Category: Mental Health
-
Simple Ways To Get Better Sleep If You Have Insomnia Based on Sleep Science
Introduction The world is full of myths, misconceptions, and misinformation about how to treat insomnia. For example, people talk about sleep hygiene as a solution to insomnia; in reality, sleep hygiene is not an effective strategy to treat insomnia. Even physicians tend to immediately jump to sleep medication, which most people do not prefer because…
-
SMART Goals For Social Anxiety
What is Social Anxiety? Social anxiety at its core is a fear of negatively evaluation. People with social anxiety are worried that they will do something to embarrass themselves and other people will judge them: “they are stupid”, “they are so boring”, “I can’t believe they did that” are a few worries that people with…
-
Optimizing Your Sleep: Six Components Of The Sleep Health Framework
The Sleep Health Framework (Buysse, 2014) helps us to understand sleep health in a multidimensional way, in which the sleep-wake cycle is broken into six important components that together optimizes our health and functioning. These sleep components include: In this post, I discuss each of these components in turn and provide strategies to optimize these…
-
Examples Of SMART Goals For Sleep
Sleep is arguably one of the most important parts of our life. When we sleep well, we feel much happier and more effective in our day-to-day life. Work comes easier, conversations flow smoother, and things are just a bit brighter. It comes as no surprise then that improved sleep is a goal for many people.…
-
Getting Over Your Fear Of Being Awake At Night
People with sleep problems, such as an insomnia, tend to be particularly afraid of being awake in the middle of the night. Specifically, they find this situation to be quite dangerous and they are filled with thoughts about the implications: Unfortunately, these thoughts tend to ramp up our anxiety and make sleep even less likely…
-
6 Reasons Why You Might Be Sleepy
When we think about sleepiness, it is first important to distinguish between being “sleepy” and being “tired”. People often use them interchangeably, but there’s actually an important difference. Whereas sleepiness refers to being able to fall asleep at any given moment (e.g., head rolling, nodding off), being tired is a general lack of energy either…
-
Examples Of SMART Goals For People With Insomnia
People with insomnia often have a simple goal for their sleep: to sleep better and feel better. However, what better sleep looks like from person to person can be very different. Some individuals have greater difficulty falling asleep, whereas others might struggle more with waking up in the middle of the night. Moreover, sometimes people…
-
Helpful Examples Of SMART Goals For Anxiety
Anxiety, in its intended form, is often helpful. It helps us to stay safe and prepare in the face of danger. We certainly wouldn’t want to be taking a laissez-faire attitude if a car was racing at us at 100 miles an hour. At appropriate levels, anxiety is very beneficial. However, when our danger signals…
-
Examples Of SMART Goals For Depression
SMART Goal definition and use in depression SMART goals, as an acronym, stands for goals that are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time Bound. If interested, here’s a post that goes into further details about what a SMART goals is and how to create SMART goals. In therapy, SMART goals are often used for people…
-
Should I Tell The Interviewer That I Have Social Anxiety?
Social anxiety and the job interview People often wonder how much self-disclosure is appropriate for job interviews. Would it be better to come right out and be honest about their struggles and weaknesses? Or is it more appropriate to avoid saying anything that could negatively affect their chances of finding employment? These considerations may be…
Simply mental health 