Category: Mental Health
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Nine Thinking Errors That Are Common In Depression
Introduction The way that we think affects how we feel. As discussed in another post, our thinking patterns play a large role in depressed mood. People with depression are particularly susceptible to thinking errors (also known as ‘cognitive distortions’). These are thoughts and beliefs that are not grounded in reality, exaggerated, or simply just unhelpful.…
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Distinguishing Between Depressive and Bipolar Disorders
Unipolar vs Bipolar Mood Disorders There are two primary classes of mood disorders: depressive disorders and bipolar disorders. Depressive disorders are unipolar – meaning that people typically only experience the spectrum of mood problems on one side (the depressed side). On the other hand, people with bipolar disorders, as the name suggests, occurs when people…
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Improving Sleep For People With Chronic Pain
The Relationship Between Pain and Insomnia Pain is tough to deal with. Chronic pain is even tougher because it is often a lifelong journey for many people. For some, managing their chronic pain is something requires a significant amount of patience, energy, and resources. One particularly big issue is the relationship between pain and sleep.…
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Emotion Regulation Strategies For When You Are in Crisis
The Emotional Thermometer Different problems require different solutions. On the emotional thermometer (let’s say – from 0 to 100), where we are on this thermometer affects the strategies that we might employ to bring the emotions down to a manageable level. Sometimes we are just at a 10 and we’re doing just fine; we don’t…
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Using The PLEASE Skill To Reduce Emotional Vulnerability
Emotional Vulnerability and Stress There are a number of techniques we can use to effectively manage our emotional response when tensions run high: mindfulness strategies, distraction, breathing exercises, among others. What these ‘in-the-moment’ strategies all have in common is that they all involve you having been in a strong emotional state in the first place.…
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The Difference Between Grief and Depression
Grief and Depression We tend to use the term ‘depression’ as a catch-all word for times we feel lower than our usual selves. However, depression in psychology is typically used as part of major depression – a psychological disorder. What differentiates depression and regular sadness is depression is something we feel beyond what people typically…
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Six Common Anxiety Disorders: Causes and Treatments
Common features of anxiety disorder Everyone experiences anxiety to a certain extent. However, there are instances where anxiety becomes too excessive, pervasive, and/or prolonged that it disrupts everyday life. This is when regular anxiety moves into the disordered category. In this post, I will discuss six common anxiety disorders, their causes, and provide some information…
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Should I choose medication or therapy for my insomnia?
Introduction When I am doing clinical work, my priority is always with the patient. And every patient is different – they each have their own varied lived experiences that come with a unique set of goals and beliefs. Therefore, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to providing treatment recommendations. I am not in the…
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Mindfulness for Depression Relapse Prevention
“Don’t mind the thought itself; instead, seek to change your relationship with the thought” random psychology student, aka me A Primer in Mindfulness Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a founding father of mindfulness, defined the term as “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally”. Mindfulness is therefore: 1) intentional (purposive); 2)…
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A Problem Solving Approach to Worry
Introduction Worries can come in all shapes and sizes. Some are more specific to our daily lives (e.g., “I need to find childcare for my son before I start work next month”) while others are more general and ambiguous (e.g., “everything seems so uncertain”). A key characteristic of worry is that it is future-focused. That…
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