Tagged With "Anxiety and Depression by Joe Nester"
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Family Anxiety Challenge - Changing the Neural Pathways In Our Brains
I am a therapist who has to make an effort each day to manage my anxiety and negative emotions. Therapists are not usually open about their mental health in our culture; we are looked to as the expert and someone who has it "all together." But I became a therapist for two reasons, to help understand my brain, and to use what I learned to help others. I find that being transparent about my mental health inspires others to share their truths. Human beings are a work in progress. We know this...
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Going beyond asking what happened: building beloved community
“Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.”- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.” –bell hooks One of the most notable descriptors of trauma-informed care is shifting the question of what is wrong...
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Health Care System Fails Many Transgender Americans (npr.org)
In the basement of Casa Ruby in Washington, D.C., transgender men and women in their late teens and 20s, mostly brown or black, shared snacks, watched TV, chatted or played games on their phones. Many of them, said Corado, are part of the 31 percent. That's 31 percent of transgender Americans who lack regular access to health care. The finding comes from a new poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Corado pointed to one crucial word...
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Helping Kids Find the Wisdom in Overwhelm
In an unprecedented global shutdown, many of us, especially without the noise and distraction of everyday life, are facing intensified, often destabilizing feelings. And that includes kids—whether they’re able to say so or not.
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The Ten Books That Changed My Life - Healing ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and Building Resilience
Teri Wellbrock offers a list of those books that had a profound impact on her life and helped her create a life filled with tranquility and joy. While she may not have agreed with every word written, she did find powerful answers, delicious little tidbits, and inspirational guidance within each book.
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Therapy Dogs and Service Dogs: What Are They and Why Are They Important?
Therapy dogs are used in a wide variety of environments and circumstances but, broadly speaking, they are dogs whose presence is designed to help alleviate stress, promote feelings of well-being and sometimes help with a process of rehabilitation or healing in humans other than their owners.
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Trauma-Informed CONVOS during COVID
Thanks to Lara Kain of ACES Connection, I discovered the brilliant Joe Truss of Culturally Responsive Leadership . Joe is a principal, a blogger, a father, and soon to be my second guest in a new free conversation series I am hosting - Trauma-Informed CONVOS during COVID. Joe authored a provocative, hilarious, raw blog that went viral on social media less than three weeks ago. If you haven't read it, it's a must: A School Principal's Pondering During a Pandemic. Join us for what will be a...
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Watching My Daughter Develop the Same Anxiety I Struggle With [thecut.com]
"It is relatively early on a summer evening, just after sunset. From my bed, I notice a shadow of a spindly branch dancing across the corner of the bedroom wall. I get up and close the curtains tightly to make it disappear, careful not to step on my daughter, who’s camped on my bedroom floor, lying stiffly under the weighted anxiety blanket I’d made her. I don’t mind the shadow, but I know it will make it impossible for her to fall asleep. This is the fourth night in a row she’s spent here.
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What Renee Taught Me About Why Some People Harm Themselves
Why do people cut themselves? Here's a story of my work with Renee and how we helped her find better ways to deal.
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Spokane, WA, public health nurses create trauma-sensitive toolkit for parents/caregivers
Public health nurses at Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) developed a 178-page toolkit -- 1*2*3 Care -- for caregivers of children. They define caregivers as parents, g randparents, child care providers, teachers, and others who care...
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Reimbursement for Parenting Education and Support Services
Unfortunately, regardless of training received and degrees earned, parenting educators can't serve families and get reimbursed by public and private insurers for their services. In an effort to bring light to this issue, I wrote the attached paper with two colleagues at NC State. Our (unpublished) paper outlines research supporting parenting education services and their efficacy to improve individual and family health and long term wellbeing and community prosperity. We highlight the fact...
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RYSE Center's Listening Campaign: Young people in Richmond, CA help adults understand trauma, violence, coping, and healing
"My experience with violence is very brutal...I grew up with violence as if it were my sibling." - LC participant (youth) "We know we can't run the city- it's too complex- but our experience and our voices should count, especially because we're the most effected ." - LC participant (youth) "Our city's problems are shared by us all; we are all part of the problem AND the solution. Listening is a key component to healing." - LC Share Out partici pant (adult) Three years ago, RYSE Center in...
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Self-Compassion and Mindful Awareness for Teens - A Card Deck
Ever struggle to get the conversation going with teens? Wondering how to introduce mindful awareness and self-compassion to adolescents? Self-Compassion and Mindful Awareness for Teens - is a card deck based on Self-Compassion for Teens: 129 Activities & Practices to Cultivate Kindness. It's a handy-dandy set of quick reminders of some of the activities in the book. Topics covered include: Self-compassion compassion ADHD LGBT+ Body Image Anxiety Depression Check it out and let me know...
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Self-Compassion for Teens
With teens today facing unprecedented levels of toxic stress, self-compassion is one way to nurture inner wisdom, promote self-kindness, and self-heal. Christopher Germer, author of the Mindful Path to Self-Compassion says my forthcoming book, Self-Compassion for Teens: 129 Activities & Practices to Cultivate Kindness is "just the ticket for parents, teachers, and counselors who know the burdens of modern teens and want to help." Tara Brach, author of True Refuge and Radical Acceptance...
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The Healing our Children World Summit starts March 1
The Healing our Children World Summit (free, online event) starts March 1
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How to Connect with a Child After Trauma
Are you struggling to help a child who has been through hard times? Does the child seem unreachable, unmanageable, and unwilling to try? Are you at your at the end of your rope with explosive behavior? If so, I have a concept to share with you that might help the two of you connect and increase positive interactions within your family or classroom. I want to start by saying that it can be incredibly frustrating and anxiety-provoking to witness a child who is suffering emotionally without the...
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How to Help a Child Struggling With Anxiety [npr.org]
By Cory Turner, National Public Radio, October 29, 2019 Childhood anxiety is one of the most important mental health challenges of our time. One in five children will experience some kind of clinical-level anxiety by the time they reach adolescence, according to Danny Pine, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health and one of the world's top anxiety researchers. Pine says that for most kids, these feelings of worry won't last, but for some, they will —...
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If You Want To Accelerate Brain Development In Children, Teach Them Music (wakeup-world.com)
We now know from controlled treatment/outcome studies that listening to and playing music is a potent treatment for mental health issues. 400 published scientific papers have proven the old adage that music is medicine . In fact, research demonstrates that adding music therapy to treatment improves symptoms and social functioning among schizophrenics . Further, music therapy has demonstrated efficacy as an independent treatment for reducing depression , anxiety and chronic pain .
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It's Not Always Depression, Sometimes It's the Holidays
There are many myths and “shoulds” about how families and holidays should be: Families should love each other. Families should get along. Holidays should be fun. Reality, however, does not reflect these “shoulds.” The facts are: many people do not have happy families, happy family memories or happy holidays. Therefore, holidays and families can trigger us into states of anxiety, shame, and misery. Perhaps your parent or child is mean to you, or you have an active alcoholic uncle that makes...
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Why Icelandic Dads Take Parental Leave and Japanese Dads Don't [theatlantic.com]
By Joe Pinsker, The Atlantic, January 23, 2020 Earlier this month, the 38-year-old Japanese environment minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, did something that would not make national, or even local, news in many industrialized countries: A couple of days before the birth of his and his wife’s first child, he said he planned to take time off from work to care for the baby. Koizumi’s planned leave is meager—he expects to take about two weeks off over the course of three months, and might still work...
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Parent Partners and a Bridge to the Business World: Wisconsin MARC Update
Joann Stephens will never forget the meeting at which a man pounded the table. Stephens, who has a high school education, a history of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and children with mental health issues, became an accidental advocate. “The systems were not working for my kid, so [I thought], What do we do to fix it?” But at meetings with policy-makers and professionals, Stephens often felt discounted. “One time, a man pounded his fist on the table and said, ‘I can’t stand it when...
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Protecting Our Children's Mental Health During the Pandemic
Our physical health is not the only form of health that is in jeopardy right now. The emotional health of our families is also at risk, and it can help to take proactive steps now to mitigate psychological damage to your children and prevent a silent aftermath of this outbreak.
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Augmenting Attention Treatment Therapies for Difficult-to-Treat Anxiety in Children and Adolescents [sciencedaily.com]
By Science Daily, December 19, 2019 Between 30 to 50 percent of youth in the United States diagnosed with an anxiety disorder fail to respond to cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT). A new study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), published by Elsevier, reports that computer-based attention training could reduce anxiety in children and adolescents. "CBT is the leading evidence-based psychosocial treatment," said co-lead author Jeremy Pettit, PhD, a...
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Childhood PTSD and Avoidance: Learning to Be OK in Groups (Resilience Series)
It’s super common for those of us who grew up with abuse and neglect when we were small, to feel as adults that we are on the outside somehow. When we're in groups we feel as if we are only partly in it, and never really included . Or we start as a full participant but pull away over time. We un-include ourselves. But it feel like other people are keeping us out. The telltale sign that being on the outside could be a personal choice, even when it doesn’t feel like it, is that we’re almost...
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Surviving Spirit Newsletter October 2020
Hi Folks, The October edition of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter is posted at the website - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/index.php http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/pdfs/2020-10-The_Surviving_Spirit_Newsletter_October_2020.pdf To sign up for an e-mail copy, please write to me @ mikeskinner@comcast.net or sign up @ Website via Contact Us, Thanks! Michael. Newsletter Contents : 1] Beauty 2 The Streetz: This woman is beautifying Skid Row one makeover at a time by Alicia Lee 2]...
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RESOURCE FOR PARENTS on tantrums and mental health
The Science Behind Your Child’s Tantrums: And how to nip them in the bud before they start Parenting videos in English and Spanish from Positive Parenting SPACE: Helping Kids with Anxiety : Psychologist, Eli Lebowitz and his colleagues developed a method for training parents to support anxious children known as SPACE: Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions. In a study of 124 children and their parents, Yale researchers examined whether the SPACE intervention was effective in...
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'It's easier to be a parent this morning' — Tears of joy from CNN's Van Jones
CNN's Van Jones wiping away tears; the 2020 election map is projected behind him. CNN's Van Jones reacts to news that Joe Biden was elected President of the United States and Kamala Harris elected Vice-President.
Calendar Event
Honoring Fear & Building Resilience
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The Surviving Spirit Newsletter November 2020
Hi Folks, The latest edition of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter is posted at the website - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/index.php or PDF - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/pdfs/2020-11-The_Surviving_Spirit_Newsletter_November_2020.pdf To sign up for an e-mail copy, please write to me @ mikeskinner@comcast.net or sign up @ Website via Contact Us. Thank you & take care, Michael. Newsletter Contents : 1] People Constantly Underestimate How Much They Benefit From Being Kind...
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Caregiver Panel: Are We Ready for Re-Opening?
Member
Joe Hungler
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WEBINAR: Healing Anxious Kids and Their Anxious Families
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We Didn’t Want to Co-Parent a Puppy (nytimes.com)
By Chloe Caldwell, The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2020 Getting a pandemic puppy seemed like a bad idea for a blended family. Until we did it. Even as a child, I never wanted a dog. When I was a longtime single through my 20s, a friend once asked me who I’d rather be with: a partner who had a dog or a partner who had a cat. I said, “a kid.” My stepdaughter, Louise, is 10 years old and like many girls her age, she has a nurturing and maternal streak. She’s attuned to the needs of her parents,...
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The Staggering Number of Kids Who Have Lost a Parent to COVID-19 [theatlantic.com]
By Joe Pinsker, The Atlantic, October 16, 2021 Throughout the pandemic, media outlets and online dashboards have provided constant updates on the number of people who have died from COVID-19. Far less prominent—but just as striking—are the tallies of those left behind. According to an estimate published recently in the journal Pediatrics , at least 140,000 American children had lost a parent or caregiver because of the coronavirus by the end of June—meaning that one of roughly every 500...
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Virtual Learning Anxiety: How To Help Your Kids
Virtual work, virtual groceries; everything has turned virtual since the pandemic of 2020. People can get all their work done without having to leave the comfort of their homes. It also means that our children have to adapt to a whole new educational system; virtual learning. While virtual learning offers the feasibility of learning at home, it comes with numerous issues too. One of the commonly-experienced issues is virtual learning anxiety. Not turning off the camera, constantly staying on...
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Anxiety, Depression and Working Moms in a Pandemic
Covid-19 is a challenging time for all of us. People are limited to their homes, and social distancing is the requirement of the time to stay protected from this contagious virus. Although social distancing is the only thing stopping the spread of the virus, it is also becoming the number 1 cause of anxiety and depression. People worldwide from all walks of life are suffering the psychological effects of isolation, and working moms are not an exception. They experienced a unique pressure...
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Depression, anxiety 'extremely high' among new mothers since start of social distancing [healio.com]
By Joe Gramigna, Healio News, February 19, 2021 Prevalence rates of clinically relevant depression and anxiety have been “extremely high” among postnatal women during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to study results published in Journal of Psychiatric Research. “There had been no data published examining mental health in new mothers during COVID-19 at the time of study,” Victoria Fallon, FHEA, CPsychol , of the department of psychology at the University of Liverpool in the UK, told Healio...
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COVID-19 is Making Kids Anxious: What Can Parents Do? (Positive Parenting)
“I’ve tried to give them permission to be upset because this is not a fun time,” shared Cynthia Soliz. These days, Cynthia Soliz, like many other parents, is not just mom to 11-year old Anthony and 6-year old Petra, she is also a full-time cook, teacher, camp counselor and psychologist to her kids. And her time is stretched thin. “We know that this is a time where families are extremely stressed, as are their children,” said Jessica Bartlett, Ph.D. Developmental Scientist, Jessica Bartlett,...
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FREE WEBINAR: Healing Anxious Kids and Their Anxious Families
Did you know that anxiety travels in families? As children become more anxious, so do their parents and the entire family. When this happens, parents will often use “overaccommodation” to insulate their child's stress and discomfort that can cause or maintain their child’s anxiety. Without family trauma treatment, the root causes of the child’s anxiety are not addressed, and relapse can take place again and again. DATE: Friday, April 15 TIME: 12 - 1 pm EST COST: Free with REGISTRATION HERE...
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Focus on Your Family’s Mental Health: Battling Anxiety While War Rages
It has escaped no one’s attention that there is a major military conflict going on in Eastern Europe between Russia and Ukraine. Turn on the Evening News, listen to the radio, or scroll through your social media news feed, and you'll see evidence of gross atrocities, senseless violence and doomsayers suggesting that this is the start of a world war. In the midst of all of this, how do you guard against fear and anxiety and protect your own mental health as well as that of your children? I...
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There’s a Reason We Can’t Have Nice Things [nytimes.com]
By Bryce Covert, Illustration: Dakarai Akil, Photos: Shutterstock, The New York Times, July 21, 2022 The United States is one of six countries in the world without a national guarantee of paid parental leave. Twenty-three other countries have universal child or family allowances. We spend just 0.2 percent of our gross domestic product on child care for our youngest children, compared with an average of 0.7 percent among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
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Biden left for his son struggling with addiction is deeply moving (upworthy.com)
" Joe Biden " by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 . Author: To read Annie Reneau's article, please click here. Drug addiction is brutal, both for the person addicted and for their loved ones. Addiction can destroy lives, tear apart families and wreak havoc on communities. Anyone who has dealt with addiction themselves or has tried to help a friend or family member through it knows how hard it can be and how helpless it can feel. When Sean Hannity aired a leaked 2018 voicemail...
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Why Childhood Anxiety Often Goes Undetected (and the Consequences) [childmind.org]
By Roy Boorady, MD, Child Mind Institute, August 18, 2022 All kids worry sometimes. But when worry makes it hard for them to participate in daily life, they may have an anxiety disorder. Because anxiety often affects a child’s thoughts and feelings more than it affects their behavior, it can be hard to spot. It’s also possible for a child to be generally happy but still so anxious that it interferes with some aspect of their life, like school or socializing. Common outward signs that a child...
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New Transforming Trauma Episode: Helping Youth Thrive in a Time of Anxiety, Depression, and Social Media With Donna Jackson Nakazawa
These are challenging times to maintain physical and mental well-being, so much so that it’s increasingly difficult to encounter someone who isn’t struggling with some sort of significant medical and/or psychological challenge. On this episode of Transforming Trauma, Emily chats with award-winning journalist, author, speaker, and workshop facilitator Donna Jackson Nakazawa about her career at the intersection of neuroscience, immunology, and emotion. Emily and Donna discuss the impact of...