When people are trying out a new therapist, they often tend to put the therapist in the driver’s seat during their initial sessions. But this isn’t quite right — the client should be an equal partner too. What else should people keep in mind during that process? And how can they figure out if a therapist is right for them?
To answer these questions, Brianne Patrice, executive director of Sad Girls Club, a nonprofit dedicated to destigmatizing mental health and wellness in the Black and brown community, spoke with Taylor Blossom, clinical mental health therapist and practitioner at Well WildFlower. The following advice was adapted from that conversation.
1. If you’re a person of color or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community or another specific community, think about how important it is for you to find a therapist who identifies with your lived experience
In most cases, you’re going to foster a relationship easier and quicker with someone who is similar to you. I don’t think it’s impossible to find an excellent therapist who is different from you, but I do think it’s easier to do therapy with someone who’s more like you, especially if it’s your first time easing into that space.
You should also consider your particular issues. For instance, if you’re going to therapy because the world is feeling heavy and you’re trying to process and navigate what it means to be a Black person, then a Black therapist will likely be of most benefit.
Personally, as a woman of color, I will only see a therapist of color because I think all my experiences are shaped by that context in my life. But not everybody thinks like that, so consider your issues and how they affect you.
2. In your first session, ask the therapist about their style
I love it when first-time clients ask about my therapeutic framework, which is basically a therapist’s perspective and how they think problems are best solved. There are several different therapeutic frameworks — some common ones are psychoanalysis, cognitive behavioral therapy and person-centered therapy.
But I know when I first started therapy, I had no idea what a therapeutic framework was. So another way you can find out their approach is by asking them: “How do you do therapy?”
Their answers — whether it’s to the therapeutic framework question or to the “how do you do therapy” question — will tell you how they intend to work with you. For example, I’m a person-centered therapist so in our time together, I’m going to want to talk about all of the aspects of your life. It’s my treatment plan to address all of you, the whole person.
Meanwhile, a cognitive behavioral therapist will ask you about your thoughts and the behaviors that go along with them, while a psychoanalytic therapist would want to explore how you grew up and how you feel like that’s impacting you now.
If you’re going into therapy with a clear intention of what you want to work on in yourself, you’re going to want a style that goes along with that. In this case, it can be worth your doing some research on frameworks beforehand. But if you’re unsure about what you want to explore, you may find that different frameworks or styles could work for you.
Also, ask your therapist about what sort of homework they typically prescribe to clients and what activities they like to do in their sessions. Many therapists do more than just talk — they may incorporate art therapy, movement therapy, sound, healing or meditations.
3. And expect to be asked about your previous experiences with therapy
One of the first questions a therapist will ask when meeting a new client is: “Have you been in therapy before?” If your answer is yes, their next question will usually be: “What worked for you and what didn’t?” And if your answer is no, the next question should be, “What do you think your goal is for this space?”
So before you go into your first session, think about how you’ll respond because how you answer these questions will be incredibly helpful — both for you and for your therapist.
4. If you’ve never been to a therapist before, here’s how to figure out the right type of person for you
One way to evaluate whether they’re a good fit for you is to think about who you normally ask for help in your life — whether it’s a sibling, parent or close friend. What about that relationship and how they relate to you are most helpful to you?
Some people just need to vent, other people want feedback, other people want tools and to know what they can do next, and others want a mixture of both. If you already know what helps you, then you can know what kind of therapist you’re looking for.
Keep in mind that therapy is 100 percent your time. Your therapist should not have their own agenda. They should not have anything but themselves and their internal resourcing to show up and respond to what you’re bringing up.
5. Give yourself six sessions to see whether they’re a good fit for you
In the US, six sessions is typically the minimum amount of time that therapists are given to come up with a diagnosis (something they need to do for these sessions to be covered by health insurance). But even if your therapist is not covered by health insurance, six weeks is still a good amount of time to spend with them.
Why? It’s because we’re ever-evolving as people. At your first session, even though you’re being vulnerable, you’ll likely show up as the best version of you. In other words, the therapist will be in the teacher seat and you’ll be in the student seat, trying to be the best student possible. Even though you may not consciously be playing that role, it’s what most of us have internalized.
Over six sessions, the therapist can observe how you fluctuate. They’ll get more information about how you handle problems outside of therapy and in the real world, which can give them insight into an appropriate treatment plan. And by treatment plan, I don’t mean something as formal as “We’re going to talk about X for X weeks and then do Y.” I just mean how we’re going to deal with whatever is showing up for you.
For a therapist, with some clients it’s easier to see where you’re headed sooner. Some people show up to therapy more ready to do the work than others; they already have their questions and areas to explore. Other people are like, “I’m just here because I feel like I should be, but I don’t know what I’m looking for.” There is no one right way, so I think trying each other out for six weeks should be a standard. That said, if you feel they are absolutely wrong for you, it’s OK to stop seeing them sooner.
6. Your six sessions are over, and the therapist isn’t right for you — be direct
Make your exit similar to how you’d end any other relationship in your life — with respect and with transparency. In your last session, the top three things you should communicate are 1) what didn’t work for you; 2) why you feel now is the time for you to terminate therapy with them; 3) and what you think the therapist could improve on. Since they are someone who’ll be seeing other clients, you want to help them help the next person who will come to them.
Try not to ghost on your therapist. If I were seeing you every week for six weeks, I’m going to worry about your mental health if you’re just gone.
Yes, it will be awkward to give them criticism, but if you can’t model that awkwardness in therapy — which is a safe space for you to do just that — how will you do it in the other parts of your life?
7. When you find the right therapist …
My number-one takeaway is to allow therapy to act as a model space for the rest of your life. It’s your space, so make it yours. It’s the one time and place you get to be as vulnerable and as open as you want, without consequences. So use it to try out some of those things that are uncomfortable for you in the real world.
This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Brianne Patrice is a mental health advocate and sensuality doula. She is the executive director of Sad Girls Club, a nonprofit dedicated to destigmatizing the conversation around mental health and wellness within the black and brown community and is founder of Twenty Nine Thirty, a restorative community connecting the dots between sensuality, sexuality, healing and wellness.
Taylor Blossom is a clinical mental health therapist and practitioner whose work specializes in therapeutic consulting, workshop facilitation, and guided meditations for individuals, groups, and companies. Through her impassioned belief that there is space for us all to blossom in the direction of the highest good, Taylor works as the Founder and CEO of Well Wildflower – a community wellness garden for Black women and women of color, host of the hit well-being podcast The Blossom Pod, and a Soul Sessions facilitator for Sad Girls Club.
Most of us have been in its grip before — the alarm goes off, our mind starts whirring away, and before we know it, we’ve done a freefall into worry. Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett has been there, too, and she tells us how we can stop the spiral.
This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community. To see all the posts, go here.
How often does this happen to you?
“You wake up, and as you’re emerging into consciousness, you feel this horrible dread, this real wretchedness. Immediately, your mind starts to race,” says neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett. “You think about all the crap that you have to do at work — you have that mountain of email which you will never dig yourself out of, the phone calls you have to return, and that important meeting across town. You’re going to have to fight traffic, you’ll be late picking your kids up, your dog is sick, and what are you going to make for dinner? Oh my God. What is wrong with my life?”
OK, you may not have the dog, the kids or the meeting across town, but what about the rest — the cascading catalog of to-dos, the sinking feeling that you’re behind even before your day has started, and the headlong tumble into despair?
Whew.
According to Barrett, those last two sentences of the above scenario — the “Oh my God. What is wrong with my life?” part — are especially treacherous. Why? Because too often we come to the sweeping and inaccurate conclusion that our life stinks.
But we don’t have to take this misery lying down, says Barrett. Through her research at the Affective Science Laboratory at Northeastern University in Boston, she has come to some mind-shaking realizations about human emotions. Contrary to what many of us think, our emotions are neither hard-wired into our brains nor are they out of our control. Instead, our emotions are guesses that our brains generate on the fly, based upon our past experiences.
As she explains in her book How Emotions Are Made — read an excerpt here — “Anytime you feel miserable, it’s because you are experiencing an unpleasant effect due to physical sensations. Your brain will try to predict causes for those sensations, and the more concepts you know and the more instances you can construct, the more effectively you can recategorize to manage your emotions and regulate your behavior.”
When we start that AM spiral into anxiety, as Barrett explains, “Your brain is searching to find an explanation for those sensations in your body that you experience as wretchedness.” But, she adds, “Those sensations might not be an indication that anything is wrong with your life … Maybe you’re tired. Maybe you didn’t sleep enough. Maybe you’re hungry. Maybe you’re dehydrated.”
So, the next time you feel gripped by morning dread, she suggests you ask yourself: “Could this have a purely physical cause?”
Check in and see: What’s going on with your body? When the alarm went off, were you roused from a deep sleep and you’re rattled as a result? Or, perhaps you’re too hot, too cold, achy or itchy …
Barrett says, “You have the capacity to turn down the dial on emotional suffering and its consequences for your life by learning how to construct your experiences differently
I’m a believer that every bump in the road prepares us for the next challenge in life but wouldn’t it be nice if we could go back and talk to our younger selves.
My angst started as a small child, as many of you know I was a child of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. I spend many hours talking to myself trying to make sense of the pain in my life. I would tell that child, your day will come when people who love will walk into your path and change your life forever. You are loved and with love and therapy, all wounds heal.
I would tell that heartbroken teenager that sex doesn’t mean love and love doesn’t always mean love. I cried so many times played across my bed when I found out my boyfriend had cheated on me. My granny consoling me that he wasn’t the right one and the right man would come into my life. If she just had a magic wand to tell me when he would and how long it would take.
When you’re starting your career you’re going to get crappy work, that’s a fact of life. It’s what you do with it that makes the difference in your future. Embrace the worst task, do them to the best of your ability and do it for yourself, not for anyone’s recognition. IF you can do the worst jobs, the ones everyone else pushes aside, someday these skills will pay you back 10 fold.
If you get the chance to take a job you are scared of, you feel is out of your league, take it. Giving it a sincere effort and not succeeding is not failure.
In my 20’s I bought a house, the rent was less than renting an apartment so it sounded like the right decision. Little did I know about all the other expenses that come with keeping up a house. Don’t be fair to eat chicken noodle soup and bologna sandwiches to reach your dream.
During some dark depressive times, I didn’t want to go on. The fight wasn’t worth it, it took too much energy. I loved my family but could not see any light in my life and could not get out of bed. I would say to that woman, listen to your doctor, be honest, listen to that deep voice in your heart and follow it. Fight for life and keep fighting for the life you want.
For the woman I am today, I would say. Don’t be afraid of the future, your health, don’t stop living just to avoid any danger. You have to live, life is worth living and you have to dig deeper for your purpose in life.
A paper in press in General Hospital Psychiatry, and written by Yosaee and colleagues (from Iran and the UK), reports evidence for the benefits of zinc in depression.
What is Zinc?
Zinc is a micronutrient (an essential mineral needed for growth and development). Zinc plays a role in many physiological processes, such as DNAsynthesis, protein production, cell growth, healthy immune function, sense of taste and smell, and the functioning of countless enzymes. Food sources of zinc include animal proteins (e.g., chicken, red meat, and seafood, particularly oysters), but also whole grains, nuts, and legumes.
Zinc supplements have been used for the treatment of a variety of conditions (e.g., colds, wound healing, diarrhea). However, consuming too much zinc can be harmful, so zinc supplements are not usually recommended for healthy people unless they do not get sufficient zinc from food sources or have trouble absorbing zinc.
For example, zinc supplements are sometimes recommended for vegetarians and vegans, individuals with alcohol problems and certain digestive conditions (e.g., inflammatory bowel diseases), and pregnantwomen.
Low zinc levels have been linked with a variety of health conditions (e.g., skin conditions, infections), including mental illness, especially depression. The review by Yosaee et al., described below, investigated the relationship between zinc and depression.
A Review of the Link Between Depression and Zinc Levels
The review began with a search of several databases (e.g., PubMed) for keywords “depression” and “zinc.” Original observational studies and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in adult populations were included if they used depression as an outcome and zinc as an intervention or exposure factor.
The search resulted in 4,245 articles, from which 13 observational investigations (four cohort and nine cross-sectional designs) and seven RCTs met the final criteria.
Characteristics of the RCTs: 319 participants; 2-12 weeks in duration.
Characteristics of the observational research: 27,296 participants in cross-sectional investigations and 15,852 in cohort investigations.
The meta-analysis of the seven RCTs showed zinc supplementation was associated with a reduction in depression [weighted mean difference (WMD) = −4.15 point; 95% confidence intervals (CI): −6.56, −1.75 point; P < 0.01)].
Furthermore, zinc supplementation reduced depression scores in patients with depression who were not receiving antidepressants.
The results from the four cohort studies showed the highest zinc intake was linked with a nearly 28 percent reduction in the risk of depression [Relative Risks (RR): 0.66; 95% CI: 0.50, 0.82)].
And an analysis of the nine cross-sectional studies found having high zinc levels (serum zinc concentration combined with dietary zinc) was inversely linked with the risk for depression [RR: 0.61; 95% CI: 0.51, 0.70].
In summary, data from different types of studies showed an association between zinc levels and depression.
So, why might zinc be related to a lower risk for depression? The potential mechanisms are speculative and complicated—involving a variety of factors, like oxidative stress, N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), neurogenesis, cortisol, neural plasticity, and the endocrine and immune system.
Concluding Thoughts on Zinc for Depression
Here is a summary of the main findings of the meta-analysis:
Many depressed individuals appeared to have zinc insufficiency or zinc deficiency (determined by the amount of zinc in their blood and diet).
In cohort investigations, a 28 percent reduction in the risk of depression was seen in those with the highest zinc intake.
In patients with depression who were not treated with antidepressants, zinc supplementation significantly reduced depression.
The antidepressant effects of zinc supplementation were most pronounced in patients with mild to moderate depression.
The researchers note their findings may not be generalizable to healthy individuals (e.g., those without depression). Furthermore, most of the studies used in the analysis were limited in geographical location. Though some of these came from multiple countries (e.g., Germany, Finland, the U.S.), the majority were conducted in Iran and Australia. Therefore, one must await the replication of these findings. And given the correlational nature of the data (i.e. correlation does not mean causation), firm conclusions regarding the effects of zinc on depression cannot be drawn.
Nevertheless, this is not the first review to have observed a link between zinc and depression.
For instance, a 2013 meta-analysis noted depression correlated with lower blood concentration of zinc. That review, based on data from 1,643 depressed patients, concluded, “zinc concentrations were approximately −1.85 mmol/L lower in depressed subjects than control subjects,” and “greater depression severity was associated with greater relative zinc deficiency.” A more recent meta-analysis also found dietary zinc intake was linked with a lower risk for depression. In short, the relationship between zinc and depression is worthy of further research.
If you are depressed and are considering taking zinc supplements—especially if you are not getting enough zinc in your diet or have trouble absorbing zinc—please consult your physician first. As noted earlier, taking too much zinc is harmful, so it is important to determine how much zinc your body requires.
Arash Emamzadeh attended the University of British Columbia in Canada, where he studied genetics and psychology. He has also done graduate work in clinical psychology and neuropsychology in the U.S.
Children are learning a lot more from an earlier age. One area, in particular, they are becoming more accustomed to is technology. In fact, a lot of parents remark that their six-year-old daughter knows how to operate a computer better than they do. One of the main reasons for this is the huge array of games available on the Internet. In this guide, we will look at the relationship between children and mobile phones in further detail.
Children are not merely stopping at desktop computers and laptops anymore. More and more children are getting used to mobile technology through gaming as well. This is because of the wealth of different gaming apps available. Nowadays children can get their favorite games available through their very own mobile phone. This means that they can play games on the way to and from school. They can also play games when someone else from the family is using the computer. They can even play a few gaming apps whilst they are in bed. Mobile technology presents more gaming opportunities and, therefore, it is little surprise that children are deciding to use it. For parents, this means they need to source cost-effective packages, and they also need to make a dedicated effort to make sure that their children are not on their phones too much.
Playing with their friends
Mobile technology allows children to play against each other even if they are not together. Children usually simply need to connect to the WiFi connection in their home and they can then speak to their friends and play against them via the different apps that are available. Furthermore, gaming through using mobile phones is easier to do together than playing via a laptop or computer is. After all, it is unlikely your children and their friends will take their computers with them whenever they meet up. Moreover, it is hard for all of the children to gather around the computer and play. However, a mobile phone is small and compact and therefore all children can sit together and play on their smartphones.
Mobile technology is taking over
It is great that children are embracing mobile technology through gaming because the mobile Internet is booming. People can access their emails anywhere, they can log on to Facebook when they are on the train, they can play games whenever they like, and this is the reason why mobile internet is only going to rise. The fact that children are adapting to this is only going to serve them well later in life. While you need to monitor activity, it is also important that children are prepared for the connected world. You can redirect texts and use software to monitor your child.
All in all, there is no denying that mobile technology is taking over, and it is wise for our children to get used to this. However, it should not take over their lives and their usage does need to be monitored.
When someone you love is having a panic attack, it can be tricky to know how to help. By responding with understanding and empathy, you can make a true difference.
Whether it’s your friend, relative, or partner, chances are you know someone who has had, or will have, a panic attack. If you happen to be nearby when it happens, it’s only natural to want to do everything in your power to understand and support them.
Research shows that at least 13%Trusted Source of people will experience a panic attack in their lifetime.
In the United States, 1 in 3 people will have an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Statistics show that women are twice as likely as men to have a panic disorder.
If your loved one is having a panic attack, there are several ways you can help. With a few research-backed techniques, you’ll be better equipped to provide support.
Gently name it, and tell your loved one that you believe they are having a panic attack. This can provide some context for what’s happening and relieve the fear of the unknown.
You can let them know that it will pass. Panic attacks can last anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes, though the worst symptoms usually subside within 10 minutes, according to the Anxiety & Depression Association of American (ADAA).
If this is the first time your loved one has had a panic attack, it might be advisable to seek medical attention to rule out other causes of their symptoms.
Everyone experiences anxiety differently. It’s important to keep in mind that what works for one person may not work for someone else. Don’t be afraid to try different strategies.
One of the best ways to help someone is to remain calm yourself, even if you’re feeling a little uneasy about what’s happening.
Keep yourself calm by taking deep breaths and reminding yourself that this is temporary. If the situation becomes overwhelming for you, reach out to someone else for help.
Your loved one may need some space during a panic attack. The hyperarousal state of panic — when your brain’s limbic system is on “high alert” — can mean that usual elements in the environment feel overstimulating, like touch, music, bright lights, or other sounds.
After reminding them that they can handle their symptoms, you can give your loved one space until their panic attack passes. They might ask you to stick around. If they do, reinforce their ability to independently experience their symptoms by uttering the coping statement once or twice and letting them ride out their symptoms until they pass.
If the two of you had plans, it can help to suggest going through with them once the panic attack has ended to help your friend see that they can get through the day even if they’ve had a panic attack.ADVERTISINGADVERTISEMENTAffordable therapy delivered digitally – Try BetterHelp
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While someone is having a panic attack, we do want to be empathic, but we don’t want to reinforce the idea that panic is dangerous, harmful, or needing to be reduced, minimized, or escaped.
So, rather than giving your loved one lots of reassurance and fussing over them, it can help to remind them that they can cope with what’s happening on their own. This gives them back their power to deal with the situation.
You can do this by offering supportive statements like:
“You can handle these symptoms.”
“This will pass.”
“The feelings aren’t comfortable, but you can accept them.”
“This will roll over you, like a wave.”
Remind them that, although panic attacks can feel never-ending, they typically peak in about 10 minutes. It’s not possible for the body to stay ramped up for much longer than that.
While panic attacks might make us feel like something is very wrong, they’re just false alarms — a misfiring of the body’s fight, flight, or freeze response. The sympathetic nervous system is responding to a perceived threat by driving physical processes like your heart and breathing rate. Panic attacks are simply an example of the flight-or-fight response out of context.
If your loved one lives with panic disorder — where they experience unexpected, recurring panic attacks and avoid behaviors or situations that might cause them — the most loving thing you can do is not reinforce the panic cycle by making a big deal out of panic attacks.
It’s also helpful to avoid reinforcing their escape behaviors, which could happen by staying near them or providing excessive reassurance. If you do this, it might unintentionally reinforce the feeling that something must be wrong after all.
A great way to help a friend with panic disorder is to support them once they get connected to a therapist who is doing exposure therapy with them. You can cheer them on as they gradually expose themselves — with the guidance of a trained therapist — to increasingly challenging situations that might provoke panic. In this controlled environment, they will practice resisting escape or safety behaviors.
While it’s tempting to help your loved one avoid the feelings of panic by distracting them from their bodily sensations or taking them away from the situation, these are considered “safety behaviors.” While safety behaviors might help to ease anxiety in the moment, they could actually reinforce a cycle of panic that exists in panic disorder.
Safety behaviors and distractions can prevent people from learning that panic attacks, while uncomfortable, are not actually harmful or dangerous.
Your loved one can handle panic without actually doing anything, and it’s important for them to know that anxiety about panic goes away on its own without causing them harm.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) — a major method for treating panic disorder — teaches you strategies to reduce your anxiety and avoidance around panic attacks. The idea isn’t to prevent them but to sit with them until they inevitably pass. And often, you experience fewer panic attacks over time as you grow to fear them less.
The most effective way to react to a panic attack is just to ride it out instead of resisting or escaping it. While escaping a panic attack in the short term reduces anxiety, it just drives the panic cycle in the long term because you reinforce beliefs that panic is dangerous, harmful, or something that must be avoided at all costs.
The idea is to allow the symptoms to just be, which helps you to view panic attacks as a manageable experience, not one that needs to be escaped.
Try not to ask someone over and over if they are alright, as this can reinforce the idea that panic is dangerous or harmful. Also, avoid saying phrases that might invalidate their experience, like:
“It’s all in your head.”
“Snap out of it.”
“Nothing’s happening.”
“You’re fine.”
“I know exactly how you feel.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Why are you so upset over that?”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Do not offer substances. It may be tempting to give your loved one something to take the edge off, but this could make a panic attack worse. Certain strains of cannabis, like sativa, can increase anxiety and lead to paranoia. Alcohol changes levels of serotonin in the brain, which can make anxiety feel more intense.
If your loved one wants medication to help with future panic attacks or an anxiety disorder, suggest a visit to a primary care physician or a psychiatrist. A clinician may prescribe them selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), or benzodiazepines for occasional use.
A panic attack usually goes away in just a few minutes. If it doesn’t, it could mean a more serious medical event is happening, like a heart attack. Remember to stay calm as you assess the situation.
Look for these warning signs:
squeezing chest pain that moves to arms or shoulders (rather than stabbing)
shortness of breath does not improve
symptoms that carry on for 20 minutes
chest pressure lasts longer than 1 to 2 minutes
vomiting
If you see any of those warning signs, call 911 immediately.
Some symptoms of a panic attack are similar to those of a heart attack. You can read about how to tell the difference between a panic attack and a heart attack here.
Supporting someone during a panic attack can be stressful — not just for them, but for you too.
After the panic attack subsides and your friend is in a more relaxed headspace, it’s important to take some time for your own self-care.
Go easy on yourself for a few hours or the rest of the day. Take some time to recharge by practicing yoga, taking a warm bath, journaling, or doing anything else that relaxes you.
If taking care of someone is interfering with your own quality of life, consider reaching out to a therapist to talk about what you’re going through. Check out the ADAA’s Find a Therapist Directory to find a local clinician or a teletherapy option that might work for you.
Remember, we can only love others as much as we love ourselves. You also can’t give from an empty cup. Take care of your energy first, then whatever’s left can flow toward those that you love.
Bindi Irwin is stepping out of the spotlight to focus on her family just three months after welcoming daughter Grace Warrior with husband Chandler Powell. The conservationist and Crikey! It’s the Irwins star announced on Monday, a day after she opened up about her relationship with her estranged grandfather on Father’s Day, that she would be taking a month-long break from social media and public appearances in a message discussing mental health.
“Surround yourself with the light of people who genuinely care about you and will support you during the good times and the hard times,” Irwin added. “Remember there are helplines available. Mental health deserves more understanding and support instead of being dismissed or patronised. You are absolutely worthy of love and kindness.”0COMMENTS
Shortly after Irwin shared the update, her husband expressed his support. Powell, whom Irwin married back in March 2020, reshared his wife’s post to his own Instagram account, praising Irwin’s ability to “stand up for what is right.” He said his wife inspires him “with your unwavering kindness and your ability to stand up for what is right. You are the strongest and most beautiful person inside and out. Grace has an amazing mama to look up to.”
Irwin’s message came just hours after she shared another post about mental health. On Sunday night, the zookeeper shared a quote from motivational speaker and author Steve Maraboli that read, “I don’t think people realize how much strength it takes to pull yourself out of a dark place mentally. So if you’ve done that today or any day, I’m proud of you.” She has not shared any further messages since her Monday morning announcement.
If you’re feeling low today, don’t assume you have to manage your negative emotions alone. Help is out there so reach out if you need support or a listening ear.
As our title suggests, it’s good to talk when you’re feeling low. And this isn’t a glib statement. Research has proven that talking to somebody can be helpful. As discussed in an article at Psychology Today, talking with someone you trust can help you to:
In short, you will start to feel better when you open up to somebody.
Of course, it’s not always easy to turn to others. There are times when we might worry about looking weak in front of the people around us. Or we might lack the courage to get the help we need.
But it’s important to think of the alternative. When we bottle up our pent-up emotions inside, we can become anxious and stressed, and we can prolong our depression. For the sake of our mental health, we should try to find a safe outlet to deal with whatever is going on inside of us. By doing so, we will:
Benefit from the listening ear of another
Gain perspective on the things that are bothering us
Release negative emotions in a safe way
Receive the support we need to overcome our particular situation
Talking is certainly a better tactic than some of those other things we might do when we’re feeling low. Comfort eating, excessive drinking, smoking, and drug-taking are just some of the bad habits that many people succumb to when trying to make themselves feel better. As you will understand, these are not good solutions to managing negative emotions.
Who Can You Talk To?
In the first instance, talk to a trusted family member or friend. You should do this for two reasons. Firstly, you will have somebody you can regularly turn to and be with. And secondly, you will have somebody who can help you reach out to professional organizations if you need specific help.
You can also talk to those people who are affiliated with your spiritual beliefs. If you’re part of a church group you will probably find prayer support useful, so talk to your minister or another trusted member of the church you are a part of. Some people benefit from the services of a psychic, so if this is you, pick up the phone and speak to a psychic reader. Psychic Lights is just one service you might consider.
And then there are the support organizations that can help you deal with the things that are affecting your mental health. Some of these are set up to support people with specific life issues, and there are those that can help people who are feeling suicidal. Many offer phone, live chat, text, and drop-in services, so you need never be alone when you are in desperate need of somebody to talk to. Check out this list of organizations that could help you.
Never assume you have to manage the way you are feeling alone. Help is out there so talk to those closest to you, draw on the support of those affiliated with your faith, and seek specialist help if you need to. It’s good to talk so if you’re feeling low today, get in touch with the person or people that can care for your personal needs.
Moving home, while stressful, can open many doors for your future. For example, it could provide you with the chance to pursue your dream career or simply make a fresh start for better mental health. However, in order to make the move possible (and find your dream home), you need to ensure that you can first sell (or lease) your current property.
Perhaps the easiest way to achieve this goal is by simply ensuring that you leave your property at its best – having undergone any necessary maintenance ahead of time. Not only will this make it easier to sell your home, but it could also increase its value significantly as you’re not leaving any costly or expensive tasks for the new buyer to tackle themselves.
However, during the renovation process, it’s also important that you take both the interior and exterior of your property into consideration. For example, you should take the necessary steps required to improve your home’s curbside appeal. After all, the front of your property is the first thing they will see when they come to a viewing – and first impressions always count when it comes to the property market.
With that in mind, here are four simple ways in which you can improve the curbside appeal of your home!
Add a fresh coat of paint
While the paint used on the outside of your home is likely extremely durable, it won’t last forever. In fact, you may have already noticed that the paint has chipped or cracked in certain places – likely the result of bad weather. Therefore, one way in which you can enhance the curbside appeal of your home is by adding a fresh touch of paint ahead of time – opting for a clean, neutral color.
Take care of your windows
Dirty, smudged, or otherwise damaged windows will not exactly impress a potential buyer. Therefore, you should ensure that you arrange to have them cleaned regularly by working alongside reputable cleaning companies such as Labor Panes. Furthermore, undergoing regular maintenance will also make you aware of any potential problems – such as chips or cracks – that need to be repaired sooner rather than later.
Keep your garden in good order
While you may not be the best gardener in the world, spending a little time ensuring that your front lawn looks clean and tidy is another great way to impress a potential buyer. For example, at the very least, you should ensure that the grass is not overgrown. In addition to improving your home’s curb appeal, gardening can improve your mental health.
Change your front door
Changing your front door is another easy way in which you can enhance the kerbside appeal of your home – especially if you opt for a statement piece. While you should avoid bright colors, don’t be afraid to select a bright or bold design that is sure to catch a buyer’s eye. If you don’t want to splash out on an entirely new door, consider giving it a fresh coat of paint.
This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.
I was churning through social media feeds one morning when the phrase “tough compassion” made me pause mid-scroll.
On a podcast episode, psychologist, Greater Good Science Center founding director and TEDxBerkeley speaker Dacher Keltner described the idea, explaining how some contemplatives practice a form of kindness — but with a decided edge.
“In the deeper traditions of compassion, like a lot of the Buddhist traditions, they have an idea of tough compassion — to step in and, in a good way, guide the person to a different form of behavior or out,” said Keltner.
An uncompromising approach to compassion is one you can try when other attempts to engage with difficult people fail.
The concept stuck with me because it seemed so at odds with the way many people today are socialized to think about compassion. Among some, a compassion-centered lifestyle is one shared in breezy, pastel-colored Insta posts and involves attending idyllic retreats and practicing meditation. And giving someone else an honest piece of our minds isn’t it.
It might be time to paint a new picture of compassion. When it comes to reducing suffering in the world, an uncompromising approach to compassion often trumps a pastel-hued one — and it’s an approach you can try when other attempts to engage with difficult people fail.
“The Dalai Lama always had this greater good analysis,” Keltner later told me. “Like, ‘What does it bring about? Is being hard in the moment going to bring about greater well-being or kindness for a lot of people?’”
Warm and fuzzy compassion has little power to sway relatives who spout conspiracies or counter leaders who tout equality while harvesting the fruits of privilege.
The case for tough compassion
Tough compassion is gaining traction because the rosy version is proving so unequal to the present moment, which has been defined by human failures to meet challenges posed by the pandemic, widespread inequality and climate change.
Of course, there will always be a “soft” side to compassion. It’s always crucial to learn how to be a calm sounding board or comfort grieving loved ones. But warm and fuzzy compassion has little power to sway relatives who spout conspiracies, stop close friends from radicalizing online or counter leaders who tout equality while harvesting the fruits of privilege.
In the Buddhist contemplative tradition, the goal of true compassion is to find ways to promote the least suffering for everyone. In this broader framing, nodding along with someone’s bigotry, bullying, or falsehoods for the sake of preserving that relationship is the opposite of compassion. It interferes with peace-building on a societal level, even though it might seem on the surface like a nonviolent act.
If you’re a parent, you probably practice small-scale tough compassion on a daily basis, vetoing pre-dinner snacks or enforcing homework time before kids go out. Larger-scale tough compassion flows from a similar source: the willingness to bear — and even inflict — some discomfort in the moment to promote longer-term well-being.
“Our actions implicate a lot of people,” Keltner says. “You’ve got to step back and think about all the utilities and consequences downstream.”
“You have this sense, and you’re in the position to assume, that this is a struggle they have to face,” Keltner says. “It’s good for them.”
The Dalai Lama has spoken of the importance of this kind of tough love. It means that if your aunt makes an offhand racist remark or your work buddy insults a colleague, tough compassion involves speaking up — without rancor, but with conviction — if your goal is to promote less suffering for all.
“By withdrawing from the conversation, you don’t force the other person to really have to encounter a different set of values,” says Medical College of Wisconsin psychologist Zeno Franco, whose research focuses on community engagement.
In committing to tough compassion, you buy into a certain kind of risk-benefit calculus. You accept the discomfort involved in hopes that the other person will consider a different way of engaging, one that will carry over into her interactions with others, and perhaps even their interactions with those close to them.
“Our actions implicate a lot of people,” Keltner says. “You’ve got to step back and think about all the utilities and consequences downstream.”
In Franco’s view, tough compassion involves conveying that you value someone as a person while disagreeing openly with what they are doing.
Tough compassion in practice
It’s one thing to endorse the tough-compassion approach, and quite another to try to make it work. What does it actually look like to show uncompromising compassion in the moment? And when someone in your life does something that’s actively harmful, what’s the best way to guide them without outright coercing or controlling?
In Franco’s view, tough compassion involves conveying that you value someone as a person while disagreeing openly with what they are doing. When he calls loved ones out for hateful or harmful behavior, he’s not shy about saying what he thinks.
But at the same time, “I try to remain accessible as a human being who can be vulnerable, who can be hurt, and who can appreciate the person,” he says. “Part of that is thinking about how to respond in a way that is not designed to escalate, but almost to reach past the ‘facts’ or points that they are making to where what they are saying impacts me at an emotional level.”
If you want to hold a relative accountable for homophobic remarks, for instance, you can describe the effects of that kind of behavior on people close to you.
A powerful way to convey this emotional impact is through storytelling, says Juliana Tafur, a filmmaker and founder of the Listen Courageously project.
If you want to hold a relative accountable for homophobic remarks, for instance, you can describe the effects of that kind of behavior on people close to you: “My good friend is gay, and she hears insults like that all the time. She’s also been attacked in public. Because of that, it’s hard for her to trust that people are going to respect her as a human being.”
With storytelling, you can take a tough stance and show the other person the results of their actions without launching a direct attack. When you do this, “you’re really communicating — in a way that is enveloped in compassion — your fundamental boundaries, what you can and cannot accept, and inviting the other person into that conversation,” says Tania Diaz, a psychologist at Albizu University. Studies show that this story-based approach can create significant change in people’s worldviews.
Even when you know you’ll create more lasting change through dialogue than exclusion, you may have to push past significant inner resistance to engage in these conversations. Showing any kind of compassion — even tough compassion — to a person who behaves harmfully can feel like a form of surrender, or like tacit acceptance of their behavior. But from the broader perspective of reducing suffering, what might seem like fraternizing with the enemy can be a potent way to guide someone on to a less toxic path.
“When you listen, truly understand and get curious, it creates space for the person to think a little bit differently,” says Diaz.
“A lot of people have this misunderstanding that if I engage or listen, I am somehow going to be tainted or I’m going to be influenced,” Diaz says. When she facilitates these conversations, she’s found that quite the opposite is true. “When you listen, truly understand and get curious, it creates space for the person to think a little bit differently.”
To avoid shaming the other person into submission — a tactic studies show can backfire by making people withdraw from the situation — you can go on to explain how a change of course would be a win-win scenario, for the other person as well as for the world at large. “I show them what life might be like after they change and explain the positives,” says Dian Grier, a licensed clinical social worker in Mojave, California. That might mean pointing out that your homophobic relative will have a much better relationship with gay nieces and nephews if he chooses to engage with them differently.
Tough compassion, by contrast, is like an anchor pole that holds fast no matter how hard the rope tugs on it.
Holding fast
Perhaps the biggest challenge of practicing tough compassion is staying internally grounded while emotional storms rage. When you take a stand, other people may fire back with remarks that send your heart hammering. If you’re not prepared, that physical reaction can propel you straight into a “lizard brain,” fear-based mindset where you’re more likely to fall back on old, reactive rules of engagement.
Tough compassion, by contrast, is like an anchor pole that holds fast no matter how hard the rope tugs on it. “In those moments, I’m trying to be fully present and yet no longer upset,” Franco says. “The intent of every word is thought through to take the argument almost to a different place.”
To hone this kind of in-the-moment composure, it can help to write down some thoughts beforehand about what you want to say to someone or the kind of stories you want to tell. Then, once you’re up for it, schedule a real-life conversation or Zoom. This face-to-face connection often feels more humanizing than a long text thread, and deciding where and when it happens can help you feel more in control of the process.
In line with the Buddhist teaching of dropping attachment to results, the tough-compassion approach is simultaneously about holding fast and letting go.
But while tough-compassion conversations can be fertile ground for shifting others’ perspectives, your own well-being should always remain front and center. To steer clear of potentially traumatic encounters, “you need to know if the other person is in a position to be willing and able to engage in that conversation with you,” Tafur says. “And I think you’ll know that right off the bat.”
If someone ridicules your attempts at dialogue or continues to sling insults, “the tough-compassion act is to leave or disengage,” Keltner says. Exiting from a harmful situation can be its own form of uncompromising truth-telling.
In line with the Buddhist teaching of dropping attachment to results, the tough-compassion approach is simultaneously about holding fast and letting go. At its core, tough compassion is about “creating space for dialogue to unfold,” Diaz says. “Ultimately, that person decides if they’re going to shift.”
Elizabeth Svoboda is a writer based in San Jose, California, and a regular contributor to the Greater Good. She is also the author of the book What Makes a Hero?: The Surprising Science of Selflessness, and her newest book is The Life Heroic.
I started my first blog, Defining Memories in 2005 to help me grieve the death of my beloved granny. After several years my post became more personal and the name didn’t work so Looking for the Light was born in 2009.
Looking for the Light has evolved over the years and will continue to grow, we’ll grow together. I want to stretch myself, provide better, more valuable information, and will continue to take you to the lead.
I write for myself but in writing, my hope is that someone, just one person can find hope in the future and as they as light at the end of the tunnel.
I thank everyone who has ever crossed my path. You’ve helped me grow and continue to look honestly at myself when sharing my story. I believe today as I did with my first post, sharing our stories is important and everyone has a story.
You’ve taught me so much about myself, life, and the human spirit. Each day of every week your comments lift me up, teach me new ideas, and often humor me. Thank you for taking the time to drop a note to speak your mind. It really does mean so much to me.
If I’ve changed your life in any way, I would love to hear from you. This is a good time for renewing the spirit and hearing your stories.
There’s no getting away from the fact that everyone ages, and as a person gets older, their lifestyle habits and needs might change, along with their healthcare requirements. You’re likely reading this today because you’ve got elderly parents.
You also want your parents to stay as fit and healthy as possible so they can keep leading independent lives. But, what can you do to facilitate those goals and support them? The following are some practical suggestions you can consider:
Check Their Healthcare Needs
Firstly, it makes sense to confirm that their healthcare needs get met. As you can imagine, medication and other healthcare needs can change as a person gets older, plus there’s also the cost factor to consider.
With that in mind, it’s worth checking their qualifications for Medicare, so they don’t have to worry about how to pay for any medication, treatments, or visits to specialists. Next, you should determine whether they need a review of any existing medication.
You can do that by arranging for them to visit their doctor and have a medication review, plus a medical to check for any potential future health concerns. After all: the last thing you want is for your parents to lead a painful life in their senior years due to a missed diagnosis.
Encourage Them to Do Outdoor Activities
Everyone knows that it’s crucial to remain active throughout your life to ensure your body has the best chance of performing well. Physical exercises help the body to burn off fat, and they’re also helpful for ensuring optimal brain function and mental health.
You don’t need to make your elderly parents run marathons each year, of course! However, you should encourage them to take up regular outdoor activities to suit their fitness levels and health.
For example, going for a daily walk to a local park or beach, if they leave by the coast, is an excellent way to boost their physical health and mental wellbeing. They could also take up other outdoor activities like yoga, dancing, and aerobics.
Help Them Eat Healthily
The trouble with today’s world of convenience is that more people are eating the wrong types of food because they are easy to consume. It’ll come as no surprise that more people eat processed foods high in salt, sugar, saturated fat, and other unhealthy ingredients.
Make sure that your elderly parents eat a healthy, balanced diet. Did you know that you can have delicious yet healthy ready-made meals delivered to their home? All they need to do is microwave them or heat them up in their ovens.
It’s also important that your parents don’t forgo eating fresh fruits and consume unhealthy snacks like chocolate bars.
Help Them Find Fun Senior Citizen Programs
Lastly, your parents will undoubtedly have an array of fun senior citizen programs in their local area. They can enroll in some of those programs to help maintain their physical health and be more socially active.
Such programs are perfect as your parents will get to mix with other like-minded individuals in their age group and make new lifelong friends along the way.
Memory loss is very common in elderly people and even if they do not develop a serious condition like Alzheimer’s or dementia, it is likely that they will forget things from time to time. In some cases, this doesn’t really affect their life too much but it can make it difficult for them to live independently if they forget important things, like taking medication or eating.
As we get older, it falls to us to care for elderly loved ones, and managing memory issues is often a big part of this. If you want them to be able to live independently, you need to find ways to help them manage their memory problems so they can be safe and comfortable. Here’s how you can support an elderly family member with memory problems.
Be Realistic About The Scale Of The Problem
Often, it can be hard to admit that your loved ones are losing their memory and so people are in denial about it. They just put it down to age and say that it’s not that serious, they’re just forgetting a few details here and there. However, if somebody in your life is suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia, they need a lot of care and assistance if they are able to live safely. So, be realistic about the situation and if you are concerned, take them to the doctor to get checked. You may need to consider long-term care options like a senior community with a dedicated memory care service. If you are not honest with yourself and your family about the scale of the problem, you could be putting your loved ones in danger.
Be Understanding
Memory loss is very frustrating and when they forget things, they may get angry about it. If they forget something very important, it could be frustrating for you too. But if you are not understanding the situation, it only makes things worse. It’s important that you are patient with them and you reassure them that you forget things too and it’s ok. The more understanding you are, the less stressful this situation will be for them.
Write Lists
Lists are the easiest way to remember things, so when you visit loved ones, talk to them about their schedule for the next few days and then write some simple lists to help them remember things. Sticky notes around the house can be very helpful too. For example, if they need to take medication, put a small note somewhere they will see when they get up, so they always remember. If they have a smartphone and they are comfortable using it, you can add reminders to it as well.
Help Them Keep Their Brain Active
Keeping your brain active is so important as you get older and it helps to slow and prevent memory loss. If you are concerned about a loved one’s memory, you should find ways to keep their brain active as much as possible. Helping them to be more socially active is very beneficial, and you could encourage them to do puzzles and play games too.
Dealing with memory loss is tough but it’s something that many of us will experience. If you follow these steps, you can support a loved one with memory loss.
Your self-esteem emphasizes confidence in your values and abilities, making it worth nurturing. Not only does it give you a sense of purpose, but you can also be yourself without apology. Besides, you can make sound decisions and nurture good relationships while achieving your goals. What’s more, research indicates that people with higher self-esteem are happier and more satisfied with their lives.
Despite its numerous benefits, many people still struggle with their self-esteem. An NBC survey reveals that 85% of Americans have low confidence levels, reiterating its prevalence. Besides, it triggers anxiety, depression, and drug abuse risks while impairing your productivity. Fortunately, you can improve your confidence and lead a happier life. That said, here are some practical ways to build your self-esteem.
Identify and manage your triggers
According to Psychologist Suzanne Lachmann, low self-esteem has an origin that should be tackled to improve your life’s quality. Not only does it help you heal faster, but it also keeps your mental health in check. Triggers can be memories or experiences that evoke an intense reaction, including bullying, harsh criticisms, rejection, betrayal, or failure, among others. However, identifying and managing them is an essential step towards increasing your self-worth.
You may observe and consider signs like sweaty palms or pounding heart when you remember or experience something. By all means, understand these reactions instead of fighting them, and own your feelings. It’s also prudent to assure yourself that nothing is your fault and get rid of any guilt. By doing these, you’ll quickly notice any triggers and handle them appropriately.
Refuse harmful or inaccurate thinking
Your inner thoughts can be your powerful stepping stone or your biggest demotivation, depending on how you utilize them. If you persistently think about your failures, blame, shame, and belittle yourself, then you are significantly damaging your self-esteem. What’s more, these crippling thoughts can discourage you and increase your anxiety and depression levels. Moreover, a University College London study revealed that people with persistent negative thoughts are more likely to experience cognitive decline and dementia. It’s therefore prudent to lay off these damaging thoughts and build positive ones.
Fortunately, you can adopt specific strategies to improve your thinking. For instance, you shouldn’t ruminate over past mistakes but instead, view them as opportunities to be better. Although you may experience some negative thoughts periodically, it’s best not to dwell on them for long to avoid demeaning yourself. You can also monitor your thinking patterns and practice mindfulness to connect to your positive thoughts and feelings. Yoga has proven to be effective against negativity, so you may leverage this helpful exercise. By all means, avoid dwelling on your negative traits and focus on your unique features.
Build positive relationships and avoid toxic ones
Research by Dr. Michelle A. Harris and associates indicated that people with positive social relationships and support tend to have higher self-esteem and vice versa. Besides, good friends and family act as a buffer against overwhelming experiences and encourage personal growth and development. What’s more, they give you pleasure and joy, while improving your life’s quality. Toxic people, on the other hand, drain you of happiness and purpose. They may also manipulate you to act against your will, leaving you demoralized and worthless. Therefore, it’s advisable to keep good people around you and avoid toxic ones.
Although the world moves at a fast pace, it’s best to create time for your friends and family. For instance, you may organize a weekly or monthly get-together to have fun and uplift each other. You may also schedule regular phone calls if you can’t meet up physically. It’s prudent to be honest about your struggles, as they can help you see your value. You can also say no to manipulating friends and call them out on their behavior. Feel free to end your friendship if they refuse to change their demeaning attitude towards you.
Practice self-compassion
The truth is, no one will love you more than you, making it imperative you give yourself some TLC. Besides, loving yourself increases your happiness levels and motivates you to achieve more incredible things. Moreover, it helps you to recover from significant setbacks while triggering your growth mindset quickly. It also reduces your mental health risks while enhancing your physical, emotional, and mental well-being. You also get to avoid unhealthy comparisons and appreciate your strengths. Therefore, you may take steps to treat yourself right.
For starters, you may focus on improving your overall health. It’s prudent to eat healthy meals with essential vitamins and take healthy beverages. By all means, stay hydrated and exercise at least three times weekly to keep your body fit. It’s also essential to work on your appearance to look more attractive. For instance, you can use treatments like the
Duac Gel to improve your facial features and purchase a new outfit to flatter your figure. Feel free to take a vacation when you feel stressed, and refuse to overwork yourself. By all means, learn to live in the present and be grateful for its pleasures.
Overcome your fear of failure
People with low self-esteem often avoid taking on challenges because they doubt their ability to succeed. They fear failure and will often make excuses or play the blame game to avoid trying altogether. However, this can cause you to lose life-changing opportunities and keep you stagnant. Besides, you can develop harmful habits like self-sabotage which will leave you dissatisfied and worsen your self-esteem. It’s therefore imperative to overcome your fears and tackle new challenges.
Although it might be challenging, you can take gradual steps to overcome your fear of failure. For instance, you may set a few small goals to keep you focused on upcoming tasks and visualize yourself succeeding. Again, you should leverage positive thinking to keep you calm when you face some setbacks. Perhaps, you can create a contingency plan to boost your confidence if you are afraid of failing. The goal is to become better in your endeavors, so you need to learn from every failure you experience and improve yourself.
Be kind to others
Kindness offers numerous benefits, including decreased anxiety and increased lifespan. However, various studies revealed that people who practice kindness have higher self-esteem than those who don’t. Besides, putting a smile on someone’s face can make you fulfilled and happy. What’s more, you get to focus on positive things and build positive relationships. Therefore, you can improve your self-confidence by helping someone out.
However, you should draw the line between kindness and being a pushover. Admittedly, some people would want to abuse your kindness, making it imperative to stand your ground. For instance, you may learn to say no if you can’t do something and don’t let anyone make you feel guilty for it. But, it’s prudent to help your elderly neighbor with their chores or a stranger struggling to carry their groceries. Perhaps you can volunteer in your community’s environmental sanitation or donate to a charitable cause. Fortunately, you don’t have to break the bank to be kind; sometimes, the smallest gestures touch people’s hearts.
Celebrate your achievements
According to the Dalai Lama, celebrating your achievements builds your confidence and improves your self-esteem. What’s more, it motivates you to accomplish more goals and add to your successes. Therefore, it’s prudent to reward yourself each time you accomplish something. You don’t have to wait for a massive win before you appreciate yourself. If you finish your tasks on time, treat yourself to a nice meal. These little acts will help improve your self-perception.
Compassion fatigue is one of the most unpleasant feelings a human being can experience. There are so many reasons in this modern world for us to feel empathy or compassion for another person (or people), and at times it can be very easy to feel drained by it all. This is then compounded by feelings of guilt – how dare you feel drained, with all of the privilege that you have? – and before long, you’re so stressed that you don’t even know where to start dealing with it.
It’s a common feeling among those in caring professions, and those who care for sick loved ones, but compassion fatigue is not limited to the occupational sphere. For those of us who look at the way the world is, and are struck by the suffering of those fleeing wars, enduring famine, or facing repression from their own governments, it’s more than a little tough. 24-hour news media means you’re rarely more than a few clicks away from seeing something that will distress you. It is vital to retain our compassion and our empathy – they’re in too short a supply in this world – so it’s important to follow the tips below on avoiding compassion fatigue…
Know the signs of burnout, and step back if it gets too much
If you’re someone who fights for causes, the chances are you come from a position of relative privilege. That position is bound to make you feel guilty if you sometimes feel too tired to attend a march, run a fundraising campaign, or lobby your congressperson. However, burnout is a very real problem and it can arise even when you’re a true believer in what you do. Pushing through something when you feel exhausted is noble – but in the long term, it might not be the best thing for you or for those who need your voice. Too many good people have worked themselves into serious illness, so knowing when to stand back is essential.
Don’t feel the need to give everyone a hearing
There are some causes that absolutely deserve our attention, and merit the signal boost we can give them through our own channels. If you are a campaigner who runs a website or blog, it’s good to get a message out there to give it oxygen, and when people contact you with causes you support there is a lot of good you can do. On the flip side, there will be those who seek to exploit your good nature by spamming your blog with comments. Knowing how to identify link spam, block out the cynics, and keep your literal and mental bandwidth for deserving causes is an essential part of self-care.
There’s safety – and relief – in numbers
It’s easy to feel you’re not doing enough, but there is only one of you, and only 24 hours in a day – and you have to sleep sometimes. Being passionate about a cause leads us to want to make our voices heard, but it doesn’t have to be your voice every time. Getting the right people around you can take more work, to begin with, but it means that you can divide up the work of campaigning and still get a lot done. Use tools like social media and crowdsourcing apps to spread the load, and when you need to be the one in the spotlight you’ll find it easier to shoulder the burden.
In their book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, coauthors (and twin sisters) Emily and Amelia Nagoski reveal that completing the stress cycle — finding a way to let our bodies know we’re no longer threatened or in danger and we can stop being stressed — can be the most effective way to avoid burnout and emotional exhaustion. Physical activity or any kind of physical movement is one great way to do this, but there are several other ways.
Here are 6 evidence-based strategies to help you complete your stress cycle:
1. Breathing
Deep, slow breaths down-regulate the stress response, especially when the exhalation is long and slow and goes all the way to the end of the breath so your belly contracts. Breathing is most effective when your stress isn’t that high or when you just need to siphon off the very worst of the stress so you can get through a difficult situation.
A simple, practical exercise is to breathe in to a slow count of 5, hold that breath for 5, then exhale for a slow count of 10, and pause for another count of 5. Do that three times — for one minute and 15 seconds of breathing — and then see how you feel.
Casual but friendly social interaction is the first external sign that the world is a safe place.
2. Positive social interaction
Casual but friendly social interaction is an external sign that the world is a safe place. People with more acquaintances are happier. Just go buy a cup of coffee and say “Nice day” to the barista or compliment another customer’s earrings. Reassure your brain that the world is a safe, sane place, and not all people suck. It helps!
3. Laughter
Laughing together, and even just reminiscing about the times we’ve laughed together, increases relationship satisfaction. We mean belly laughs — deep, impolite, helpless laughter. When we laugh, says neuroscientist Sophie Scott, we use an “ancient evolutionary system that mammals have evolved to make and maintain social bonds and regulate emotions.”
A warm hug in a safe and trusting context can do as much to help your body feel like it has escaped a threat as jogging, and it’s a heck of a lot less sweaty.
4. Affection
Sometimes, a deeper connection with a loving presence is called for. Most often, this comes from a loving and beloved person who likes, respects and trusts you, whom you like, respect and trust. It doesn’t have to be physical affection (though physical affection is great). A warm hug in a safe and trusting context can do as much to help your body feel like it has escaped a threat as jogging a couple of miles, and it’s a heck of a lot less sweaty.
One example of affection is the “six- second kiss” advice from relationship researcher John Gottman. Every day, he suggests, kiss your partner for six seconds. There’s a reason behind the timing: Six seconds is too long to kiss someone you resent or dislike, and it’s far too long to kiss someone with whom you feel unsafe. Kissing for six seconds requires that you stop and deliberately notice you like this person, you trust them and you feel affection for them. By noticing those things, the kiss tells your body that you are safe with your tribe.
Another example: Hug someone you love and trust for 20 full seconds, while both of you are standing over your own centers of balance. Research suggests this kind of hug can change your hormones, lower your blood pressure and heart rate, and improve mood. It doesn’t have to be precisely 20 seconds. What matters is you feel the stress easing, or what therapist Suzanne Iasenza describes as “hugging until relaxed.”
Of course, affection doesn’t stop with other human beings. Just petting a cat or dog for a few minutes can help complete the cycle too.
5. A big ol’ cry
Have you had the experience of just barely making it inside your home — or bedroom — before you slam the door behind you and burst into tears for 10 minutes? Then you wipe your nose, sigh a big sigh and feel relieved from the weight of whatever made you cry? You may not have changed the situation that caused the stress, but you completed the cycle.
Have a favorite tearjerker movie that makes you cry every time? Going through that emotion with the characters allows your body to go through it, too.
You might experience completing the stress cycle as a shift in mood or mental state or physical tension, as you breathe more deeply and your thoughts relax.
6. Creative expression
Engaging in creative activities today leads to more energy, excitement, and enthusiasm tomorrow. Like sports, the arts — including painting, sculpture, music, theater and storytelling in all forms — create a context that tolerates and even encourages big emotions. Arts of all kinds give us the chance to celebrate and move through our big emotions.
P.S.: How do you know you’ve completed the cycle?
It’s like knowing when you’re full after a meal or like knowing when you’ve had an orgasm — your body tells you. You might experience it as a shift in mood or mental state or physical tension, as you breathe more deeply and your thoughts relax.
It’s easier for some people to recognize than others. For some people, it’s as obvious as knowing that they’re breathing. That’s how it is for Emily. Long before she knew about the science, she knew that when she felt stressed and tense and terrible, she could go for a run or for a bike ride and at the end of it she would feel better. She has always been able to feel it intuitively, that shift inside her body.
Don’t worry if you’re not sure you can recognize when you’ve completed the cycle. Especially if you’ve spent a lot of years — like, your whole life, maybe — holding on to your worry or anger, you’ve probably got a whole lot of accumulated stress response cycles spinning their engines, so it’s going to take a while before you get through the backlog.
All you need to do is recognize that you feel incrementally better than you felt before you started. You can notice that something in your body has changed, shifted in the direction of peace.
“If I was at an eight on the stress scale when I started, I’m at a four now,” you can say. And that’s pretty great.
To learn more about the stress cycle and burnout, watch Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s TED conversation:
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Emily Nagoski PhD is the author of “Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life.” She has a PhD in health behavior with a minor in human sexuality from Indiana University, and a MS in counseling, also from IU, including a clinical internship at the Kinsey Institute sexual health clinic. A sex educator for 20 years, she is the inaugural director of wellness education at Smith College.
Amelia Nagoski DMA Amelia Nagoski holds a DMA in conducting from the University of Connecticut. An assistant professor and coordinator of music at Western New England University, she regularly presents educational sessions for professional musicians discussing the application of communications science and psychological research, including “Beyond Burnout Prevention: Embodied Wellness for Conductors.”
What Is a Weighted Blanket? Occupational therapists have been prescribing weighted blankets to help manage sensory-related symptoms for decades – especially for children and adults on the Autism spectrum. A weighted blanket is a specially made therapeutic blanket with some additional weight, generally weighing between 5 to 30 pounds. They come in different weights to […]
To be human is to get defensive. When we’ve been questioned or criticized at work, it’s fair to say that almost all of us — save for, perhaps, the Dalai Lama and other equanimous souls — have gotten irritated, retreated into silence, or said something cutting in response. And because it is so normal to get defensive, we tend to write it off as no big deal. Jim Tamm, however, begs to differ.
Former judge Tamm spent 25 years working through other interpersonal conflicts, including mediating more than 1,000 employment disputes, and he currently trains consultants to teach collaboration skills. So what does defensiveness have to do with collaboration? Tamm has come to believe that defensiveness is the major obstacle that prevents people from working well together. “There is nothing that will help you become more effective at building collaboration than better managing your own defensiveness,” he says in an interview.
While it’s close to impossible to completely eliminate getting defensive during stressful moments, you can become aware of your own reactions and have an action plan in place when you notice them. “Any time you’re getting defensive, you’re getting less effective. When you get defensive, your thinking becomes rigid and you simply become stupid,” says Tamm, also the author of the book Radical Collaboration.
Why is defensiveness such an obstacle to collaboration? When we get defensive, “we put way more into self-preservation than we do into problem-solving,” Tamm says. “We’re trying to prove that we’re right rather than search for creative solutions.” When this happens in a workplace, it can be a recipe for chaos and failure. Such impulses are especially harmful for bosses, managers and those in power. That behavior hurts more than just the defensive person. When we get defensive, adds Tamm, “we invite everyone else in the room to get defensive, too.”
Of course, it can be difficult to recognize defensiveness in ourselves, and that’s because there are underlying emotions at play. When a person becomes defensive, they might appear to be putting on protective armor and gearing up for battle, but they’re usually masking their fear. “Defensiveness does not protect us from other people,” says Tamm. “It defends us from fears we don’t want to feel.” Those fears can include thoughts about your own significance, your competence and your likeability. Your defenses might come up due to imposter syndrome — like when you’re scared not looking smart enough or that you’re a subpar employee or a bad boss.
For example, let’s say you’re worried about a performance review. When your manager gives you some constructive criticism, you may offer excuses or become angry or brusque. But Tamm says these behaviors are masking your real problem, which could be your fear of not getting the raise or promotion that you feel you deserve or even your fear of being fired. “Our defensiveness helps us hide our fears from ourselves,” he says, and it erroneously serves to convince you that the fears you have aren’t true.
OK, now that we understand the dangers of defensiveness, here’s what we can do about it. You can start by learning to spot the warning signs of defensiveness in yourself. When you feel yourself experiencing them, pay attention and take action. According to Tamm, here are the 10 most common warning signs that you may be getting defensive: A spurt of energy in your body; sudden confusion; flooding your audience with information to prove a point; withdrawing into silence; magnifying or minimizing everything; developing “all or nothing” thinking; feeling like you’re a victim or you’re misunderstood; blaming or shaming others; obsessive thinking; and wanting the last word.
Tamm recommends looking back on any charged conversations, disagreements or conflicts — minor and major — from your life, and finding the patterns of behavior you engage in when you get defensive. Perhaps a minor tiff at work made you default to “all or nothing” thinking, and suddenly you felt ready to quit. Or, a single question from your partner about where the soup pot is located gets magnified into “You never know where anything is because you never liked this apartment.” If you have difficulty determining your own signs of defensiveness, ask for feedback from your family, friends or trusted colleagues. “Usually, other people spot our defensiveness before we do,” says Tamm.
Why is internal observation so important? “Most of us are not sufficiently in tune with our fear to do anything about it until it’s too late,” says Tamm. “If we know what our signs of defensiveness are, they can become our own personalized early warning system. For example, I noticed that when I get defensive, my breathing becomes faster, I tend to talk much louder, and I usually feel very misunderstood.”
Creating your own warning system for defensiveness involves a few simple steps: Noticing, taking action, and letting go. Whenever you recognize one of your own warning signs — for example, obsessive thinking or confusion — acknowledge to yourself that you’re getting defensive by saying something like “It feels like I’m becoming defensive.” This is extremely important. Tamm points, “If you don’t notice that you’’re getting defensive, you’re not going to take any other action.”
Next, slow down your physiology in some way. That could mean taking a few deep breaths, being aware of your feet on the ground, or — if you can — going for a walk. Focusing your attention outward is like hitting a reset button on your defensiveness. At the same time, try to observe what you’re saying to yourself. If you find that you’re criticizing yourself for your defensiveness or for your lack of keeping cool, ask yourself something like “Is this helping me right now? What behavior would be more helpful?”
Then, create an action step to counteract any damage that your defensiveness may cause. If you typically go quiet and sulk, for instance, you may decide instead to ask a question or share what you’re feeling. One way to create a psychologically safe environment for yourself — and others — is when you demonstrate your vulnerability. This can be accomplished by sharing something like “I feel like I’m getting defensive here, so let me take a step back.” Or, if your defensiveness sign is bombarding your teammates with information to prove your point, you could consciously pause for 15 seconds and let others finish speaking first.
In his TEDx talk, Tamm shares a memorable example of an action step. He says, “One woman’s warning sign was always wanting the last word. So she got this image of herself standing in the conference room doorway, throwing in the last word, and slamming the door. [Picturing it] was a way of not only reminding her what she was doing but also lightening up her mood a little bit.”
Once you’ve taken your action step, you’ll find that you have an easier time letting go of your defensiveness and examining the situation — and your coworkers — with fresher, calmer eyes. Your physical and emotional selves will most likely be in a different place than when you first started getting defensive. Practice your action step until it becomes automatic, suggests Tamm.
Be patient: Noticing and managing your defensiveness takes practice. Find times — maybe with your family or friends — when you can rehearse your action steps so you’ll be ready when you most need them. Remember, says Tamm: “If you can stay non-defensive, you can always be more effective.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kara Cutruzzula is a journalist and playwright and writes Brass Ring Daily, a daily motivational newsletter about work, life and creativity.
Kio Stark loves to talk to strangers — but she knows every exchange started is one that must be ended. Here, she shares how to gracefully step away.
I’ve spent much of the last decade studying (and having) conversations and teaching people how to understand their own exchanges. And I’ve found that exits can be the most awkward of all the moments in an interaction with another person, particularly a stranger. How do you end a conversation? Who has the right to end it?
The goal is to end an interaction at will, but without offending the person you’re stepping away from. Whether we’re aware of it or not, we use physical and conversational cues. When our cues are not noticed or heeded, it gets weedy pretty fast.
Once it begins, an interaction in an open space has a diameter. In sociologist Erving Goffman’s study, the range in the United States was no closer than one and a half feet and no farther than three feet or so. Too close and it’s hard to speak directly to each other, hard to know where to look or gesture, and might feel so uncomfortable that it makes people back away. Too far and you’re not committed physically to being in the interaction. In a larger group, people may have to lean in to hear or may be at the edges of the interaction, and their attention can more easily wander or switch focus.
Losing eye contact is a signal that you want to end a conversation — but it’s a more obvious and intentional one.
If you want to make an exit, you can use your body as a signal. Beginning in small increments, you can step or lean outside that interaction zone. Losing eye contact is a signal — but a more obvious and intentional one. Unconsciously, you might get a little jittery, and that’s a signal too. Once you do signal, you hope your partner is getting the message and will either end the interaction or be prepared when you do. Sending and receiving the message may even happen quickly enough that there’s an illusion of mutuality.
Words work too. Often, all you need is a reason or a friendly parting line. “I have to run”; “I need to get another drink”; “do you know where the bathroom is?”; “I have to check on my friend”; “hey, it was nice talking to you”; or glancing at your phone and saying “my friend (or partner, or babysitter) is texting me,” things like that. These are reasonable needs that require you to end an interaction. Any of these things may be true, but they work as excuses too. So it’s nice to be genuine and warm about it, if you can.
Power matters — the person with more gravitas has the right to end the interaction and may choose to do so politely or not.
To make a clean exit, you also have to contend with which person has the strongest claim to “leave-taking rights” in the conversation. In general, the person who started the interaction has priority to end it. It’s a matter, to some degree, of politeness. The person who started the conversation had a reason. It may have been mere curiosity or friendliness, which only give limited priority in ending the interaction, but if the person who started the conversation had a specific need or agenda, it is in theory theirs to close. There is a tacit understanding that you have to make sure the person who started the conversation got what they needed.
However, this can be abused — and you end up forced to be rude in order to exit. Power matters, too. When there is a real or perceived differential in power or status, the person with more gravitas has the right to end the interaction and may choose to do so politely or not.
So much of this, almost all of it, happens beneath the level of logic and reason. It’s all gut, instinct, sensory information, and fantastically subtle cues. Of course, we can extract ourselves from a conversation without satisfying the person who started it. It’s rude, but it can be tempered with a wave and a smile as one walks away.
All these implicit rules, bodily expressions and the words that do and don’t come out of our mouths — all of these are things we’re only dimly aware of. Learning to see them carries the thrill of secret knowledge. It’s also practical knowledge. It helps you understand when you feel graceful and when you feel awkward as you share spaces and moments with people. It helps you pull yourself into a transformed social landscape, one that is open and rich with surprising, affirming connections. And using this precious and practical knowledge can inch us all toward a more intriguing, respectful, tolerant world.
Kio Stark writes, teaches and speaks about stranger interactions, independent learning and how people relate to technology. She is the author of the TED Book, “When Strangers Meet.”
A good friend is there to offer a shoulder to cry on when it’s needed. Indeed, simply being there for a friend when they come to you with a problem can, in and of itself, be helpful to them. However, there are correct and incorrect ways to respond to problems. It doesn’t mean that the solution is always the same, but that there are definite ways you can worsen the situation before you improve it. Before you jump to help that friend, consider looking at the way that you respond to problems.
One of the most frustrating things you can do to someone who is expressing their emotions about any given experience is rush past those emotions to try and promote a solution as quickly as possible If someone is struggling with their mental health, the very first thing you should do is listen to them, take in their emotional response, and validate it. You might want to get to the solutions that can help them in no time, flat, but it’s not helping them to neglect their feelings.
“Oh, that’s happened to me, too!”
Empathizing with your friend can be a good thing. It can help you develop some sense of shared perspective that can make it a little easier for them to open up about their problems. However, if you’re going to say something like this, you need to know the difference between empathy and compassion. Empathy is a quick reaction to a situation or emotional state that we see and can understand. Compassion is the deliberate attempt to understand their feelings and how they’re reacting to that situation or state. Don’t go off into stories about your own similar experiences or downplay their emotional response by stating that it affected you in a different and less harmful way. Even if you don’t mean to, you’re making it harder for them to be honest about their own feelings.
Know that advice isn’t always the solution
If you are a great problem solver and you do know a very concrete suggestion that will help them, you can share it. Make sure they’ve had the time to express their feelings and what they want to say, first. However, if you don’t have any great ideas for advice, then don’t feel like that you have to share them. Unsolicited advice can be a risky thing to give and that’s especially so if you don’t know what kind of advice to give.
Making judging comments
Get an idea of “brutal honesty” out of your head. A lot of people go in with that mindset, but often what they get is brutality, not honesty. Even if you believe that your friend’s own mistakes led them to the predicament that they are in, who does it help to say as much? If you judge them when they are at their most vulnerable, that is what they will remember and, as a result, they’re less likely to come to you in the future. Check to make sure you’re not judgemental when trying to be helpful.
Actively check up on them
If your friend hasn’t opened up to you in such a way before then they can feel a little awkward and vulnerable about the way they have expressed themselves. You can reassure them that you are there to support them and that you are open to that kind of relationship by checking up on them and asking them how they are doing with the problem the next day. It shows that you’re genuinely interested in their wellbeing and can alleviate any feelings of guilt they might have about “burdening” you with their problems.
Just ask what you can do for them
If you do think that you can play an active role in helping them with their problems, then that’s great. Rather than rushing to do it yourself, however, you should ask how you can support them. They might just want someone to listen to them, they might want someone to offer advice, or they might be open to more practical and hands-on assistance. The words “what can I do to help?” can be a very important step in making sure you’re not stepping on any toes.
Again, that you’re willing to listen to and help a friend is a great thing, by itself. But if you want to make sure that you are, indeed, being on the helpful side, you need to consider the above mistakes that you might be making.
Teresa Wilson from Headlands asked if would share a post from their blog and add Headlands to my resources on the Organizations Who Can Help page. If you would like more information, there are links below.
Is Your Center Equipped to Deliver patient-centered, culturally sensitive treatment services to the LGBTQ+ Community?
The Importance of Providing the LGBTQ+ Community with Affirming Care
This article shows why providing an LGBTQ-affirming treatment facility creates a more inclusive treatment environment and expands potential recruitment opportunities. Treatment programs that offer treatment to the LGBTQ+ community are vital to the growth of your treatment program.
The Importance of Reaching Out to the LGBTQ+ Community
It’s estimated that over 16 million Americans identify as LGBTQ+. Each generation of Americans sees a higher percentage of members identifying as LGBTQ+:12%Baby Boomers4%Generation X9%Millenials16%Generation Z
The significant increase from Generation X to Generation Z shows a trend that your treatment program needs to account for. Generation Z is approaching peak age for addiction issues, with its oldest members now in their mid-20s. In California, the numbers are more compelling. Approximately 28% of California’s LGBTQ+ population is Generation Z and 25% are Millenials.2
To remain competitive, your treatment program must create an inclusive environment for the LGBTQ+ community.
LGBTQ+ Members Experience Substance Use Disorders at a Higher Rate
Substance use disorder (SUD) can devastate lives if not treated, and LGBTQ+ people are 2.5 times more likely to develop SUD than non-LGBTQ+ members.3 However, healthcare and appropriate treatment for LGBTQ+ individuals are sparse. SUD treatment centers must bring more comprehensive LGBTQ+ affirming care to their models.Without LGBTQ+ affirming care, treatment centers cannot properly aid a significant portion of patients.https://www.youtube.com/embed/NFms3xO98Nk?
How Do You Start Providing an LGBTQ-Affirming Treatment Facility?
Pair with a partner experienced in treating the LGBTQ+ community and who knows the ins and outs of providing an affirming treatment program. Partnering with experts allows you to provide urgent services quicker and with fewer missteps, thereby improving your reputation and profits.
The Bottom Line
Between 9% to 16% of your treatment demographic identifies as LGBTQ+ and experiences substance use disorders at a higher rate than the general population. Can you afford not to provide an LGBTQ-affirming treatment environment?
Defining LGBTQ+ and Substance Use Disorders
Let’s define the key terms that we discuss in this article. Namely, LGBTQ+ and substance use disorders.
What Does LGBTQ+ Mean?
The LGBTQ+ community is a minority group consisting of non-heterosexual and non-cisgender individuals. Cisgender means that one identifies with the gender assigned at birth. Because the LGBTQ+ community is diverse and complex, there are many definitions for each sexual and gender identity.
Gay is a term for those attracted to the same gender as themselves. Lesbians are women attracted to other women. Bisexuals are attracted to multiple genders. The Q in LGBTQ+ sometimes refers to questioning but more commonly means queer. Queer is a reclaimed umbrella term for members of the LGBTQ+ community.4 Other sexual identities embody the “+” in LGBTQ+. Asexual members do not experience sexual attractions. Pansexual individuals are attracted to someone regardless of gender. Some use bisexual and pansexual interchangeably, while others prefer one over the other. 4
The LGBTQ+ community also embodies varying gender identities. Transgender is a term for those whose gender does not align with the gender assigned to them at birth. 4 Being non-binary means something different for everyone. Non-binary individuals are those who experience gender outside of the male/female binary. Some nonbinary members use they/them pronouns over he or she.These terms are constantly discussed, expanded upon, and debated amongst members of the community. Many members of the LGBTQ community will likely experience and define their identities differently than others. 5
Examples of Famous People in the LGBTQ+ Community
Lesbian – Ellen DeGeneres, Kate McKinnon
Gay Men – Pete Buttigieg, Neil Patrick Harris
Bisexual – Michelle Rodriguez, Drew Barrymore
Transgender – Laverne Cox, Caitlyn Jenner
Queer – Ezra Miller, Courtney Act
(+) Non-Binary – Elliot Page, Rose McGowan
(+) Gender Fluid – Ruby Rose, Miley Cyrus
Criteria for SUD
SUD harms one’s life and well-being. Substance use disorders can be mild, moderate, or severe. The symptoms fall into four overarching categories: impaired control, risky use, social impairment, and pharmacological criteria such as withdrawal and tolerance. 6 The DSM lists 11 different criteria for substance use disorder. Having 2-3 symptoms is a mild SUD, 4-5 symptoms signify a moderate SUD, and 6 or more indicates a severe SUD. Symptoms include:
The substance is taken for an extended period or in larger amounts than intended.
Unsuccessful efforts to cut back on the substance.
Excessive time dedicated to the substance, whether obtaining or using it.
Cravings for the substance.
Failure to meet major social and work obligations due to substance use.
Substance use occurs despite occupational problems related to it.
Quitting social, recreational, or occupational activities because of substance use.
Using the substance in dangerous situations.
Continued use of the substance despite the knowledge that it causes psychological or physical problems.
Tolerance of the substance increases.
Withdrawal symptoms when substance use stops.
For individuals with a substance use disorder, the misuse of drugs or alcohol is not voluntary. Brain imaging scans for those with SUD show physical changes in the areas responsible for behavior, decision-making, learning, memory, and judgment. In the LGBTQ+ community, substance use disorders consistently make life more difficult.6https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tf53Cg8QRVA?
Beyond SUD – The LGBTQ+ Community and Mental Health
Members of the LGBTQ+ community are more prone to mental health problems.
According to the APA, LGBTQ+ individuals are more than twice as likely to develop a mental disorder in their lifetime than straight and cisgender individuals. LGBTQ+ individuals also might experience higher levels of psychosis, bipolar disorder, and other mood disorders.
The rate of such disorders is because of the oppression and hardships LGBTQ+ members experience due to their sexual or gender identification. These difficulties lead to a higher risk of mental illnesses, and these mental illnesses can co-occur with substance use disorders. Both disorders must be considered during treatment. 7
Anxiety, Depression, and Suicidal Thoughts
LBGBTQ+ individuals are more likely to experience anxiety and depression than heterosexual and cisgender individuals. LGBTQ+ members are also more likely to experience severe depressive episodes, and suicidal thoughts are prevalent amongst members of this community.
While 2.2% of cisgender and heterosexual individuals have considered suicide, 4.4% of gay men and lesbians have considered suicide alongside 7.4 % of bisexual individuals. Approximately 30.8% of transgender individuals have also considered ending their own lives. When it comes to suicide attempts, lesbian, bisexual, and gay youth are over 4 times more likely to attempt suicide than cisgender, heterosexual youth. 8
PTSD
LGBTQ+ individuals are at an increased risk for PTSD. This is likely because many members face an increased risk of violence and trauma due to their identification. When treating LGBTQ+ patients, it’s important to understand the potential likelihood of trauma. 9
Eating Disorders
People in the LGBTQ+ community are at a higher risk for eating disorders than their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts. Increased discrimination and the stress associated with being LGBTQ+ can lead to binge eating in lesbian and bisexual women. Furthermore, body dissatisfaction is common amongst gay men and can increase the risk of an eating disorder.10
The Minority Stress Model and Challenges for the LGBTQ+ Community
A significant factor behind LGBTQ+ mental illness statistics is the minority stress model. The minority stress model indicates that LGBTQ+ individuals face unique challenges that cause additional stress and mental health problems.10 To complicate matters, many LGBTQ+ people have reported stigma when trying to access health services, leading some individuals to forego healthcare and treatment completely.
LGBTQ+ individuals face homophobia and/or transphobia on an internal, social, and sociopolitical scale. They are more likely to be homeless and unemployed. Transgender people face higher rates of poverty than cisgender individuals, and this factor is worsened by a lack of legal and federal protection.LGBTQ+ people are also more likely to face violence and harassment.
While all members of the LGBTQ community are at an increased risk for violence, transgender individuals are more likely to be victims of hate crimes and assaults.
LGBTQ+ people are also less likely to have social support in comparison to heterosexual individuals. This is particularly true for LGBTQ+ individuals who live in a region with a small LGBTQ+ population. Bisexual members might feel particularly isolated, facing discrimination from society as well as prejudice from within the community. All these factors and more contribute to the significant stress LGBTQ+ people face, which may lead to substance use. 11
How Common is Substance Use in the LGBTQ+ Community?
Like other mental illnesses, SUD is more common in the LGBTQ+ community than in straight and cisgender people. For instance, women who identify as lesbian/bisexual are more than twice as likely to engage in heavy alcohol use as heterosexual women.Trans individuals are more likely to struggle with substance use due to the increased amount of violence and discrimination they face.
Trans people are also more likely to be assaulted and could develop a substance use disorder stemming from the assault. 12
Further studies must be done to determine the true extent of LGBTQ+ substance use and the contributing factors. It’s clear, however, that substance use disorders are more common in the LGBTQ community largely due to minority-related stress. Factors such as discriminatory government policies, violence, self-hate, social isolation, and family disapproval often contribute to the development of SUD. Transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals have unique stressors, as do LGBTQ+ people of color. Many studies have found that substance use in the LGBTQ+ community is due to stress-related coping.
Sociocultural differences and the targeting of LGBTQ+ people by tobacco and alcohol companies also exacerbate the problem. The LGBTQ+ community tends to have more permissive substance use norms. 13
What Substances are Most Abused or Misused in the LGBTQ+ Community?
Alcohol
Alcohol use is very prevalent within the LGBTQ+ community. Historically, LGBTQ+ people had to seek refuge from prejudice in standard bars, meaning gay bars became the norm for LGBTQ+ social settings. Many people within the community agree that the number of gay bars compared to non-alcohol-oriented settings is likely a contributing factor to alcohol abuse. While most LGBTQ+ people appreciate the historical significance of gay bars, many members have expressed social pressure to fit in and drink at them. 14 Alcohol misuse, especially in the form of heavy drinking, leads to a variety of dangers and problems. These problems include blackouts, suicide, and sexual assaults. For trans people, suicidal ideation became more common while drinking. 15
Stimulants
LGBTQ+ people are more likely to use stimulants than those not in the community. Stimulants include, but are not limited to, cocaine and methamphetamine. Stimulant use is typically higher for LGBTQ+ individuals than cis and straight individuals, though lesbians tend to use stimulants almost equally to their heterosexual counterparts. For gay and bisexual men, stimulant use is much higher than that of their heterosexual peers. Approximately 9.2% of gay men use stimulants in comparison to 3.2% of heterosexuals. 16
Opioids
While there’s not much information available on transgender individuals for opioid use, studies show that lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals are at a higher risk for opioid abuse. Bisexual women are particularly at risk. Many members of the LGBTQ+ community have reported more access to opioids than their heterosexual peers. 17
Addiction Treatment Options
Thankfully, there are various treatment options available for those with substance use disorders. LGBTQ+ people who struggle with substance use disorder can be put in detox therapy, inpatient treatment, outpatient treatment, or medication-assisted treatment. 18
Adding LGBTQ-Affirming Treatment to Your Facility
LGBTQ+ individuals need treatment centers that properly serve them. Create a welcoming environment in your treatment center by including LGBTQ+ media and pamphlets in the waiting room, enforcing non-discrimination policies, and acknowledging LGBTQ+ observances and holidays.
LGBTQ+ Staff
Including LGBTQ+ staff and providers can also make patients feel more comfortable. It is also important to provide ongoing training in culturally affirming treatment for the staff. Facilities should show LGBTQ+ affirmation as well. Gender-neutral restrooms, for instance, are essential for many in the LGBTQ+ community. Adopt LGBTQ+ friendly procedures and ensure all staff can carry out LGBTQ+ affirming interactions with patients.
Embracing Cultural Humility
During treatment, providers should embrace “cultural humility”. This is different from “cultural competency”. Cultural humility requires constant ongoing learning about the patient’s identities and experiences within them. Cultural humility recognizes that there will always be more to learn and that everyone within the culture is different.
Staying Up to Date
Stay up to date on current potential stressors for the LGBTQ+ community. Discriminatory laws and current events often play a vital role in an LGBTQ+ person’s mental health. It’s essential to stay up to date to understand the laws and potential discrimination LGBTQ+ patients will face. One’s language also matters. Avoid using outdated terms such as “homosexual” and remember that not all LGBTQ+ people have reclaimed the word “queer.” Avoid assumptions about a patients’ gender identity or sexuality. Ask a patient for their preferred pronoun and, if the wrong pronoun is used, apologize but don’t over-apologize. When it comes to training, there’s always more to learn. Sensitivity training programs for staff are a great place to start.
Trauma-Informed Care for LBGTQ+ Addiction treatment
Because LGBTQ+ people are marginalized and more likely to have PTSD, it is essential to recognize the impact of potential traumas on their substance abuse disorder recovery. A crucial part of trauma-informed care is creating an environment where the patient feels safe and secure. For LGBTQ+ people, that involves an affirming approach.
When you create a safe space for LGBTQ+ people, they’ll feel able to disclose and work through their traumas. Trauma may be the root of addiction and giving patients a safe space to work through it will make treatment more effective.19
Bostock and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that gender identity and sexual orientation were protected from discrimination by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
On January 20, 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order applying these protections to all federal laws, regulations, and agencies. Because of the Supreme Court decision and the Executive Order, anyone doing business with the federal government is prohibited from discriminating based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
President Biden ordered all federal agencies to consult with the Attorney General as soon as possible to review all existing orders, regulations, guidance documents, policies, programs, or other agency actions.20 Meaningful change is arising quicker than expected.
Can your treatment facility avoid actions that might be construed as discriminatory to the LGBTQ+ community? You need to consider your interactions with patients and staff. The last thing a treatment facility can afford is an LGBTQ+ discrimination lawsuit that drives away potential patients.
Recapping Why Reaching the LGBTQ+ Community is Vital
Including LGBTQ+ affirming programs will prompt more members of the LGBTQ+ community to your treatment center.
The LGBTQ+ community is an often misunderstood minority group that needs better healthcare and services. Incorporating LGBTQ+ affirmation into your treatment center could do a world of good for your patients and your business. When it comes to LGBTQ+ patients, an affirming program can make all the difference.
Each patient’s path to recovery relies on access to effective addiction treatment services and compassionate support. Are you an addiction treatment program looking to improve the lives of your patients? If you want to improve your program’s success by offering more effective services, collaborating with reliable experts, and overcoming obstacles, call us today to learn how we can help you.
I came home from the hospital after just one night, in 2017 they kept me in for three nights when I had my right knee replaced. One day seems too fast but by yesterday I started to see some of the logic. Aside from insurance saving money, the key to a good rehab is moving your knee a lot!
Yesterday the Physical Therapist came and gave me a great report. The ultimate goal of PT is to get your knee to bend backward 100-110%, I did 90% in my first session. He said all the walking up and down the stairs has made all the difference. I learned so much with the last surgery and knew pushing yourself to start walking and getting up the stairs was critical.
Thank you for all the kind words and prayers sent this past week. I received every one of them and my good report from the Physical Therapist shows how much support I have from up above and all around me.
Mental health and your overall psychological stability are two things that absolutely MUST be looked after every single day of the week. Sure, if you’ve never really dealt with mental blows before, then you could probably handle plenty of things that come your way. The majority of people have had to deal with plenty of worries and troubles in the past, however, so mental health will also be a priority.
One of the great things about the human brain is that it can be helped out with the right kind of work and the right kind of training. Mental illnesses and traumatic experiences can act as huge barricades for people wanting a calmer and more peaceful life upstairs, but they can be overcome. Here are just a few ways every single person on the planet can keep themselves in the right place mentally:
Create A Plan For The Day And Stick To It
A lot of worry and anxiety comes from the fact that we don’t know where we’re heading. We begin to panic because we have lots of different thoughts, ideas, and errands going off in our heads with no plan of when to do them. This becomes incessant and constant if not dealt with. A plan can remedy it very nicely. If you’re not one for bullet journaling, perhaps you could take it up. It’s really quite satisfying to complete.
Talk About Problems When They Flare Up
Life is very difficult at the worst of times. It can be quite challenging at the best of times, too. If you’re finding things to be a little too much, then you should always go to someone and talk to them about it all. People close to you will want to support a friend and see you become the best version of yourself. Keeping things bottled up will not help anyone out at all. You feel a release of pressure whenever you talk about things going on in your life.
Do Things That Feel Cathartic
You need to have experiences in your life that take you away from issues going on in your life. If you can remove yourself from problems, then you’re only going to be helping yourself out. So, whether that means making stuffed chicken in the kitchen, baking different kinds of cakes, painting, writing, or anything remotely cathartic, it’s worth considering. Allow yourself this kind of tension reliever.
Exercise
Whenever you’re having quite a rough day, a good workout can make negativity disappear for a while. It won’t remove all problems, but it’ll put you in a good place to attack the problems you have. There are so many mental health benefits to exercising and putting your body through this kind of challenge. Getting into this routine would help you out immensely.
Practice Positive And Grateful Thinking
It’s so easy to focus on bad things – especially when you’ve not been in a great place for a while. Positive thinking will change your life for the better, though. A lot of people feel it’s delusional, but it doesn’t matter. When you think positive thoughts, you attract positive outcomes and positive people.
A lot of everyday tasks benefit from a combination of relaxation and focus. Driving is possibly the most obvious example of this. At a minimum, getting this balance right can help to avoid negative consequences. For example, you won’t have to file a car accident claim. At best, it can really boost your performance. With that in mind, here are three tips to help.
What this means in practice will depend on the situation. Ideally, you’ll resolve any troubling issues before you begin your task. In the real world, sadly, that’s not always going to be possible. What you can do, however, is offload them and commit to dealing with them later.
What this means in practice will depend on you. For example, you might get the most release from just speaking your thoughts into a voice recorder (most cellphones have one). Alternatively, you may prefer offloading your thoughts onto paper. This doesn’t have to mean writing. It can also mean drawing or doodling.
This may be enough to clear the mental/emotional block from your system. If it doesn’t, however, remember to commit to addressing it later.
Make sure you’ve taken care of your body
If you want to achieve and maintain relaxed focus, then your body needs to support that. For example, you want to be comfortably full and properly hydrated. Be aware that even milder chemicals may disrupt either your relaxation or concentration. Alcohol and caffeine are obvious culprits here.
Be aware that medication (or withdrawal from medication) can also cause issues. If it does, try speaking to your doctor. They may be able to switch your medication or give advice on how to minimize the effects of withdrawal from it.
Another important point to note is that temperature can play a huge role in your ability to achieve and maintain relaxed focus. Ideally, you should control the ambient temperature to keep it pleasant. You may, however, find it useful to have a way to add extra heating/cooling where and when you need it.
Get the right stimulation
The right stimulation keeps you relaxed but helps you to maintain alertness. Most tasks require you to use your eyes and hands. That leaves your ears, nose, and mouth potentially free. Audio stimulation can be massively helpful. You do, however, need to be slightly careful with it.
Firstly, spoken-word audio, including songs, can overload your brain. When you need to focus, it’s often better to stick to music without lyrics or even just ambient sounds. Secondly, you need to think about your hearing. If you listen to the audio a lot, invest in a quality pair of headphones. Ideally, use ones that go over the ear.
Stimulating your sense of smell can have a very powerful effect on your mind. One useful point to note, however, is that the effect of a scent becomes less powerful over time. This isn’t just the scent fading, it’s the brain tuning it out. You can, however, use different scents to keep your brain engaged.
Last but not least, remember the power of taste. Some foods can also help to get your brain moving. Citrus fruits and mints are often particularly good for this.
Thank you so much for your heartfelt messages and prayers, I took each one to heart. I’m confident in my surgery so I wanted to send a tune that might set the mood for my Bucket List which I will think about as I’m going under. That is after my husband and my prayers.
Looking for the Light 