Coping Skills

Question:  I’m in my mid-20s and have a decent job. I’m able to pay all of my bills on time, and I try to save what I can for the future. But there are some bigger financial stressors that hang over my head, mostly my student loans and my car…

Q: I have a neighbor that I struggle to get along with—we’ll call her Heather. I met Heather when we first moved into our neighborhood a few months ago. She and her husband live across the street and came to say hi while my girlfriend and I were carrying boxes…

Imposter syndrome is a lingering feeling of uncertainty related to some part of our identity—the sense that we don’t belong. It can occur at work if we’re promoted, when relocating to a new community, or when meeting new people in our personal lives. But it can also happen to members…

The front door open for the last time that night, my friends standing on the front porch, arm in arm, waving goodbye, their silhouettes shimmering against the half-moon behind them. Just beyond, I see another set of friends (another couple) climb into their car, as the cabin light illuminates the…

Mental health advice on the Internet often boils down to a few general teachings about emotional regulation. We’re encouraged to learn coping skills and strategies for dealing with stress. We’re supposed to become more resilient in the face of adversity. We’re meant to manage our negative feelings in healthier ways….

Spending time alone can be a blissful way to recharge our batteries when we feel our social energy levels starting to dip low. We all need some alone time every now and then—but when being alone becomes our daily default mode, the benefits of solitude disappear. And then loneliness sets…

Waiting… how much of our lives do we spend waiting? Right now, I know people who are waiting to find out if: a lump is cancerous they are going to lose their baby she is going to lose her job he is going to get into graduate school her marriage…

The Russia-Ukraine conflict — one of the biggest news stories of the year thus far — continues on without an end in sight. As a result, some difficult changes are occurring here in the US, including the cost of living, our diplomatic relationships with other countries, and (most personally), our…

Your shoulders are hunched and your breathing is shallow, thumb propelling you through a dismal newsfeed with expert strokes. Each headline spells disaster for another city, species, or group of people, and we sink a little deeper into the tarpit known as doomscrolling. It’s a familiar scene: Whatever you name…

I’m stuck in four lanes of traffic for the next two miles. It’s late July in Texas, and not a single car is moving. It’s 93 degrees outside, plus 70% humidity to top things off. Sweating, frustrated,  and frankly quite angry, I lean into my car horn, uttering a few…

One foggy April morning in 1672, a woodsman stumbled upon a gruesome scene in the woods just outside the French village of Barfleur. The woodsman was already familiar with Madame Perrault’s forest cottage. Madame Perrault was an ailing, elderly woman, so the woodsman often stopped by with bread and soup…

We’ve all seen the articles about smartphone addiction and how being glued to an iPhone screen for hours a day can cause sleep deprivation, depression, and FOMO. But this blog is about a more analog phenomenon, one that dates back to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, the voice call. Terrifying. …