The 3-3-3 rule for anxiety is a technique that uses emotional grounding to reduce anxiety. The technique gets you to focus on the present, shifting your focus away from your worry. Negative thoughts tend to stem from the future or the past, so by focusing on the here and now, you can reduce your negative thoughts and gain some clarity. The 3-3-3 rule is a short exercise that you can use on a daily basis or during moments of high stress or anxiety.
Imagine this, you have to do some form of public speaking, or you are driving and the car in front of you stops short, or you are out for a walk and a strange animal jumps out in front of you. What would you do? Flight or fight are the body’s natural way to response to stressful, scary, or dangerous situations. After extensive data collection, researchers now acknowledge that there are other automatic responses in addition to flight or fight and they are freeze and fawn.
Parenting kids of any age is one of the most emotionally challenging things most people go through. It is filled with daily struggles to motivate yourself and motivating your kid(s), sometimes even motivating your spouse as well. Trying to get your kids to go to sleep on time, wake up on time, get ready for school, eat their vegetables, get dressed, get bathed, do their homework, catch the bus, put down the cell phone, and another thing, and another thing without conclusion. While being a parent has its built-in rewards like cuddle time, hearing your kids laugh, and the occasional unsolicited “I love you mommy” or “I love you daddy”, the day-to-day can be very emotionally, mentally, and physically exhaustive. It is at this point where a lot of parents fall into a trap and build a series of assumptions that decrease their effectiveness as parents. While there are plenty of ways to reframe your thoughts and build more effective assumptions, these are three worthwhile assumptions that have been born out of my experience in the field of family therapy.
Autumn typically makes us think of many things: pumpkins, fall foliage, apple-picking, hayrides, and colder temperatures. While there are many themes that come up when fall comes to mind, mental health is typically not one of them. However, as we enter a new season, there are a lot of lessons the seasonal change can provide, with regard to overall wellness. Here are a few lessons from the transition of fall that can support overall wellbeing.
Starting your day off focused on things you enjoy, and what you want to achieve, can reduce the stress that can sometimes occur first thing. Aim to spend a few moments each morning focused on what you want your day to look like. Imagining a positive outcome can assist in this actually occurring. So aim to start your day considering what you are looking forward to and practicing self-care first thing.
We all experience around 6000 thoughts per day. That’s a lot of thinking within one waking period! That being said, sometimes these thoughts get stuck in your mind, almost as if they are a song with an error that keeps playing the same five seconds of the song, or a television show that’s frozen on one particular scene. Often the thoughts that tend to get stuck and cycle like this, are associated with negative emotions such as worry about various topics such as completing tasks, perceptions others may have of us, or something we are worried we may have forgotten.
As we grow, our families hope that we remain healthy, feel satisfied with our careers, have satisfying friendships and romantic relationships, and feel positive overall about our lives. Are there factors that might impact the transition from adolescence to adulthood, ensuring we feel positive about these life transitions? Absolutely.
Research suggests that a teen’s affect, particularly positive affect, is a critical factor impacting positive outlook. So what is affect? It’s the tendency to express positive or negative emotions, which in turn influences how we experience things and determine whether to judge a given situation as positive or negative.
COVID-19 has brought us a year of anxious uncertainty. Sheltering in place, working remotely, or facing daily hazards as essential workers, we’ve been unable to see our extended families, meet a friend for coffee, or even go to the gym, a sports game, concert, or movie. Some of us have lost loved ones, leaving a heartbreaking hole in our lives. All of us have lost touch with the normal rhythms of life. With no breaks in routine and fewer simple pleasures, the past few months have been an endless blur. Recent studies have shown that depression rates in America have tripled since the pandemic began (Berman, 2020).
Zoom calls have taken over. A few meetings in the morning, virtual learning, seminars over Zoom, a doctor’s visit over Doxy.me and FaceTime dates with family and friends. As social distancing continues, people move from video platform to video platform throughout the day. The unintended impact of this on mental health may be what’s being referred to as “Zoom fatigue” or the “feeling of tiredness, anxiousness, or worry from one video call to the next”.
Caring for your mental health is as important as caring for your physical health however emotional well-being is often overlooked in the workplace. It’s a challenge to manage work-related stress while also taking care of oneself. Mindfulness is one way to prioritize our mental health while reducing work-related stress.
As protestors continue to take to the streets across the country, highlighting ongoing systemic racism, social media is amplifying these messages. Videos and photos depicting police violence toward protestors such as shooting them with rubber bullets, driving cruisers into crowds, and throwing tear gas at protestors can be viewed daily, across social media platforms. According to research, while this imagery shines light on racism and aims to bolster efforts in fighting it, the explosion of content can also cause and reinforce trauma, especially for black people. Trauma and the possibility of symptoms of PTSD can occur due to the accumulation of experiences of racism and discrimination.
Ongoing media coverage and public outcry among many upsetting incidents across our country have sparked rage, anger, sadness, and action across not only our country, but the world. Conversations around race relations and biases within ourselves and the justice system, against individuals of color have been building and growing. From George Floyd to Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown and other lesser known cases such as the beating of homeless grandmother Marlene Pinnock, psychology is an important topic within the discussion on racial inequality and racial biases in America.
Everyone has heard of the concept of “fight or flight” before. We know that when we perceive a threat exists (whether real or imagined) our sympathetic nervous system awakens. We’ve all had those moments where we experience a surge of adrenaline and our heart beats fast, our breathing quickens, muscles tense, etc. In this moment, our brains are evaluating whether the danger is real or not and whether you will stand up to it (fight) or run away (flight). However, there is a third option to the fight or flight response that we don’t talk about as often and this is “freeze”. We will explore this response, the benefits of this, as well as ways to reduce the impact this has on our bodies and minds.
Studies report that healthcare workers are and will continue to experience psychological distress along with symptoms of anxiety and depression, managing the many stressors they face on the frontlines and how this impacts their daily lives. How can we support healthcare workers? Here are a few strategies to care for you or a loved one’s mental health at this time, especially if you are working on the frontlines.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has created sudden changes and uncertainty for all of us. Our routines have been disrupted in ways that none of us could have imagined even a few short weeks ago. ModernTherapy is committed to supporting your mental health whether that be through our counselors or through various community supports. We’ve compiled a list of resources with various self-care and support topics ranging from anxiety resources to mindfulness techniques.
Social distancing has become crucial in order to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. However, this can feel lonely and isolating, especially if you typically are on your own whether in your work life or personal life. For many, connecting via social media has become the new norm. Whether being on your own is something you are used to or not, the differences at present are valid and can take a toll on anyone.
We are always encountering stressful situations and have to determine the best ways to manage these in order to reduce anxiety and fear. As the Coronavirus pandemic continues, it is easy to feel fear and anxiety, amidst a global crisis. There is uncertainty around many things at present however this does not mean that you cannot use strategies to remain in the present and turn your thoughts away from those anxieties to other thoughts as well as ideas around what the future may hold at the end of this experience. There are strategies that can be used to remain in the present moment, pushing forward through anxiety.
Martin Seligman, one of the founding fathers of Positive Psychology, recommends the “Put It In Perspective” exercise to help refocus the brain and reduce anxiety. This practice focuses first on deciding the worst-case scenario, which our brains typically tend to do first, moves to the best-case scenario, and then settles on the most likely scenario. In this way, thoughts move from those that are irrational to those that are rational.
Right now, for many of us, the world is an uncertain, and at times, scary place. We may feel hopeless and unfocused at present, reading articles and watching reports that exacerbate those feelings. However, amidst this negativity there are many individuals engaging in acts of kindness and positivity, as well as acts of heroism as the world battles against COVID-19.
