What Are You Teaching Your Brain?
In your brain, there’s this area called the amygdala. Understanding the amygdala is important when we talk about anxiety and OCD because this little cluster is your body’s alarm system.
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Setbacks in OCD Recovery
Has someone ever told you, “you’ll have to live with your OCD forever?” It’s one of my pet peeves. First of all, it’s not true. Second of all, it doesn’t
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5 Reasons Why Taking Pics of Your Stove Is a Terrible Idea
As I was getting ready to leave for vacation, this article appeared in my feed: Why You Should Always Take a Photo of Your Stove Before You Go on Vacation.
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Imposter Syndrome: Men Feel It Too
The concept of imposter syndrome was originated by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance, PhD and Suzanne Imes, PhD in 1978. They called it “imposter phenomenon,” and their study focused on women
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Anxiety & OCD in Men
When most people think about anxiety, they probably inherently think women. When some men think about therapy, they picture mining their past and endlessly talking about “how they feel about
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3 Ways to Flex Your Distress Tolerance Muscle
Here’s a little story for you. I thought I was fairly distress tolerant … until we had to do rowing time trials at the end of a grueling workout. I
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What Is Distress Tolerance? (And Why It Matters.)
Recently I’ve become a bit obsessed with the idea of distress tolerance. It’s “An individual’s perceived or actual ability to withstand negative emotional or physical states” (Brown, Lejuez, Kahler, Strong
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Distraction: Love It or Leave It?
In my last article, I talked about Dr. Sally Winston’s notion of the “while.” Essentially, Dr. Winston suggests that we feel the feelings WHILE we take the action. You don’t
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Why You Want to Feel Anxious, and Do It Anyway
I can’t remember where I first heard Dr. Sally Winston talk about “the while,” but I do remember the light bulb going off. I was so excited because it made
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Urge Surfing: How to Ride Out an Urge
Coined by Dr. G Alan Marlatt, PhD, “urge surfing” is a term meant to help people ride out the desire or urge to do something that they really don’t want
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Mindfulness Isn’t What You Think It Is
One of my pet peeves (and I have many) is when people say, “mindfulness doesn’t work for me.” I always ask, “what did you expect it to do?” They invariably
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5 Tips for Handling Thanksgiving When You Have OCD
Here in the U.S., Thanksgiving is right around the corner. And then comes Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year’s … it can be a lot of pressure with expectations and togetherness.
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