Category: Blog Posts

If you are an adult, chances are you’ve been on at least one weight loss diet in your lifetime. Unfortunately, the first diet is often the beginning of a roller coaster of weight loss and weight gain. Yes, the weight may come off, but the problem is how to keep it off.

There are many unpleasant side effects from dieting off and on most of your adult life, such as:

There’s a long history of people recording their life events, thoughts and dreams in their diaries. These histories have proved valuable for future generations, but are there any benefits to the writer? Can writing in a journal improve a person’s health? There has been interesting research on this subject recently that I wanted to share with you.

 

Creative activities like journaling produce a natural “high”. Recent studies are showing that creative activities like journal writing can improve your immune function, raise your energy levels, build self-confidence and reduce stress. When you are creatively engaged in an activity, your body releases a chemical called adrenocorticotropic. This chemical is a neurotransmitter that fosters communication between the two halves of the brain and produces a natural “high” that makes you unconscious of the time passing.

Journaling uses your whole brain. While you’re engaging your left brain in the analytical elements of writing, your right brain is free to be creative. This removes mental blocks and uses your whole brain to better understand yourself, others, events, and problems.

Journaling strengthens the immune system. According to James Pennebaker, PhD, psychologist and researcher at University of Texas at Austin, journaling 20 minutes a day for four days about your deepest feelings concerning an emotional upheaval strengthens your immune cells called T-lymphocytes. In another study conducted, he and Keith Petrie, PhD. and others at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, noted that journaling reduced HIV-related stress and significantly improved the function of the CD4 lymphocytes.

Journaling relieves some of the symptoms of asthma and rheumatoid arthritis. The American Psychological Association reports that Joshua Smyth, Ph.D., of Syracuse University, studied the effect of journaling on the immune system and discovered that writing “helped the subjects to get better and keep from getting worse.” A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association confirms that there are definite health benefits to those who suffer from asthma and rheumatoid arthritis when the subjects of the study wrote in their journals.

Researchers agree that there is much to be learned about why journaling helps. They also agree that success depends on the way people use journaling to not only vent but to interpret and learn how to work through the feelings expressed. If you’d like to learn how to get the most benefit from journaling, especially if you’re coping with a difficult situation, you can schedule a 1-1 private online appointment with me on my Contact page.

Every night at about 10:30 the fighting begins until the couple gets so tired they just fall asleep. This married couple works side-by-side running their successful business, but by the end of the workday, Joan frequently wants to stop off at a bar for a drink to “unwind”. Jack, in a separate car goes home, relieves the babysitter, and starts dinner. When his wife gets home, she’s relaxed and cheerful, the alcohol having taken the edge off of the day’s stress. She has two more glasses of wine at dinner. As the evening progresses, Jack busies himself with settling the children down for the evening. He doesn’t mind doing most of the domestic chores because he understands that Joan doesn’t have as much physical stamina as he.

When does relaxing with a drink turn into a problem such as this?

Elise and Aaron have been in a happy marriage for more than ten years. During that time, each has built a successful, professional practice. However, unexpected problems began when they moved into the same office suite. Because they’re seeing each other every day at work and at home, conflicts are happening more often. The tools they used in the past to resolve problems aren’t working anymore.

It saddens me to hear so many news reports of young people who cause tragedies to themselves and other families through acts of violence. Youths with out-of-control emotions are evident in the rising incidents of school violence, bullying and teen suicide just to name a few of the problems facing children today.

We can’t expect children to know how they’re supposed to react to situations inherently. Starting back as far as the 1980’s researchers have been studying whether “emotional intelligence” over “academic intelligence” is a greater indicator of how well a child succeeds in life. Evidence is pointing to the truthfulness that emotions outweigh academics. In fact, Maurice Elias, a psychology professor at Rutgers University and director of the Rutgers Social-Emotional Learning Lab calls emotional learning “the missing piece in American education.”

1) feeling your feelings, 2) interpreting your feelings correctly, and 3) act upon the feeling information. Children need guidance in order to master these steps.

You ate too much junk food while watching TV last night. You were late picking your daughter up from gymnastics. You hit the delete button when you meant to save the document you’ve just spent hours on… Everybody makes mistakes every day of their lives. Some can turn out well; others turn out badly. The important thing is how you handle them when they happen.

This exercise will remind you that you are not defined by your mistakes. It will boost your confidence to meet your mistakes head-on, do what you can to fix them, or accept them and learn to laugh at yourself. See if it doesn’t give you a more positive frame of mind the next time you make a mistake.