Category Archives: Anxiety

How Anxiety and Stress Negatively Impact Decision Making

Have you ever found your ability to make a seemingly-simple choice hindered by your emotional state? Caroline Leaf, PhD—neuroscientist and Cleaning Up The Mental Mess author—and Sage Grazer, therapist and co-founder of mental health startup Frame, describe the ways in which stress and anxiety can heavily effect your decision-making process. After describing the science behind it …

Mental Health Comics

Author Rachel Orr has written frequently about her experience with mental health issues. She has found that expressing her own journey and struggles through the medium of comics has helped people feel more comfortable in sharing their stories and feeling less alone. She shares 7 of these comics with us, covering topics from re-entry anxiety …

Ted Talk: What’s Anxiety?

There’s a difference between anxiety and an anxiety disorder that is sometimes unclear, and thus makes both harder to treat. This Ted Talk features Dr. Jen Gunter explaining how to tell when “worrying and fear crosses the line and needs attention.” Delving into the science behind our brain’s response to anxiety-inducing situations, this five minute …

The Pandemic Wall

Recently, it feels like a lot of us have been hitting a wall. It’s normal to be feeling burnt out with everything that’s happened since the pandemic first started. There is a scientific explanation for this: as the article explains, when we experience a stressful event, our system activates its fight-or-flight response. Typically, the brain …

COVID: Stats, Stress, and Re-Entry

COVID Stats Stress and Re-Entry

For those already struggling with a mental illness, the pandemic has hit hard. Nearly half of American adults have reported that their mental health has been negatively impacted by the stress and isolation brought on by the virus, and the coping mechanisms people have spent years working on have fallen apart without warning. Luckily people …

Mindfulness meditation “super-effective” as front line for depression and anxiety

Photo of leaf floating on water

Even 10 minutes a day of mindfulness meditation improves symptoms of anxiety and depression, brain-imaging research shows. The practice is associated with an increase in gray-matter volume in four areas of the brain, and activates other beneficial changes in the brain. Saundra Jain, MA, PsyD, LPC, and psychiatrist Michele Hauser, director, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy in …