Category: Brain Health

4 Surprising Benefits of Peer Pressure in Adolescent Life

“After all, it was the pressure of our peers that gave us the support to try something we wouldn’t otherwise have.” — Unknown Peer groups play a much more crucial role in a maturing adolescent’s life. As a teenager, school and other activities may take you away from […]

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The Health Impacts of Stress

Not everyone is affected similarly by the same stressor. Stress is both Stressor and Stress Reaction. I hear a lot of times in the clinic how an individual was doing fine until another person or an unfortunate circumstance contributed to their increased stress, anger, and pain. We cannot live a stress-free life. When we speak of stress, it is beneficial to consider two sides of it: the stressor – that which exerts stress – and the stress reaction – our response to the stressor. We may not be able to control what the outside may bring to us, but we can control our attitude and the response we generate. Required in this is the ability to regulate our nervous system to generate calm and reframe a stressor.

Negative and unprocessed stress can be harmful to our health. Unequivocally, it can impact our bodies. How we cope with it can be a second hit to our health and attract us to potentially harmful and addictive behaviors.

In the article, Hanna Keith Santos Barrios defines stress and specifically how our body responds to it. The hope is that the knowledge can equip the reader with a tool to consider the ways in which attach to a stressor and they can reframe it to provide the energy for transcending any obstacle.

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Creativity: Emerging from the Safe Mode

We marvel at how well-known artists, writers, and musicians can generate new works of art, books, and songs. Somehow, they emerged from anonymity, cultivating a process that balances skillful creativity with letting go of one project and moving on to another. Jazz musicians call their seemingly rehearsed improvisational […]

EMDR: Its History and Effectiveness

EMDR was born of serendipity. As a survivor in the human condition, there is a frequent dance with stress or anxiety. Some individuals can overcome it more easily than others. As neuroscience instructs us, we can emerge from cyclical thought patterns. The search for ways we can improve […]

clear hour glass on golden frame

Social Media & Mental Health: Taking Back Your Time

Our time is precious. We often do not realize how quickly it goes as we live it. The way we spend our time can influence our health. Enter social media. It might be common behavior to pass “in between” time – a busy doctor’s waiting room or waiting […]

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The Evolution of the Approach to Mental Health: Towards a More Preventive Strategy

The pandemic has given us a lot to think about regarding mental health. Already on an incline, the rates of depression and anxiety have increased over the last few years.

Psychiatry is on the reactive side of mental health, addressing issues as people present with more serious conditions.

The ACEs study showed an association of trauma with mental and physical health impacts. Envisioning preventive strategies could start at the pregnancy, address parenting approaches, and enhance community and scholastic programs.

Medications have limited efficacy. A multi-pronged preventive approach will likely be the most effective.

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