If you’ve ever gotten up to speak in front of a crowd or waited to take a test, you’re already aware of how your thoughts, bodily sensations, and emotions can overcome you if you’re not aware of them or if you try to erase them. These are obvious examples, but this “mind-body interaction” is at work all the time, [...]
Steer my mind to perform? Some peak performers try to take charge of their thoughts while others work on accepting them. Both approaches seem to make sense even though they are different. Learn about these two approaches and start developing your own mixture of strategies, capitalizing on positive thoughts to perform your best, either shifting away from or simply [...]
When performance matters, it’s common to feel amped up—your heart beats faster, for example. How you interpret these physical sensations can change how you feel emotionally, including your overall mindset, and ultimately make a difference in how you perform. Recent research into performance anxiety over tasks such as singing, public speaking, and math gives us some insights about performance [...]
Mindfulness can help you feel better equipped to handle difficult emotions. It’s a process geared to help you tune in to emotional experiences rather than try to escape from them. It’s easy to be overcome by depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction, or other mental health problems. And you can make it worse by trying to forget the cause. For example, [...]
Anxiety can help motivate you to perform better, but too much can become overwhelming and get in the way of living life to the fullest. When ignored or avoided, anxiety can actually become more intense rather than less. To keep anxiety under control, we have three letters for you: PFD. We aren’t talking about a Personal Flotation Device; we’re [...]
Fear of failure can prevent you from performing your best in many situations including combat, work, relationships, and daily life. Worry can take a bigger hold when you push it aside. For instance, while preparing to give a presentation and thinking, “I can’t be nervous,” you might actually feel more nervous! As you face your fears, understand that fearing [...]
Because stress often manifests itself mentally, emotionally, or in the body, these are three paths I often take in helping people with stress management. There is no one "right" way. The trick is to figure out what works for you and do it consistently (and sometimes be flexible enough to use other approaches too). If you try to only [...]
A wonderful definition of anxiety is "an overestimation of threat plus an underestimation of ability to cope." Where does an overestimation of threat come from? Often times, ambiguity can take on a life of its own. There is a fear that something catastrophic may happen, but that catastrophic event is really an unknown. Keeping that "catastrophic event" in the [...]
"Shopping" for a psychotherapist can be a tricky endeavor. It's one of those things for which there is no guidebook or clear-cut path. And it sounds funny to use the word "shopping," but that's basically what this selection process is. Wouldn't it be nice if a therapist could tell potential clients how to go about looking and what to [...]
According to Dr. Patrick Walsh from Johns Hopkins, the prostate is "...only as big as a walnut, the prostate is a miniature Grand Central Station, a busy hub at the crossroads of a man's urinary and reproductive tracts." Walsh goes on to write, "any form of treatment for prostate cancer can produce side effects including incontinence, impotence, and rectal [...]
Do you find certain emotions surrounding your grief to be unacceptable? This is usually the biggest block to grief. We often think that grief is simply experiencing sadness, but it often encompasses much more than sadness. For instance, people often seal themselves off from anger. Explosive behaviors may be unacceptable in many contexts, but anger is just another emotion. [...]
According to a recent Monitor in Psychology article, titled "Medicine or Menace?" – 10% of those who smoke marijuana meet criteria for dependence, and a recently rising 20.6% of high school seniors reported smoking marijuana in the past month. And while stats are lower than the 37% of seniors in 1978, the potency of marijuana has been rapidly increasing [...]
We are sent, we receive, and we interpret messages from other people. We then formulate responses, and then send them back. A dialogue can happen with words, and with nonverbals. In any given segment of a conversation, there are at least 6 spots where messages can be missed or become misunderstood. So how can we keep communication on track? [...]
Trauma and Recovery, by Judith Herman, M.D., provides trauma victims, their supporters, and clinicians with a greater understanding of the complexities and variations of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Survivors and their advocates are provided with a framework that links different traumas such as child abuse, spousal abuse, incest, rape, torture, war, captivity, and the holocaust. Herman's framework begins [...]
Tim tends to conceptualize problems and solutions using components of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy as a basic structure. As you can see in the diagram below, these interactive components consist of Cognitions, Emotions, Physiology, and Behaviors. Working with many kinds of clients on many kinds of issues, Tim has found it extremely beneficial to strategically integrate theory and intervention from other [...]
