You may spend a lot of time thinking about what foods to eat to nourish your body and mind – and with good reason, as there is definitely a connection between inflammation and depression, which can be either exacerbated or alleviated in part by your chosen diet. In addition, a nutritious food plan can help […]

Do you find yourself trying to figure out why experiences have happened to you, why certain situations frighten you, or why certain inevitables (death and taxes, as they say) exist? If so, welcome to the human race. Our minds are meaning-making machines. In addition, gaining a greater understanding of issues can be helpful, to an […]

If there’s one skill we all need in this unpredictable world, it’s resilience. Try as we might, and however hard we work, life will not always go our way. Some people respond to challenges and setbacks by bouncing back even higher, like a superball. Other people are more likely to land like a lead weight. […]

Patience is one of the most useful character traits we can develop. Whether we’re dealing with a prolonged case of the flu, a troubling relative, learning a second (or third) language, or digging ourselves out of a financial hole, patience makes it possible for us to withstand frustrations, control our temper, regulate our stress level, […]

Sometimes we need to reboot our lives, much like restarting a frozen computer screen when nothing else will. When we’re feeling wired and tired, we can slow down long enough to ask ourselves, “Is this depression or depletion?” Frequently it’s the latter. When we’ve been burning the candle at both ends for too long, things […]

We are with ourselves 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the conversations we have with ourselves constitute the most powerful influence on our feelings, actions, and characters. How would you describe your internal conversations? Are they kind, supportive, honest, and patient? Or are they angry, critical, and discouraging? If the latter’s the […]

Is it better for your happiness and health to belong to an organized religion or to be more generically “spiritual”? Does it matter? Being religious generally refers to believing in a specific deity (or group of deities) and the regulations of a particular religion and tends to take place in a relatively formal, organized context. […]

Do you often say to yourself things like, “This experience means that I’m not a good person”, “I’m not good at math”, or “I’m not worthy of my husband [or wife]”. If so, this is a clue that you may have a fixed mindset, in which you see things fatalistically, as if certain qualities of […]

At the beginning of a new year, we often review the high points and challenges of the past 12 months and make some resolutions for this current year. For many of us, those resolutions can be much the same as those we made last year. Why is it that some problems are so difficult to […]

If you fear that self-care means being selfish, you’re not alone. This is unfortunately a common misconception which can get in the way of tending to your own physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs. After all, especially in today’s world, there is a lot of talk about narcissistic behavior, and most of us would not […]