anxiety
Sara Stanizai
Anxiety Isn’t Just in Your Head: How Stress ...

by Tiffany Hooton, LMFT.

When people think about anxiety, they usually imagine constant worrying or thoughts looping on repeat. However, anxiety, like all emotions, is not a purely cognitive experience; it also lives in the body. Tight shoulders, unexplained nausea, a racing heart, or restless nights can all be signs of stress you’re carrying without realizing it.

This connection between mind and body matters, especially in a world where stress feels increasingly inescapable. Many people are living with not just personal worries but also collective fears tied to politics and questions of safety. For LGBTQ folks, immigrants, and others navigating discrimination, uncertainty, and threats of violence, the weight of these pressures can show up as chronic stress. Paying attention to how anxiety affects the body can be a first step toward understanding what you’re going through and can offer some concrete strategies to care for yourself even when so much else feels out of your hands.

Anxiety Isn’t Just in Your Head: How Stress Shows Up in the Body
self-esteem
Sara Stanizai
Healing Begins Here: Self-Compassion in the ...

by Andrew Kravig, LMFT.

In my time working with those suffering from addiction, I have found one truth to be consistently overlooked—not by those struggling, but by the systems, narratives, and even treatments surrounding them: The absence of self-compassion.

Addiction is not a choice. It is not a moral failing. It is not, at its core, about substances or behaviors. Addiction is a response—a deeply human response—to pain. It is an attempt to soothe wounds that may not even be remembered, to quiet voices of shame that have echoed for decades, and to reclaim, if only briefly, a sense of agency in a world that once felt out of control.

Yet despite this, those struggling with addiction are often met with judgment—from others, certainly, but most tragically, from themselves.

Healing Begins Here: Self-Compassion in the Midst of Addiction
couples therapy
Sara Stanizai
Investing in Your Emotional Bank Account: Small ...

by Tiffany Hooton, LMFT.

If you’ve ever been in a long-term relationship, you’ve probably learned that grand romantic gestures, while nice, can’t alone sustain a loving relationship; more often, it’s the subtler, everyday interactions that dictate much of how we feel with our partners: How you greet each other at the end of a long day, the small ways you show up, inside jokes, and a reliable shoulder to lean on when times are tough. Over time, those moments create a kind of emotional reserve. In the Gottman Method of couples therapy, we call this the emotional bank account.

The idea is simple, but profound: Every interaction between partners either deposits into or withdraws from that account. Warmth, affection, and attention all add to your balance. Criticism, dismissal, and neglect take away from it. When your emotional bank account is full, it’s easier to weather stress, misunderstandings, and conflict because you’re drawing from a well of trust and goodwill. Conversely, when it’s low, even small infractions may be enough to cause a disgruntled partner to rethink their relationship.

And, for queer and trans relationships, as well as other marginalized groups, who may already be carrying the emotional toll of navigating an often unkind world, these daily “deposits” can mean so much more, as a strong, trusting relationship (romantic or not) is sometimes our most reliable source of support and affirmation.

Investing in Your Emotional Bank Account: Small Gestures that Keep Relationships Going
Sara Stanizai
The Art of Conscious Uncoupling: A Therapeutic ...

by Andrew Kravig, LMFT.

In the aftermath of romantic attachment, we often imagine only rupture: the slammed doors, the silence, the fragments of ourselves left scattered in the emotional debris. But, what if the end of a relationship was not a failure, but an evolution? What if the way we part ways became as intentional and compassionate as the way we came together?

Conscious uncoupling is not simply a trend or a softer word for divorce—it is a philosophy of ending that respects the bond once shared. It is the courageous act of turning toward the pain with curiosity rather than blame, with integrity rather than vindication. As a therapist, I have sat with couples in the throes of heartbreak and also with those choosing to close their relationship with care. And I’ve come to believe that how we end matters as much as how we begin.

The Art of Conscious Uncoupling: A Therapeutic Guide to Ending with Intention
depression
Sara Stanizai
It’s So Beatable: Three Lessons I Learned About ...

by Tiffany Hooton, LMFT

If you’ve ever played Dark Souls, you know it’s a franchise that carries a reputation for its punishing bosses, bleak atmosphere, and environmental storytelling. Players new to the series find themselves facing defeat at every turn. The world of Lordran feels hostile and desolate. Everything wants to kill you, even the environment itself. Because, as seasoned players know, the real boss is gravity. The story is fragmented. Progress is slow and grueling.

So why do people like this game so much? True, there are fans who are in it for bragging rights, who want to make the game seem as difficult and as inaccessible as possible to new players in order to bolster their gamer egos. But there’s more to it than that. For many others, there is a genuine pleasure taken in meeting the challenges the game presents, and it’s in those challenges that I’ve found the greatest meaning.

Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that video games are a cure for mental health struggles; however, like any work of art, games can reflect life back at us in sometimes surprising ways. And, as someone who’s worked closely with depression and has, at times, struggled with it personally, I found that the mindset I developed while playing Dark Souls was useful for more than just beating bosses.

It’s So Beatable: Three Lessons I Learned About Navigating Depression from Dark Souls

anxiety

Anxiety Isn’t Just in Your Head: How Stress Shows Up in the Body

Anxiety Isn’t Just in Your Head: How Stress Shows Up in the Body

by Tiffany Hooton, LMFT.

When people think about anxiety, they usually imagine constant worrying or thoughts looping on repeat. However, anxiety, like all emotions, is not a purely cognitive experience; it also lives in the body. Tight shoulders, unexplained nausea, a racing heart, or restless nights can all be signs of stress you’re carrying without realizing it.

This connection between mind and body matters, especially in a world where stress feels increasingly inescapable. Many people are living with not just personal worries but also collective fears tied to politics and questions of safety. For LGBTQ folks, immigrants, and others navigating discrimination, uncertainty, and threats of violence, the weight of these pressures can show up as chronic stress. Paying attention to how anxiety affects the body can be a first step toward understanding what you’re going through and can offer some concrete strategies to care for yourself even when so much else feels out of your hands.

Hello Kitty: How I learned DBT from One Direction

Hello Kitty: How I learned DBT from One Direction

By Brianna Patti, LMFT.

My Instagram feed lovingly (read: rudely) reminded me that July 23, 2025 was the 15-year anniversary of the formation of One Direction. Coincidentally, I had come across my collection of CDs a few months prior and noticed that I never purchased their final album, Made in the A.M. (2015), because the eight-month-old wound of Zayn’s departure was still too fresh at the time. I decided it was finally time to include this fifth album to my collection, sans our beloved fifth boy.

While I waited for the CD to arrive, I started playing their old albums again. I popped Up All Night into my Hello Kitty boombox (easily my best eBay purchase ever), and I nearly burst into tears when I heard the late Liam Payne sing the first line of the opening track. Suddenly, I was a teenager finding solace in the harmonies sung by other teenagers. This emotional time travel helped me return to a time when music, fandoms, and daydreams softened the edges of my reality. 

I know I’m not alone when I say that my adolescence was rocky, and my favorite boy band offered me a temporary sense of safety. I’d describe their music as a kind of emotional scaffolding— something to hold onto when everything else felt unsteady. Their music didn’t fix anything, but it made me feel less alone, and sometimes that was enough. As a therapist, I’d like to share what I’m noticing about the benefits of diving into this kind of nostalgia.

Holding Steady: A Trans Man’s Guide to Navigating Uncertain Times

Holding Steady: A Trans Man’s Guide to Navigating Uncertain Times

By Andrew Kravig

 

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably looked around lately and felt the weight of it all pressing in. The news cycle feels relentless. Policies targeting trans people seem to sprout up overnight. One day, I’m planning my week around a normal routine — work, gym, maybe brunch with friends — and the next, I’m reading about a new bill threatening access to gender-affirming care in a state I used to call home.

 

Being a trans man in uncertain times isn’t new, but it is exhausting. So how do we navigate it all — the headlines, the microaggressions, the family dinners where we’re still misgendered, the internal pressure to keep showing up when it feels like the ground keeps shifting?

 

I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve picked up a few strategies that have helped me stay grounded when everything feels unstable.

Grounding When Anxiety Visits

Grounding When Anxiety Visits

by Wanda Diep, LCSW

An acute bout of anxiety is anything but cute. In the moment, you might feel intense dread, an indescribable feeling like something terrible is going to happen. Plus, there are the body sensations of sweating, tunnel vision, lightheadedness, shallow breathing, and feeling frozen in place.

The good news is, you’ll be ok. The bad news is, you don’t know that in the moment.

I wrote out some of the common ways I help my clients deal with intense anxiety they might experience when out in their daily life.

Different things may work for you and your nervous system. One person’s clean, white, empty room is another person’s pile of pillows in a dark room with a comfort TV show and sparkling water to distract them. Here are a few steps to try, and then you can personalize them for yourself.

Five Ways to Unhook from Anxious Thoughts

Five Ways to Unhook from Anxious Thoughts

Has this ever happened to you? You’re sitting at home deliberating over whether to put on your shoes and see some friends for a night out. Maybe you should just cancel. All it would take is a text, “Sorry, can’t make it. Have a headache. :(” The temptation to climb in bed and hide under the covers grows enormous. All you can think about is that weird thing you said last week in front of a new acquaintance. Or that mistake you made at work. Or the big project that’s due next week. You’re definitely going to blow it. Your friends probably don’t really care about seeing you anyway.

But there’s another part of you, too. The part of you that loves your friends. That knows self- isolating will only make things worse. So why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we choose to opt out of things when that’s not really what we want? And, more importantly, what can we do about it when our anxious thoughts commandeer our behaviors, steering us away from what truly matters?

This is where cognitive defusion, a cornerstone of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), comes in. Cognitive defusion helps us “unhook” from anxious thoughts by creating space between us and the mental chatter. Instead of fighting or believing every thought, we learn to observe them with curiosity and let them come and go without being controlled by them.

Harnessing the Power of the Vagus Nerve: 7 Effective Ways to Support Your Mental Health

Harnessing the Power of the Vagus Nerve: 7 Effective Ways to Support Your Mental Health

In my quest to manage my mental health after an extremely stressful few years (who’s with me?) I’ve noticed everyone keeps talking about the vagus nerve. As the longest cranial nerve in the body, it forms a vital connection between the brain and various organs, including the heart, lungs, and digestive system.

It’s one of those things I learned about in grad school, as well as at several therapist trainings over the years. But like most things, I didn’t start paying close attention until it affected me. Here’s what I’ve learned, I hope it helps you too.

REST AND DIGEST: The Opposite of Fight or Flight

By stimulating the vagus nerve, we can enhance our vagal tone, which is crucial for supporting our mental health.

Increasing your vagal tone activates the parasympathetic nervous system, and having higher vagal tone means that your body can relax faster after stress.

If you think of stress management in terms of cultivating the opposite of fight or flight, you’ll understand why things that promote our body to rest and digest will help you not only reduce stress, but bounce back from stressful situations more easily.

How Does the Vagus Nerve Help Anxiety?

I’m glad you asked! Here are seven ways to improve your mental health by activating your vagus nerve.

Addressing the Mental Health Stigma for Professionals

Addressing the Mental Health Stigma for Professionals

The year is 2022. Society is becoming more focused on the importance of mental health, but much work still needs to be done. This stigma surrounding mental illness remains present and may even carry more weight for healthcare professionals themselves.

According to the World Health Organization, as many as two-thirds of people who experience mental health difficulties do not seek the appropriate treatment. This number is probably higher for professionals due in part to the fact that stigmas still exist and can cause people to feel ashamed.

Given that anyone struggling with mental health issues is already carrying a daily burden having to grapple with stigmas is additional, unnecessary pain.

In order for anyone, including professionals, to be able to assist others, something needs to be done to address this problem.

Why Do I Feel Anxious For No Reason?

Why Do I Feel Anxious For No Reason?

If you notice you keep telling yourself what you “should be doing” to manage your mental health, take an honest inventory of what you’re actually doing. Many times, people say they are “working on it” but can’t name one or two things they are actually doing. This is like taking a day off but spending it worried about work: It’s not really rest!

Try a few of the things on this list, or come up with your own. There isn’t a right or wrong way, it’s just the way that works for you. But if you’re running out of ideas, talking to a trained mental health professional can help.

Navigating Anxiety After the Overturning of Roe v. Wade

Navigating Anxiety After the Overturning of Roe v. Wade

Why the Overturning of Roe v. Wade Causes Anxiety

Any kind of jolting political update can result in shock, fear, anger, and uncertainty. Our lives are full and nuanced. At some point, we take certain political and social realities for granted. Roe v. Wade dates back to 1973. There are people that have been born since then and have lived their entire lives with this ruling as a part of their reality. Meanwhile, the people that knew the realities of life before 1973 are more advanced in age. Sure, there have been attempts to alter or overturn it, but most people didn’t see it as something that requires constant attention.

Upon hearing the news of the Supreme Court decision, what once felt certain suddenly became chaos. Uncertainty breeds anxiety. ‘What will happen next…How does this affect me and my loved ones…Are we in danger of other drastic changes?’

It’s normal to feel stressed about such scenarios. However, if the stress morphs into a free-floating sense of general anxiety, you could be dealing with a diagnosable disorder. Let’s explore some self-help steps you can take right away to alleviate those stress levels.

Burned-Out & Overwhelmed: How Depression Affects First Responders

Burned-Out & Overwhelmed: How Depression Affects First Responders

Superhero movies have dominated Hollywood for at least a decade. Ironically, this may be leading us to take real-life heroes for granted. First responders are the ones who run toward a crisis or disaster. They are emergency medical personnel, disaster response teams, firefighters, and more. They are the people you turn to in the worst moments of your life.

They put their bodies on the line every day. Yet, it’s more than that. First responders can face a massive emotional toll during a typical workday.

Sure, they chose their career. Yes, they are essential to every community. But we cannot underestimate the potentially traumatic conditions under which they operate. This helps to explain why depression, anxiety, and related concerns are not uncommon among these professionals.

Perfectionism is Not Polite

Perfectionism is Not Polite

It’s natural and a sign of high self esteem to want to improve yourself. The main difference between wanting to do better and wanting to do the BEST is how you view mistakes, shortcomings, or flaws. The person striving for improvement sees their mistakes as a natural part of the process, not as a sign of failure. The perfectionist sees their flaws as cancelling out any good they have done.

The pandemic has burdened a lot of our social circles from seeing each other as often as we did in the past.

This may not be the popular opinion, but a lot of us are fine with that. For many people, less emphasis on socializing has been a relief.

Introverts, people with social anxiety, busy parents, people paying down credit card debt. A bunch of us were glad to not have to look for parking every weekend.

However, you may have been feeling lonely and isolated this whole time. And it may not be just because of the pandemic. Perhaps something deeper is at play?

If you spend so long coming up with the right thing to say that you delay interacting with anyone, your problem could actually be perfectionism. This, in fact, is great news!

While we can’t control the ebbs and flows of the world outside, we can always control how we choose to face it. Let’s talk about why overcoming your perfectionism could be the key to several ongoing problems in your life.

Anxiety After Social Distancing

Anxiety After Social Distancing

It’s OK if you’re not ready to “go back to how things were.”

As the weather warms up for summer and COVID fatigue reduces public inhibitions, many places are returning to “normal”: Kicking masks, social distancing, and isolation to the curb.

If you spent the past two years carefully avoiding face-to-face interactions with people outside your bubble, it can be pretty jarring.

You may be thinking, “What did I use to wear to work?” or “Were awkward silences after someone finishes speaking this long before?”

You might be painfully aware of people sharing drinks while watching your favorite re-runs.

And heaven help the person who coughs in public.

You’ve adjusted to an almost always virtual world, so returning to an in-person world can be anxiety-inducing.

Fret not—you’re not alone, and there are things you can do to make the transition easier.

Are Childhood Trauma and Anxiety Connected?

Are Childhood Trauma and Anxiety Connected?

You’ve been feeling anxious lately, but you know you don’t have any of the telltale symptoms of an extreme anxiety disorder, like PTSD. We know from studying PTSD that feelings of anxiety can develop because of childhood trauma. Even the classic depiction of it involves being so bogged down by anxiety from a trigger that it mentally places you right back in your traumatic past.

But what about the anxiety that doesn’t seem connected to a specific event? The kind you can’t really put your finger on? You may ask yourself: do I have any underlying trauma that’s making me anxious? Let’s talk about the connection between childhood trauma and anxiety.

Mindfulness in a Crisis: What to Do When You Can't Do Anything

Mindfulness in a Crisis: What to Do When You Can't Do Anything

When things go wrong in our lives, it’s a natural response to try to fix it. Humans have thrived through our problem-solving skills, and they come in handy every day. Sometimes, however, things happen that are out of our control. They’re out of our hands to solve and it feels helpless. Or, sometimes, more damage is done by trying to maintain control in an out-of-control situation. In situations like these, the best thing to do in the moment is to take a step back and try to find peace in other ways.

Coping with Medical Anxiety

Coping with Medical Anxiety

Anxiety is a beast. This emotion covers a vast range of feelings, thoughts, body responses, triggers, and so much more. It is simultaneously a casual term for small flutters in your stomach to intense disorders requiring therapy, medication, and more to function. Anxiety is extremely personal and individual, so it may manifest in different ways and for various reasons.

If you experience anxiety, you may find yourself worrying about many different things. Work, relationships, socializing, and family issues are just some of the everyday things that cause worry.

But what about physical health?

Though often overlooked or written off as something every does, anxiety over physical health is actually a common thing. But especially now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, people are more worried than ever before about their health.

While this worry is completely valid and can be based in a lot of facts, this worry about physical health is taking a toll on many peoples’ mental health — and possibly yours, too.

What is Grounding and How Does it Help with Anxiety and Trauma?

What is Grounding and How Does it Help with Anxiety and Trauma?

If you struggle with anxiety, then you know first-hand how consuming your anxious thoughts can be. You may be totally fine one moment, minding your own business, when your brain suddenly attacks with an onslaught of anxious thoughts racing around in wild patterns- which can be totally debilitating. Anxiety is often hard to explain to others, extremely frustrating, and the unpredictability can be especially rough.

So much of anxiety and trauma is related to our experiences of the past and our worries about the future.

If you have experienced a particularly traumatic event, you can be triggered by flashbacks, memories, and reminders of the trauma, which can cause intense feelings of anxiety. This can also look like fear and worry about that event happening again or dealing with an “anniversary” of when it happened.

Grounding techniques are an incredible way to help reduce the impact of those messy icky anxious feelings in the moment.

Unfortunately, anxiety happens. Those messy feelings? Yeah, they’re gonna happen too. And as much as we want to get rid of them and feel “100% healed,” life just doesn’t work that way. While grounding isn’t a way to erase these memories or experiences, it can be a way to have them feel less intense in the moment, which will help you build resilience over time.

While grounding isn’t a cure for anxiety, it’s a useful technique to bust out when the hardest moments happen. Instead of drowning in your anxious thoughts, grounding can help bring you back to reality. Here’s how it works.

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Why High Achievers Avoid Therapy (and why they shouldn't)

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Why High Achievers Avoid Therapy (and why they shouldn't)

If you’ve been a high-achiever for most of your life, you’ve gotten used to chasing - and finding - success. It’s not an accident that you’ve exceeded in academics, your social life, and in your career. Sure, this drive often comes from a deep desire to be liked and to compensate for deficits (emotional or otherwise) from your childhood. But who wants to talk about that?

We do!

When you’re busy juggling a career, relationships, hobbies, and a social life, it’s easy to ignore emotional or mental health issues. You might not even notice there are issues to avoid in first place. Everything is fine as long as I keep saying it is, right? This is what we in the biz call super-avoidance. (No one calls it that.)

Self-described “alphas” often get that way by ruthlessly prioritizing. And therapy might not be the highest priority on your list. If everything is fine, why rock a steady boat?

While this isn’t always the case, sometimes that very success that we are so proud of, comes at the price of our mental health. What types of emotions and experiences have you given up in order to meet arbitrary milestones, to meet that long-fetishized muse named productivity, or to please someone in authority?

As long as you continue to ignore your mental well-being, it will soon affect other aspects of your life. As they say, if you don’t make time for your wellness, you’ll have to make time for your illness.

The Coronavirus Pandemic is Kicking Your Anxiety into Overdrive

The Coronavirus Pandemic is Kicking Your Anxiety into Overdrive

Your routines have been turned upside down, and no one seems to have helpful information. Think about how you usually respond to change. Do you resist it? Lean into it? Insist on keeping things the way they were as long as possible? Or abandon anything familiar and wing it? Your response is this reality is just like that, times 100.

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The Five Types of Impostor Syndrome

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The Five Types of Impostor Syndrome

Have you ever felt like you’re living a life you don’t deserve? Or, that you are offered opportunities you aren’t qualified for?

Turns out, even the highest achievers go through the same thing as you, and it’s called the impostor syndrome.

Impostor syndrome affects 70 percent of millennials and counting. This syndrome is defined as an extreme case of self-doubt. So extreme that it stops you from chasing your dreams or sharing your experiences with those that are two steps behind you.

It’s the inability to internalize (or believe) in your success despite external evidence of that success.

You constantly think everything you do is fraudulent. But guess what? You are worthy of your experiences. You have earned your place no matter what stage of life, or your career, you are in.

The 5 types of impostor syndrome are:

  1. The Perfectionist: You set your own bar a little too high, because reaching a goal means it must not have been that hard to do.

  2. The SuperHuman: Overworking yourself means you’re the best, right?

  3. The Natural Genius: Really good at stuff, but only do what’s comfortable.

  4. The Soloist: Thinks asking for help shows weakness.

  5. The Expert: You know your stuff but freeze when someone asks you to demonstrate your competence.

This syndrome may stop you from reaching your biggest career goals or pushing yourself to grow. If you think you may be dealing with impostor syndrome, Mint created an infographic explaining the different types, how each type may affect your finances, and tips to overcoming it.

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