The Mental Emotional Health Blog

A good place to research mental illness is on the Mayo Clinic’s web site. I’ll provide the link to the main Mental Health page here: Mayo Mental Health .

 Take care everyone!

Devin

When things happen, it is almost automatic that you react. But if you overreact often or find yourself worrying about an event for long periods of time, there are a few ways to think in order to keep perspective and keep anxiety manageable.

When an unpleasant event happens:

1. Take two seconds before you react, and decide if it is a reaction you feel okay having. (This allows your rational mind to keep functioning, and avoids an emotional or impulsive reaction).
2. Take two more seconds and consider a likely consequence to your reaction. 
3. Take one minute (either right away or later that day) ask yourself what you can do now to move on from the event. The longer you mentally stay stuck in the moment and dwell, the tougher it is to let it go.
4. If you feel worried about it and expect to keep feeling that way for days, allow yourself a specific amount of time to worry about it. (Example: I’m worried about something next week. I will worry all I want for 30 minutes a day, and no more.) It may sound silly to put a time limit on it, but people sometimes allow worry to continue on and off most of the day and night and end up feeling more worried or depressed as a result.
5. Let it go through exercise. Good for your health + Good body chemicals released during exercise = Feeling better
6. Let it go physically and mentally. Take a pen, hold it in front of you, imagine all of your worry flowing into the pen from your mind, and then let the pen drop to the floor.
7. Get good, quality rest.

The flaws in me are mine. The best in me is from God.

A nice thing about good friendships is that they feel comfortable. You feel comfortable enough to be yourself, to decide whether or not to hang out with your friend, to open up or not open up, and it’s all okay with both of you.

Today, I want to draw attention to a recent weekly column by family psychologist John Rosemond. He has a great website about traditional parenting, is a sought-after speaker, and is a syndicated columnist appearing in about 250 newspapers in the United States.

His parenting positions are based on common sense and tradition, and he isn’t afraid to be provocative. Actually, I could correct that to say that he can be very direct and many in the U.S. find that provocative when it comes to parenting concerns and beliefs. I personally like being challenged to consider different intellectual topics so I have spent some time considering his parenting column from last week.

The link is here, and is worth reading if you are a parent or guardian:  Living With Children. I initially bristled at his challenging of the idea that high self-esteem in children is good. As I read the rest of the article, I came around to agreeing with his point. Teaching a child to respect others is more important than teaching them to have high self-esteem. That doesn’t mean children should have no or low self-esteem, it’s just that minimizing respect for others in favor of self-esteem is a poor parenting choice and could be socially dangerous. Remember that children are forming beliefs that will stay with them for a long time, possibly for the rest of their life. Respecting other people should be emphasized. This makes sense to me as a therapist and as a parent, and I endorse Mr. Rosemond’s perspective on it.

Have a great week everyone!