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Food is Not a Reward, and 3 Other Food Habits to Avoid

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Growing up, how often were you rewarded – or bribed – with food for good behavior?

“Clean your room and we’ll go out for ice cream.”

“You got an A? Well, that calls for a cookie!”

If you’re like most people, food – particularly sweet food – was used as a treat or reward when you behaved well or accomplished something. Maybe it was even used as a comfort mechanism when you got a scrape or cut.

Unfortunately, these seemingly benign gestures from parents or grandparents set many of us up for a lifetime of using food as a reward. “I aced my final exams, time for pizza.” “Yes, got that promotion! I feel like going out for beer and wings.”

And while using food as a reward may feel innocent enough, it can lead to weight gain, health problems, and depression.

One way to tell you have a food/reward issue is to take a little test. The next time you celebrate with eating your favorite foods (perhaps your guiltiest pleasures), take notice of how you feel afterward.

Do you feel euphoric at first, but then remorseful? Do you feel physically uncomfortable or even ill from the kind or amount of food you chose to eat? Do you feel shame, regret, or self-loathing?

If you feel bad after rewarding yourself with food, I encourage you to become more aware of your food choices and think of other, healthier ways to celebrate or treat yourself for a specific achievement. Think of ways you can indulge without feeling bad.

Emotional Eating

It’s natural for people to want to treat themselves to something special after a hard day or challenging experience. If you just finished a grueling 12-hour shift, maybe you and some co-workers want to hit the local greasy spoon. After a funeral, it’s traditional that loved ones gather to eat.

It’s when eating becomes a daily coping mechanism for the stressors in life that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. While comfort foods may seem to offer relief and even give us a little high, eventually we end up feeling worse than we initially did.

To overcome emotional eating, it’s important to get in touch with your emotions. What are you trying to cope with or stuff down with food? Becoming comfortable with your emotions will make you less likely to avoid them with food.

Also, find healthier ways to support yourself during times of stress and grief. Go for walks, take hot baths, or maybe spend a day at the spa.

Mindless Eating

A study out of Cornell University illustrates mindless eating perfectly: moviegoers were given extra-large containers of stale popcorn, yet they still ate 45% more than the moviegoers who were munching on piping-hot-fresh popcorn out of smaller containers.

For many of us, if the food is there we will eat it when our mind is distracted with something else. And this is a BIG problem in this country, where portion sizes have increased exponentially over the past 30 years.

It is incredibly important to pay attention to what you eat and how much of it. Stop eating in front of the computer or television and sit down as a family. Really smell and taste each delicious bite.

Eating Too Fast

Akin to mindlessly eating, eating too fast causes many of us to eat too many calories. We don’t realize we’re full and keep stuffing it in. Some studies have even suggested eating too fast messes with our GI tract and may even lead to insulin resistance.

A simple solution? Chewing each bite fully. Go ahead, count those chews. However many times you find you normally chew your food before swallowing, double that number. You will be amazed at how much more pleasure you get from your food. You will also be amazed at how little it takes for you to become full. And when you feel full, stop eating.

If you feel you have a food addiction problem and would like to speak to someone, please get in touch with me. I would be happy to discuss treatment options with you.

Filed Under: Nutrition

5 Signs You Aren’t Practicing Self-Care

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Self-care is complex. Anyone can tell you to do it, but only you can bestow the gift of self-care onto yourself. But before you can begin bestowing, you’ve got to first recognize that you are worthy of caring for yourself as you do others.

How do you do this? By noticing the ways in which you are currently not taking very good care of yourself.

Here are 5 signs you aren’t practicing self-care. If any seem familiar, it is time to make more time for yourself:

1. You Get Sick More Often

When we don’t take proper care of ourselves, our health takes a big hit. Lack of proper sleep and nutrition can lead to a taxed immune system, which in turn makes you vulnerable to infections, colds, flu, and other immune-related medical problems.

2. Increased Moodiness

What happens when a child does not get the care and attention they deserve? They begin to act out in order to get any attention. In much the same way, a lack of self-care and feeling of unimportance can lead to increased irritability. Leaving this unchecked can result in personal and professional relationships being negatively affected.

3. Unpleasant Physical Symptoms

What can start out as unpleasant (and even scary) physical symptoms, can be a sign of poor self-care. Symptoms may include dizziness, shortness of breath, chest pains, heart palpitations, abdominal pain, headaches, and fainting spells. All of these symptoms should be checked out by your healthcare provider immediately.

4. A Feeling of Isolation

When you feel you don’t deserve to care for yourself, you naturally feel unworthy of enjoying other aspects of life, like socializing and a true connection to friends and family. This can lead to a detachment of others and a sense of isolation.

5. Depression

Feelings of worthlessness can snowball into feelings of hopelessness and depression. If you have noticed yourself slipping farther and farther into a depression, it is important that you seek help from a mental health professional. They can help you recognize where the darkness has come from, and how to break through back into the light.

If you or a loved one is experiencing depression, or would simply like some help practicing self-care, please be in touch with me. I would be more than happy to speak with you about how I may be able to help.

Filed Under: General, Self-Esteem

Snack on Spirituality: How Meditation Can Help Kick Your Cravings

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It’s 10pm. Do you know where your junk food is?

Unfortunately, it’s a bad habit many of us can relate to: that unwanted craving for junk food. Whether it’s a craving for ice cream right after dinner, or a hankering for potato chips while you watch the nightly news, food cravings are a bad habit most of us would like to drop. One of the easiest ways to drop a bad habit is through the practice of meditation.

What exactly is meditation? Meditation is a practice of “thoughtless awareness,” where we bring ourselves to a state of deep peace by quieting and calming the mind as we remain alert. Through the practice of meditation, you can begin to reduce stress and improve both mental and physical health.

Here’s how meditation can help reduce your food cravings.

Exert Better Control

A 2009 Duke University/CalTech study found that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the section of the brain activated by people with high willpower, is the same area of the brain that’s especially active during meditation. Other studies have shown that the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that relates to self-regulation, is more active in meditators than non-meditators. Through regular meditation, you can exert better control over your decisions throughout the day, and kick those bad food cravings to the curb.

Coping with Stress

It’s well known that stress can cause you to crave junk food. When we’re stressed out, we have a high level of the stress hormone cortisol. If we eat sugar, our body releases serotonin, a hormone that calms and relaxes us. Also, eating foods high in fat, sugar, and salt elicits a strong response in the body’s natural opioids, relieving our stress. Through regular meditation, we can better manage our stress, which will help reduce junk food cravings.

Practicing Mindfulness

Meditation helps us practice mindfulness, which is being more aware of what’s happening in the present moment. To break a bad habit, we have to be aware when it’s happening. With improved mindfulness, we can stop mindless snacking and start to change our unwanted behaviors.

If you’re new to meditating and need help starting out, search YouTube for “guided meditations for breaking bad habits,” or “guided meditations for habit change.” There are also a few guided meditation videos specifically for dealing with food cravings.

Are you struggling with maintaining healthy eating habits and need professional guidance and support? Call me today so we can schedule an appointment.

Filed Under: General, Nutrition

How to Practice Self-Care as a New Mother

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While there are many surprises and challenges that await you in motherhood, one of the biggest shocks may be time management, or the feeling of being overwhelmed. No matter how happy and fulfilled you may be as a new mom, if you don’t take time out of your busy day to take care of yourself, you’re not giving your precious baby your best self. Ensuring that you practice self-care might seem like the lowest of your priorities, but being rested and cared for yourself is an essential part of being a mom.

While it will be challenging, it’s not impossible to make sure you take care of you. Below are some pointers that can help.

Get Your Sleep

While sleeping for a solid chunk of time may be a pipe dream for some, sleeping when your baby sleeps will allow you to get that much needed rest. If you’re worried that you won’t wake to baby’s cries, keep a baby monitor on your nightstand or bring the crib into your bedroom. Ignore the temptation to do chores while your baby sleeps, because it’s vital that you get your rest.

Stay Well Dressed

While it’s tempting to wear your maternity clothes out of convenience and to save money, it will help you feel your best to have comfortable clothes that fit. Get a couple of outfits in your size to wear until you get back to your pre-baby weight.

Make Time to Shower

If you neglect the simple routine of taking a shower, it will take a toll on your mental health. To make sure you shower regularly, try taking a shower when someone is home. You can also bring your baby in the bathroom with you, or take a quick shower while the baby is napping.

Accept Help

Regardless if you’re single or have a partner, trying to go it alone in caring for your baby is a big mistake. You may hate to ask for or accept help, but raising a baby is a lot of work. By recruiting help, you can make sure you have enough time to not only take care of the baby, but to take care of yourself. To try and do it all yourself does nothing but put unrealistic expectations on you, giving you feelings of guilt when you’re unable to accomplish the impossible. It’s important to ask for and accept help.

Make sure your partner is making an equal effort when it comes to baby’s care, and enlist the help of family and friends. If you have a friend that loves to cook, see if they’ll cook you an occasional meal. You might also ask for help with laundry, running errands, or babysitting (even if it’s just half an hour so you can take a long hot shower.)

 

Are you a new mom looking for parenting support and guidance? A licensed professional therapist can help. Call my office at your earliest convenience, and let’s schedule an appointment to talk.

Filed Under: New Mother, Parenting

Is Meditation for Me?

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As beautiful and joyous as life can be, it can also be plain ol’ stressful. Whether it’s hefty mortgage payments, killer commutes, or bosses who don’t give us the credit we deserve, stress can come at us from all different angles.

Surveys have uncovered some pretty disturbing statistics about stress. 33% of people feel they live with extreme stress, while 48% believe the stress in their lives has increased over the past five years. And a whopping 77% of people surveyed said they experience physical symptoms caused by stress.

What are some of these physical symptoms linked to chronic stress?

• Pain of any kind
• Sleep problems
• Autoimmune diseases
• Digestive problems
• Skin conditions, such as eczema
• Heart disease
• Weight problems
• Reproductive issues
• Thinking and memory issues

How Meditation Can Help

There is now scientific evidence that meditation is effective against physical symptoms of stress such as IBS, high blood pressure, and ulcerative colitis. Meditation has been linked with improved immune response, reduction in pain sensitivity, and a shift from negativity to positivity.

Further, research has shown that meditation may physically alter the brain and how we are able to cope with chronic stress.

But what exactly is meditation? When many people hear that word, they have instant visions of people sitting in lotus position chanting, “Ohmmm.”

Mindful meditation is simply the practice of harnessing our attention to quiet our chattering minds. Instead of letting our brains run rampant like energetic puppies, sniffing one thought after another and another and another, mindfulness focuses our attention in the now.

The problem is because mediation is so deceptively simple, many people either feel it can’t possibly work in general, or they won’t benefit from it. And because we live in a society that seems to promote instant gratification, other people expect that after their first 20 minutes of meditating, all of their problems will magically dissolve.

But meditation is called a “practice” for a reason. Like anything else that is beneficial to your mind and body (sound nutrition and exercise), it takes commitment to reap those benefits.

Tips for Beginner Meditators

If you are interested in trying meditation for yourself, here are a few key tips:

• Get comfortable – you don’t have to sit in the lotus pose. You can sit in a comfy chair or even lie down. The trick is to be comfortable enough that your body sensations don’t distract you, but not so comfortable that you fall asleep.
• Don’t try and control your breath, just breathe naturally, simply staying aware of your breath.
• Start with just a few minutes and build from there.
• Don’t try to be perfect. There is no perfection in life or meditation, so just keep practicing every day.

If you find after you’ve been meditating for a little while that you could use some extra help dealing with the stress in your life, get in touch with me. I’d be happy to explore treatment options with you and talk about how I may be able to help.

Filed Under: General

Tips to Talking Mental Health with Your Teen / Child

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If you or a loved one have been diagnosed with a mental illness, you know firsthand how the diagnosis can impact your life. Mental illness is not only challenging for adults to understand but children as well. With so many myths and misconceptions surrounding mental illness, it’s easy for young people to feel anxious and confused.

With this in mind, here are some tips on how you can speak to your child about mental health.

Be Open

Your child is most likely noticing a change or difference in behavior from mom, dad, or another relative with mental illness. There is no point in keeping it a secret. Be open about the diagnosis and give the illness a name (depression, bipolar disorder…). Doing so will help alleviate some fear and insecurities as well as clear up any incorrect assumptions.

Alleviate Fault or Responsibility

Most kids naturally feel they want to help fix mommy or daddy, or they may feel something they did caused their loved one to not be well.

Reassure your child and explain that the illness is not their fault nor their responsibility.

Invite Their Honesty

While you may feel you need to keep a stiff upper lip for your spouse or loved one’s benefit, your kids should feel free to openly express their feelings, whether these feelings be fear, sadness, or anger. Listen to whatever they say without judging what they say.

Invite Questions

Your kids will have a lot of them, so invite them to ask. If they don’t feel comfortable asking questions face-to-face, use a journal. They can write down any questions they want, and you’ll write the answer and give it back to them. Knowing they can come to you and that you are still the parent will give them a much-needed sense of calm and security.

Communicate at a Level that is Age Appropriate

Preschool-age children will need different language than teenagers. They will need less details, whereas older children will want more details. School-age children will take the information shared and begin to worry what it means for them and the family. Be prepared to answer many questions concerning their safety and security.

And teenagers are a unique bunch – you will have to follow your teen’s lead. Some may speak openly, already aware to a certain extent about mental health issues. Some may seem withdrawn and not speak much at all. You will want to continue to check in with them to make sure they are doing okay.

 

Talking to your kids about mental health won’t be easy, but as long as you follow these tips, you will have an opportunity to share important information and offer love, support, and guidance.

If you feel you and your family could use some extra support in discussing a loved one’s mental illness, please get in touch with me. I would be more than happy to talk about counseling options with you.

Filed Under: Family Therapy, General, Teens/Children

3 Signs Social Media Is Hindering Your Happiness

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How long has it been since you checked your Facebook page or Twitter account? If you’re like most people, you use social media many times throughout the day.

But while you may think social media is fun, studies have suggested that it can take a toll on our emotions. One such study by researchers at the University of Missouri focused on the effects of Facebook on mental health. They discovered that regular use could lead to symptoms of depression if the site triggered feelings of envy in the user.

Professor Margaret Duffy, a co-author of the research, said about the findings, “If it is used as a way to size up one’s own accomplishments against others, it can have a negative effect.”

Other studies have revealed that most people tend to edit photos and only show the ones that make their lives seem more attractive to others.

It is this constant measuring of ourselves against others that causes unimaginable amounts of grief. I see it on an almost-daily basis. Decent people with much to offer feeling unworthy of happiness because they feel inferior to others. They walk into my office with what appears to be the weight of the world on their shoulders.

I have found much of this weight stems from not feeling as “good, smart, pretty, wealthy, or funny” as others.

If you are now wondering whether maybe your happiness has taken a hit from social media use, here are 5 signs it has:

1.  You Need Positive Feedback to Feel Good

Let’s face it, we all love feeling appreciated. It feels good to get that positive feedback when you post a photo or event from your life. But if you find you only have good days on the days you are getting that positive feedback online, you may be depending on social media too much.

2.  You’re an Instant Gratification Addict

We have become a society of people who seek out instant gratification. While it’s okay to want instant oats and instant movie streaming, having a need to instantly feel worthy and good through social media is very harmful.

If the promise of instant gratification is driving your desire to post or share bits of your life, you may have become too dependent.

3.  You’re Reliving the Popularity Contests All Over Again

I find many of my adult clients care just as much about how many Facebook friends and likes they get as my teenage clients do. It’s as if the adults are reliving the high school popularity contests all over again. At the end of the day, are all of those Facebook friends reallyyour friend?

True happiness is having authentic connections with the loved ones in your life. If you’re paying too much attention to how many online friends you have and not enough on whether or not your face-to-face relationships are healthy, you may have a problem.

The next time you find yourself on your social media sites feeling jealous, envious, or somehow less than the people on those pages, remember that people tend to present very biased accounts of their lives. They, like you, want to measure up to the rest of the world.

Know that every human being is essentially struggling to feel worthy of being alive. It’s something we all seem to have in common. Instead of trying to be better than each other, let’s all instead try to have more compassion for each other.

If you or someone you know is having a hard time with self-worth issues and you’d like to speak to someone, please reach out to me. I’d love to discuss how I may be able to help.

Filed Under: General

4 Ways Play Therapy Can Improve Your Child’s Life

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Children have great imaginations, and they use it in every aspect of their lives. Play is a huge part of children’s lives and they create imaginary scenarios with their toys all the time. If something is going on in a child’s life, one of the best ways to discover their true emotions is by watching them play.

Play therapy is a psychotherapeutic treatment, specially developed to help children between the ages of 3 to 12. A play therapist works with the child to explore and resolve their issues through the therapeutic use of play.

A safe space called a playroom is created. This allows the child to play with specially chosen toys, encourages them to express their feelings and helps them develop healthier behaviors. A a variety of techniques such as drama, storytelling, sandplay, painting, drawing and creative visualisation can be used.

Who can benefit from play therapy?

– Children who are constantly aggressive and willfully disobedient.
– Children who are ill or grieving
– Children who have depression, anxiety or attachment problems
– Children who are involved with fostering or adoption
– Children with conditions like autism and speech problems

Here are some ways play therapy helps children:

1. It helps them heal from past traumatic experiences- When children go through traumatic events, the negative experiences can create emotional and behavioral problems. Play therapy helps them make sense of the traumatic experience, by using their imagination to express themselves through toys. For example, a child who has witnessed domestic violence may make his toys fight each other. Play helps the child unpack emotions, understand the experience better and heal.

2. It enhances creative thoughts and ideas- During play, children use their imagination and creative skills to learn through play. During play therapy, children get to create different scenarios with different endings. This gives them a better understanding of what’s happening in their lives, and helps them cope.

3. It helps them deal with difficult emotions and situations- Play therapy involves activities that helps the therapist discover how the child deals with difficult emotions and situations and help the children address these difficulties. For example, a child may feel like they caused their parent’s divorce by being naughty. The therapist can help correct this wrong belief and help to eliminate feelings of guilt by encouraging positive thoughts.

4. It gives the child emotional support and helps them communicate their problems and concerns with others- In play therapy, children learn to work through difficult feelings and memories that they may not know how to put in words by expressing themselves symbolically with the use of toys. This helps the adults in their lives understand what children need in order to provide the right type of help and support.

Play therapy is quite beneficial to children, and kids who go through play therapy show great
improvement and display a higher level of confidence. Working through difficult feelings through play can be deeply restorative for children.

If you would like your child to see a play therapist, please contact me to book a session.

Filed Under: Teens/Children

Ways that Compassion Can Help You Support a Loved One Suffering from Addiction

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It can often be difficult knowing how to navigate a relationship that is tainted by addiction. Often, loved ones are told that helping an addict means creating codependency, and that the best thing to do is show some “tough love,” even if that means walking away.

But is this really true?

Is there a better way to relate to a friend or family member who is struggling with addiction? Is there a form of love besides “tough love” that can help us help our loved ones?

Recent research has found that loved ones can play an important role in an addict’s recovery. While loved ones can’t change their addicted friend or family member, there are things they can change about themselves that will benefit the relationship.

The most significant thing a person can do is to become more compassionate toward their loved one struggling with addiction. Compassion is key to recovery as it allows a person to love a friend or family member without condoning (enabling) their behavior.

Why Compassion is so Powerful in Recovery

When we offer a loved one genuine compassion, we voluntarily join them in their suffering and give them profound gifts that can be catalysts toward real healing and recovery.

Being compassionate means:

We See Them

Compassion allows us to really see our loved one and the suffering they are going through.

We Hear Them

All humans need to be heard, but those with substance abuse issues often feel they go unheard. Compassion allows us to talk less and listen more.

We Validate Them

To see and to hear are not enough, we must also let our loved ones know they have a right to express their pain, anger, sadness, or any other emotion they are feeling. Too often, friends and family members ignore or minimize their loved one’s suffering. Compassionate helps us validate the person.

We Comfort Them

Whether it’s physical, mental, or emotional pain, sufferers need to be comforted. Compassion guides us and helps us provide our loved ones with comfort through a loving touch, knowing glance, or a few kinds words.

It is also incredibly important to be compassionate toward yourself during your loved one’s recovery. Self-compassion asks that we treat ourselves kindly; that we see, hear, validate and show ourselves the same comfort we show our loved one. 

If you or a loved one is suffering with addiction and interested in exploring treatment, please contact me today. I would be happy to speak with you about how I may be able to help.

Filed Under: Addiction

Why People Misunderstand Anxiety

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Did you ever play the game called “telephone” growing up? One kid whispered a secret message into the ear of the kid next to him. That kid then whispered the “same” message into the ear of the kid next to her. On and on each kid would whisper the message around the circle until you came to the last kid, who would then announce the secret message aloud.

Often the final message sounded nothing like the original message. That’s because every person has their own way of hearing and sharing information. Sometimes it’s accurate – sometimes it’s not.

In this way, you could say that language is a necessary evil. Without it we would not be able to share ideas and information with each other. But when each person has their own language filters, information can become skewed.

Personal information and language filters can make discussing and understanding anxiety disorders difficult. While we all experience anxious moments from time to time, 18% of adults in the United States are actually affected by a form of anxiety disorder.

But how many times have you heard a friend or a coworker say something like, “I was totally having a panic attack yesterday when you didn’t show up!” They weren’t actually having a panic attack, they were merely concerned you were late.

When everyone assumes they have an issue with anxiety, they believe they have first-hand experience of the disorder and therefor know what it is. But using certain language that may or may not be accurate to convey a common feeling (ie – being nervous before a job interview) is not the same thing as truly knowing something.

Panic Disorder VS Social Anxiety

There are two main types of anxiety disorder and for this discussion, it’s important to make the distinction between each.

Panic Disorder

People who have been diagnosed with and suffer from panic disorder believe very strongly that the “panic attacks” they experience mean something is physically very wrong with them. For instance, many sufferers believe they are having a heart attack. Some may believe the dizziness and shortness of breath is a result of some serious and undiagnosed illness such as a brain tumor.

Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)

People with social anxiety disorder experience anxiety when faced with social situations. They do not believe their anxiety is related to an illness or disease, yet have little control over their fear of social interactions. Their anxiety becomes debilitating when the person feels they may be singled out, embarrassed or ridiculed.

People who suffer from social anxiety disorder will do anything to alleviate their fear. This means decreasing the amount of social interactions they have on a daily basis as much as possible. This disorder negatively impacts the person’s ability to emotionally connect with others, and holds them back in their career and academic life.

Because of language discrepancies, those who don’t have an anxiety disorder sometimes believe they do, while those that do may assume they don’t.

The main point to get across here is this:

It is normal to feel anxious, fearful and worried from time to time. But feeling anxiety on a daily basis, to the point where you are concerned for your physical health or are compromising your career and personal relationships is not normal.

Anxiety Disorders Are Treatable

No one should have to live with a debilitating anxiety disorder. The good news is, anxiety disorders are treatable. A therapist can help to uncover the root cause of the fear and provide tools and strategies to cope.

If you or a loved one is interested in exploring treatment, please contact me today. I would be happy to speak with you about how I may be able to help.

Filed Under: Anxiety