having codependency, instead focus on the patterns and behaviors you want to change. If you’re committed to change, it really doesn’t matter whether or not you consider yourself a codependent. However, it’s important to realize that codependency won’t get better or go away by itself. Support is essential, because you won’t be able to make permanent changes on your own.

Article / Updated 10-20-2023

Guilt can, in some instances, actually lead to self-improvement and build self-esteem. The problem for codependents is that their guilt is usually irrational and stems from shame and poor boundaries. Studies show that healthy guilt encourages people to have more empathy for others, to take corrective action, and to improve themselves. Shame, on the other hand, makes you feel inferior, inadequate, or bad about who you are versus what you did. Unhealthy guilt impedes self-acceptance. Self-forgiveness is self-essential to self-esteem. Yet for many codependents, self-acceptance remains elusive because of unhealthy guilt — sometimes for decades or a lifetime. It may be an unrelenting source of pain. You might hold a belief that you should feel guilty and condemn yourself — not once, but over and over — or guilt may simmer in your subconscious. Either way, this kind of guilt is insidious and self-destructive and can sabotage your ability to find happiness and achieve your goals. Here are things you should examine when you feel guilty: Guilt shouldn’t drag on and preoccupy you. When guilt is irrational and not absolved, it can lead to shame. Instead of enhancing empathy and self-improvement, it has the opposite effect. It causes greater self-preoccupation and undermines both the self and relationships. It also promotes aggression and depression. You may be punishing yourself unnecessarily. Are you harder on yourself than others? Would you keep punishing someone over and over for a mistake, or would you forgive them? Guilt causes anger and resentment, not only at yourself, but toward other people in order to justify your actions. Anger, resentment, and guilt sap your energy. They keep you stuck in the past and prevent you from moving forward. A better approach is to think of your mistakes as learning opportunities. To be sure, you’ll have another chance to do things differently next time. Guilt about your thoughts and feelings impairs rather than promotes self-acceptance. You may feel guilty not only for your actions, but also for your thoughts (for instance, wishing someone pain, misfortune, or even death); your feelings (like anger, lust, or greed); or your lack of feelings (such as not reciprocating love or friendship or not feeling grief over the loss of someone close). You may be feeling guilty for things others have done. Because of a lack of boundaries and low self-esteem, it’s common for codependents to take the blame for others’ behavior. Although irrational, you may feel guilty for the thoughts, attributes, feelings, and actions of someone else. You may be adopting others’ projections. You might judge yourself based upon the blame or false accusations emanating from others, which you accept to be true. For example, an abuser or addict may blame you to avoid responsibility, but you take on that blame. If your partner is a narcissist, they might accuse you of being selfish, even though your partner is the one who is selfish. Rationalizing or ignoring your guilt helps only temporarily, but it isn’t the same as self-forgiveness. Alternatively, beating yourself up prolongs guilt and shame and damages your self-esteem. The best approach is to face what you did, accept responsibility, do some self-examination, and take remedial action.